Daniel’s face drained of color as my mother’s silver bracelet gleamed on the fifty-foot lobby screens.
For a second, the sprawling marble lobby was dead silent.
Then Daniel lunged.
He didn’t go for me. He grabbed Vanessa, yanking a concealed pistol from his designer jacket and pressing the barrel to her temple.
“Back off!” Daniel screamed at the security team. “I own forty percent of this company! The board will back me!”
Vanessa sobbed, her arrogant facade shattering into pure terror. “Daniel, please! I doctored the ledgers! I did everything you asked!”
I didn’t flinch. Every breath sent daggers through my bruised ribs, but I stood taller. I tapped my gold founder’s badge against the scanner a second time.
“You own nothing,” I said coldly.
The lobby screens instantly shifted from the hidden camera footage to a live feed of Daniel’s Cayman Island bank accounts. The numbers were plummeting in real-time. Millions draining to zero.
“When your driver ran me off that cliff, he made one fatal mistake,” I said, wiping a streak of blood from my jaw. “He assumed I didn’t already know.”
Daniel’s eyes darted frantically. “Stop the transfer! I’ll kill you!” He aimed the gun directly at my chest.
“No, you won’t.”
A man in a crisp blue bellhop uniform stepped seamlessly out of the crowd of horrified guests. In one brutal, fluid motion, he twisted Daniel’s wrist, snapping it back until the gun clattered onto the floor.
Daniel screamed, collapsing to his knees. He stared up at the bellhop—the exact same hitman from the video.
“You!” Daniel gasped. “You took the contract!”
The hitman adjusted his cap and pinned Daniel to the marble with his boot. “She offered triple. Plus full dental.”
I stepped over my trembling cousin, looking at the stunned receptionist who had tried to help me earlier.
“Call the police,” I ordered, my voice ringing through the lobby. “Then get me a fresh pair of shoes. I have a resort to run.”