When a celebrity stylist cut through a homeless woman's matted hair, a sharp metallic clink exposed a secret that was buried ten years ago.

The massive high-definition presentation screens flanking the Temple of Dendur flickered violently, cutting from the Ravenscroft Holdings promotional video to black.

Then, the documents appeared.

Page after page of encrypted wire transfers, offshore shell registries, and internal bank records illuminated the room in stark, blinding white light. At the top of every document, stamped in red ink, was Victor Vance’s private digital signature and authorization codes.

Before the crowd could even process the financial fraud, the museum’s surround-sound audio system crackled to life.

*"Marcus, you're an old fool..."*

Victor Vance’s own voice echoed from thirty speakers, booming across the glass ceiling, loud enough to be heard across Fifth Avenue.

*"Refuse me, and she burns with you."*

The sound of Marcus Ravenscroft’s defiance followed, and then the three deafening gunshots, recorded ten years ago, shattered the last shred of Vance’s fabricated innocence.

Chaos detonated across the ballroom.

Socialites shrieked and scrambled toward the exits. The Deputy Mayor stepped backward violently, putting distance between himself and Vance as if the man were carrying the plague. Reporters surged forward, camera flashes blinding the stage, shouting questions over the din.

"Turn it off!" Vance screamed, his voice breaking into a panicked shriek. "Turn it off!"

He looked wildly around the room, realizing in a single, devastating moment that the empire he had spent thirty years building out of blood and ash had evaporated into nothingness. The police commanders he owned weren't coming; the FBI emblem was already flashing on the museum’s security monitors, announcing that federal agents had breached the perimeter doors.

He was finished.

Madness flashed in Vance’s eyes. Trapped like a rabid dog, he reached inside his tuxedo jacket and whipped out a snub-nosed .38 revolver.

"If I burn," Vance snarled, leveling the barrel straight at Wren’s chest, "you burn with me, Ravenscroft!"

Adrian didn't hesitate. Ignoring the blinding agony in his torn ribs, he threw his entire body across the space between them, driving his shoulder into Wren to knock her out of the line of fire.

*BANG.*

The gunshot cracked like thunder inside the enclosed stone hall.

The bullet struck Adrian’s left shoulder, spinning him around, blood spraying across the midnight-blue silk of Wren’s gown as they crashed to the stone floor together.

"Adrian!" Wren cried, catching his head in her arms.

Vance stood above them, his hand shaking, his face contorted in a psychotic grimace, pulling the hammer back for a second shot. "Die, both of you—"

He never fired.

From the floor, Wren didn't scream or cower. Her hand swept down to her ankle, where she had slipped the obsidian handle of Adrian’s cane when he tackled her. With the terrifying, lightning-fast instinct of someone who had survived half a decade in Manhattan’s deadliest alleys, she whipped the heavy lead-weighted handle upward with all the force in her body.

*CRACK.*

The obsidian struck Vance directly across the jaw.

Bone shattered instantly. Vance’s head snapped sideways, the revolver flying from his limp fingers and splashing into the reflecting pool. He collapsed face-first onto the marble steps of the Egyptian temple, unconscious, a pool of blood widening beneath his ruined jaw.

Two dozen federal agents in tactical gear swarmed through the side doors, submachine guns raised, their boots thundering across the stone floor.

"FBI! Nobody move! Drop to your knees!"

Wren ignored them completely. She sat on the cold floor, cradling Adrian Kane’s head in her lap, her hands pressed hard against the bleeding wound on his shoulder.

"Adrian," she whispered, her voice shaking with an emotion she had never allowed herself to feel. "Stay with me. Look at me. Don't you dare close your eyes."

Adrian looked up through the haze of pain, seeing her golden hair haloed by the museum’s spotlights, the blue eyes clear, bright, and fiercely alive.