The CEO laughed when his mistress punched his pregnant wife, completely unaware her District Attorney father was stepping off the elevator.

In the high-security subterranean wing of the Metropolitan Detention Center, sunlight did not exist.

Grant Whitmore sat at a small welded table in a concrete interrogation room, wearing an orange jumpsuit stamped with federal inmate numbers. His hair was greasy, his eyes bloodshot and sunken. The arrogant CEO who had once commanded boards of directors looked like a hollow shell of a man.

The heavy steel door unlocked with a loud, mechanical clunk.

Patrick Vance walked in alone.

He carried no files, no briefcase, and no recording equipment. He took the chair opposite Grant and sat down slowly, fixing the younger man with a gaze that had broken seasoned mob capos.

Grant swallowed hard, trying to summon an ounce of his former bravado. "Have you come to gloat, Patrick? Is that what this is? To watch me suffer?"

"I don't gloat over diseased animals, Grant," Patrick said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. "I simply ensure they are put in cages where they can no longer infect the healthy."

Grant leaned across the table, his chains clinking against the steel. "It was a setup. Brooke made all of that up! She was obsessed with me! She contacted that hitman, not me!"

"The digital signature on the fifty-thousand-dollar cryptocurrency transfer originated from the private terminal inside your personal office bathroom," Patrick said flatly. "Your biometric thumbprint authorized the payment. Don't waste my time with lies. Your trial will last less than three days. You will be convicted of every count, and you will die inside a federal penitentiary in Terre Haute."

A sob tore out of Grant’s throat. He buried his face in his cuffed hands, his shoulders shaking violently. "Please, Patrick. I was drowning. The company... the Keatings were squeezing me. Arthur Finch was threatening an audit. If Avery left me and took her trust funds, I was facing total bankruptcy! I panicked! I just... I needed a way out!"

"By murdering your wife? By killing your unborn child?"

Grant looked up, his face twisted in desperate agony. "I can give you names! I can give you the real players behind the shipping routes! Whitmore Logistics was just a front for an international syndicate—the Rhine Syndicate! They forced me to move their containers through the northern docks!"

Patrick did not look surprised. He leaned forward slightly, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "I know about the Rhine Syndicate, Grant."

Grant blinked, stunned. "You... you know?"

"Did you really believe you were clever enough to hide an offshore shipping funnel from the District Attorney’s office for three years?" Patrick murmured. "We let you run, Grant. We let you think you were a financial genius, because every transaction you made led us deeper into the cartel’s corporate network. But when you laid a hand on my daughter, the operation ended."

Grant’s breath caught in his throat. A look of sheer, unadulterated terror spread across his features.

"You... you used me as bait?" Grant whispered.

"No," Patrick replied, standing up and smoothing the front of his suit jacket. "You were simply the idiot who thought he could play with monsters without getting devoured. The Rhine Syndicate knows you were arrested. They know federal marshals seized your encrypted satellite phone. Do you think they believe you’re going to stay quiet in here?"

Grant’s face turned an ashen shade of grey. The realization washed over him like a suffocating wave: the greatest danger to his life was no longer the criminal justice system.

"Patrick... Patrick, you have to put me in witness protection!" Grant pleaded, lunging forward until the chain bolted to the floor snapped tight, jerking him back. "They'll kill me in here! They have people inside the bureau! Patrick!"

Patrick Vance walked to the door, knocked twice for the guard, and paused before stepping into the corridor.