Chapter 4

The rest of the day passed in a blur of surreal calm.

I didn't sleep. I couldn't. Adrenaline and the vivid memory of my own murder were a potent combination. I sat by the window, watching the manicured lawns of the estate, a prisoner in my own home.

The staff moved around me like I was a ghost. They brought me food I didn't touch. They spoke to me in hushed, careful tones, their eyes darting away whenever I met their gaze. They were Richard's people now. They knew a shift in power had occurred, and they had chosen their side.

My phone was a dead weight on the table. In my first life, I had spent these hours frantically calling my mother' s old friends, her lawyers, her business partners, begging for help. Every call went to voicemail. Every plea was met with silence. Richard had spent years isolating me, cutting off my mother' s network of loyalists, replacing them with his own.

This time, I made no calls. My message was already sent, not to friends, but to enemies of my enemy. The FBI. The SEC. The press. My new, unwitting allies.

I kept a news channel on low volume on my laptop. I scrolled through financial news sites, political blogs, anything that might give me a sign that the bomb had landed.

Nothing. The silence was deafening.

Doubt began to creep in. What if it didn't work? What if Richard's influence was so great he could quash it before it ever saw the light of day? What if I had just sacrificed the family name for nothing?

The fear of repeating the past was a physical weight in my chest. I remembered the helplessness, the utter despair of being cast out with nothing.

No. I pushed the thought away. My mother was brilliant. The dossier was her masterpiece of destruction. It was too big, too detailed, sent to too many places at once to be contained.

It was a time bomb. And the timer was still ticking.

I had to be patient. I had to watch.

As evening fell, the house began to buzz with pre-wedding preparations. Florists arrived. Caterers set up tables on the lawn. The air filled with the scent of lilies and the sound of laughter from downstairs, where Brielle was entertaining her friends.

They were celebrating their victory.

I closed my laptop and stood up. I walked to my closet and chose a simple, elegant black dress. If I was going to watch my world burn, I was going to do it in style.