A housekeeper’s three-year-old child climbed into a billionaire’s bed at midnight, unwittingly exposing a three-year poison plot by his own family.

Vincent didn't rush down the hallway. He didn't scream or fire a warning shot.

He pushed the heavy oak bedroom door open with his foot. The door swung inward without a sound on its freshly oiled hinges.

Vincent stepped out into the grand corridor, his leather-soled feet making no sound on the runner rug as he closed the distance between himself and his cousin. He stopped ten feet behind Marcus, raising the SIG Sauer until the front sight post was centered precisely between Marcus’s shoulder blades.

"Looking for something, Marcus?" Vincent asked.

His voice wasn't loud. It was a low, gravelly rasp that cut through the silence of the corridor like a steel blade slicing through silk.

Marcus froze.

His fingers remained hovering over the illuminated blue screen of the security console. The hardware bypass key glinted in the faint LED light.

Slowly, very slowly, Marcus raised his hands into the air, keeping his palms open and visible. He turned around on his heels, leaning his back against the wall, looking down the dark corridor at his cousin holding a gun to his heart.

Marcus didn't look panicked. His handsome, forty-year-old face—usually warm, outgoing, and charismatic—wore a cold, tired, cynical expression that Vincent had never seen before.

"You were supposed to be asleep, Vince," Marcus said softly, his voice devoid of its usual respectful warmth. "The kid was supposed to be in her room."

Vincent’s pale gray eyes didn't flinch. "What have you been putting in my coffee, Marcus?"

Marcus let out a short, dry laugh—a bitter, humorless sound that echoed off the high mahogany panels of the corridor.

"Nothing lethal, Vince," Marcus answered, taking a half-inch breath as he gestured vaguely toward the kitchen wing. "Just a low-grade synthetic neurological disruptor. Something that prevents REM sleep cycles without showing up on standard blood panels. Just enough to keep your brain firing on broken cylinders. Just enough to make you look paranoid, unstable, and unfit to run the family to the commission."

Vincent’s jaw tightened, the muscle flexed so hard it looked like stone. "Three years."

"Three years," Marcus confirmed coldly. "Ever since Julian disappeared. You were getting too careful, Vince. You were pulling the family out of the lucrative logistics channels. You were turning us into a law firm. I needed you weak so the captains would start looking to me for leadership."

"Julian," Vincent said, his raspy voice dropping into a register that made the air in the hallway turn to ice. "Where is my brother, Marcus?"