A ONE-YEAR-OLD GIRL RAN SCREAMING AS HER STEPMOTHER CHASED HER WITH A BASEBALL BAT! Her mother arrived just seconds before disaster struck. But when the little girl opened her tiny fist, the USB inside made her father turn pale—and her stepmother tremble in terror!

Harrison woke to the taste of copper and cold saltwater.

He was bound to a heavy iron chair in the center of a cavernous, subterranean warehouse. The damp air smelled of mold, sea salt, and high-octane aviation fuel. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, buzzing like trapped hornets.

Across from him sat Elena.

His stepmother was no longer wearing her expensive designer dresses or manicured façade. Her makeup was smeared, her hair matted with grime, and her wrists bore the purple bruises from the handcuffs she had somehow escaped. She was dressed in dark tactical fatigues, a nine-millimeter strapped to her thigh.

Standing behind her were six men armed with submachine guns, their faces hidden behind ballistic masks.

"Good morning, darling," Elena purred, stepping forward, dragging a wooden chair across the concrete until it sat inches from Harrison’s face. She sat down, crossing her legs, resting her chin in her hands. "You took a terrible beating on that bridge. The police think you fell into the river. They’re dredging the channel for your corpse as we speak."

Harrison spat a mouthful of blood onto the concrete between her boots. He looked up at her through swollen, blackened eyes, his lips pulling back in a defiant sneer.

"You’re sloppy, Elena," Harrison rasped. "Clara and Lily are gone. Jonathan’s network has them. You have nothing."

Elena’s expression hardened, the mock sweetness vanishing in an instant. She stood up and delivered a vicious backhand across Harrison’s face that rattled his teeth.

"Don't speak that old ghost's name to me!" Elena hissed, leaning in so close Harrison could smell the stale mints on her breath. "Clara doesn't have the decryption cipher. The USB Lily stole from my safe is locked with a biometric deadbolt. It requires the physical retinal scan of a living Sterling bloodline."

Elena reached out, grabbing Harrison’s chin with steel-tipped fingernails, forcing his eyelid open.

"And you, my dear husband... are going to unlock the vault for us. All three hundred billion dollars of offshore syndicate holdings. And once the transfer is complete, I’m going to personally hunt down Clara, peel your precious little bastard from her arms, and finish what I started with that baseball bat."

Harrison didn't look away. Instead, he began to laugh—a low, broken chuckle that made Elena’s brow furrow with unease.

"What’s so funny, Harrison?" she demanded.

"You really didn't look closely at Lily's medical panel, did you, Elena?" Harrison whispered, his eyes flashing with lethal satisfaction. "The genetic sequence didn't come from me. It came from Clara’s maternal bloodline. My retina won't open that drive. It never could."

Elena’s face drained of color.