I had crawled through hell and finally made it back to our front step with a wrapped Christmas box in my hands, longing for nothing more than my wife’s touch. But the instant she saw me standing on the porch, her greeting froze the blood in my veins...

The morning after the gala, the final hammer dropped.

At 6:00 AM, a fleet of black SUVs pulled up to the Vance Global headquarters. The FBI and SEC raided the building simultaneously. Armed agents carried out boxes of hard drives, servers, and financial ledgers.

I watched it all on the news from the comfort of a luxury penthouse I had rented downtown under my real name. My assets were legally mine again. The dead-man's switch had fully executed, and Silas had filed the final injunctions.

Julian’s phone rang. I had intercepted the signal. It was his lawyer.

"Julian, it’s over," the lawyer panicked. "The twenty million from Apex Vanguard was flagged as money laundering. The SEC traced the IP ownership back to Tartarus Holdings, which is legally owned by Marcus Thorne. And they found the forged signatures on the townhouse deed and the company transfer documents."

"Fix it!" Julian screamed into the phone, standing in his pajamas in the freezing townhouse.

"I can't fix federal fraud, Julian! They have arrest warrants for both of you. Turn yourselves in." The line went dead.

I switched the feed to the townhouse security cameras. Julian dropped his phone. Elena was weeping hysterically on the floor, surrounded by packed designer luggage she had nowhere to take.