For several interminable seconds, no one moved.

Rebecca crossed her arms.

“For two years, we’ve suspected that someone was laundering donated funds through medical supply procurement contracts.”

David nodded.

“Yet we couldn’t prove it.”

Rebecca pointed to Damian’s photograph.

“Until your niece duplicated those files.”

Marcus stared at the screen.

“Do you believe Damian Voss ordered Isabella to attack Khloé?”

Rebecca didn’t answer right away.

“We think Isabella believed she was acting on her own initiative.”

Marcus frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“She wasn’t the mastermind.”

Rebecca took a close look at a series of encrypted financial wire transfers.

“She was receiving monthly payments from shell companies tied to Voss International.”

David looked grim.

“They bought her.”

Rebecca nodded.

“They promised her influence.”

“A place by Marcus’s side.”

“Perhaps even marriage one day.”

Marcus’s expression hardened.

“So she was manipulated.”

Rebecca met his gaze.

“Manipulated.”

“Paid.”

“And completely disposable.”

Several floors above, Khloé stared out the hospital window at the city lights.

She couldn’t sleep.

Every time she closed her eyes, she felt Isabella’s shove all over again.

The sharp edge of the marble table.

The agonizing pain.

Then came a soft knock at the door.

Marcus walked in, carrying a small paper cup.

“Chamomile tea.”

Khloé managed a faint smile.

“You remembered.”

“I remember everything.”

He sat down beside her.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Finally, Marcus reached into his jacket.

“I’m sorry.”

Khloé looked puzzled.

He offered her a velvet jewelry box.

Inside lay the diamond wedding band she had quietly taken off weeks earlier, having grown increasingly exasperated by his relentless business trips and emotional distance.

“I found it in your dresser.”

Khloé cast her eyes downward.

“I didn’t want to leave you.”

“I know.”

Marcus’s voice cracked.

“You were waiting for me to notice.”

Tears welled in her eyes.

“I needed my husband.”

“Yet they kept sending your assistant instead.”

Marcus gently slid the ring back onto her finger.

“I can’t change the past few months.”

“However, I can change tomorrow.”

Before Khloé could reply, David hurried into the room.

His expression was unusually strained.

“Marcus.”

“What happened?”

David handed him a tablet.

The hospital surveillance cameras showed a man in a maintenance uniform entering the secured maternity ward.

No work order.

No identification.

His face was partially concealed beneath a cap.

Rebecca Collins’s voice came through the tablet’s speaker.

“We have confirmed that he is not a hospital employee.”

Marcus’s heart raced.

“Where is he right now?”

David looked toward the corridor.

“Less than fifty feet from Khloé’s room.”

At that very moment—

The lights suddenly went out in the maternity ward.

The hallway was plunged into pitch darkness.

And somewhere outside Khloé’s door…

Someone quietly turned the doorknob.

The room went dark.

Khloé instinctively placed her hand over her stomach as all the monitors around her sounded a piercing alarm before switching to backup battery power. Outside, hurried footsteps echoed down the hallway.

Marcus was already on his feet, moving into action.

“Stay behind me,” he whispered.

David pulled a small flashlight from the emergency cabinet beside the door. A thin beam of white light pierced through the gloom.

The doorknob moved.

Slowly.

Once.

Then again.

Marcus exchanged a glance with David.

Neither man spoke.

The door opened just a few inches.

A shadow slipped inside.

Before the intruder could take another step, Marcus lunged forward.

Both men slammed into the wall with such force that a rolling cart tipped over. Metal trays clattered across the room, filling the space with a deafening racket.

The stranger fought back fiercely.

He didn’t attempt to escape.

He tried to reach Khloé.

David seized the man’s arm while Marcus pinned him against the wall.

“Security!” David yelled.

Within seconds, police officers burst into the room from both ends of the hall.

The intruder finally stopped resisting.

His face remained concealed beneath the maintenance cap.

An officer pulled it off.

Marcus frowned.

“I don’t know him.”

Rebecca Collins arrived moments later, breathless from running up the emergency stairwell.

She looked down at the man’s wrists.

“No hospital ID.”

“No registered fingerprints.”

She turned to one of the officers.

“Search him.”

The officers found no repair tools in the man’s tool pouch.

Instead, they recovered:

A pre-filled syringe.

A pair of latex gloves.

A burner phone.

And a counterfeit maintenance badge.

The syringe was immediately placed into an evidence container.

Dr. Caldwell examined the label.

His face went pale.

“This is not medication.”

Rebecca gripped his hand.

“What is it?”

“A concentrated potassium chloride solution.”

Marcus felt a cold chill run down his spine.

“What would that do?”

Dr. Caldwell answered quietly.

“Injected into a healthy patient…”

He hesitated.

“…it would trigger an instant cardiac arrest.”

A heavy silence descended upon the room.

Khloé stared at the syringe from her hospital bed, unable to speak.

The man hadn’t come to threaten her.

He had come to ensure she never left the hospital alive.

Rebecca stood before the intruder.

“Who sent you?”

No response.

She asked again.

Still nothing.

The man simply stared at the floor.

Rebecca offered a faint smile.

“You’ve been trained.”

David folded his arms.

“Professionals rarely work for free.”

Rebecca nodded.

“Trace the burner phone.”

An officer powered it on.

Only one number appeared in the call log.

No name.

Just an outgoing call placed twelve minutes earlier.

Rebecca immediately ordered a live trace.

The room remained silent.

Less than a minute later, the technician looked up.

“We have a location.”

“Where?”

He swallowed hard.

“The cellular signal leads to a luxury high-rise…”

His fingers paused on the keyboard.

“…registered to Voss International Holdings.”

Marcus turned slowly toward David.

Neither man needed to speak the name aloud.

Damian Voss had just made his first mistake.

For the first time, federal agents possessed evidence placing one of his operatives at the scene of an attempted murder.

Across town, Damian stood in his office, looking out at the skyline, when his private cell phone vibrated.

He answered calmly.

Instead of hearing his operative’s voice…