My fiancée leaned over my hospital bed and whispered, “Die before Friday, Dominic. The money moves faster when you stop breathing.” She kissed my forehead, convinced I was trapped inside a coma, but I heard every poisonous word, and minutes later, the maid everyone treated like furniture discovered the truth that could get us both killed.

By eight o'clock that night, Dr. Vance had quietly slipped into the suite under the guise of an evening checkup. He had been my personal physician for fifteen years, a man whose loyalty to my late father was absolute.

"Dominic, you are in no condition to be moving around," Vance warned in a hushed voice as he adjusted the heart monitor to project a simulated, erratic resting pulse onto the nurses' central station monitors. "Your left third rib is fractured, and your concussion was severe."

"I'll rest when Anthony and Veronica are in federal prison," I replied, sitting on the edge of the bed as Grace helped me button a simple dark flannel shirt she had smuggled in her cleaning cart. "Vance, what medication are they planning to use?"

Vance's expression darkened. "Veronica brought in an external specialist yesterday—a Dr. Julian Thorne. He modified your charting orders. He prescribed a heavy intravenous potassium chloride drip for Thursday night, disguised as an electrolyte balance solution. It will induce fatal cardiac arrest. The autopsy would show nothing more than heart failure resulting from traumatic crash injuries."

Grace gasped softly from the corner of the room. "That's murder."

"It's clean," I corrected her grimly. "That's how the family has handled problems for thirty years. But they forgot that I built that playbook."

I turned to Grace. "Grace, I need you to go to my penthouse on 5th Avenue tonight. In my private study, behind the portrait of my mother, there is a wall safe. The combination is 11-24-88."

Grace looked startled. "You want me to break into your penthouse?"

"Veronica is currently staying there, using it as her command center," I said. "She thinks I'm dying, so she's getting comfortable. Inside that safe is a secondary hard drive containing the encrypted audio logs from the penthouse security system. I installed it three years ago without Anthony's knowledge."

"If she catches me..." Grace began.

"You're the night cleaning maid," I said, stepping closer to her, ignoring the burning pain in my chest. "You have a keycard. You go in every Wednesday at 9:00 PM to clean the study. She won't question your presence because to her, you are invisible. Use that invisibility, Grace."

She looked down at her hands, then up at me. There was no hesitation in her eyes now—only a quiet, iron resolve.