The ballroom of the Grand Imperial Hotel was a gilded cage, a cavernous space where the air hung heavy with the cloying scent of expensive lilies and the brittle, artificial laughter of the city’s elite.

They knew Richard would be panicked enough by the failed attack to try and destroy the evidence of his fraud.

At 2:00 AM, Clara and Alexander infiltrated the Majestic Sovereign Hotel. Clara didn't need to hack the security system; she knew every blind spot in the building from her time as a cleaner.

They bypassed the cameras and reached the 50th floor. The Sterling vault was a massive steel door requiring dual biometrics and a passcode.

"I have the bypass algorithms for the keypad," Alexander whispered, plugging a device into the wall panel. "But the biometric scanner requires Richard’s retinal print."

"No, it doesn't," Clara said, pulling a specialized UV flashlight from her bag. She shined it on the scanner. "Richard is paranoid. He has the system set to recognize Victoria’s fingerprint as a master override in case he is incapacitated. And Victoria always gets her manicures done at the hotel spa. I bribed the technician this afternoon."

Clara pulled a small strip of silicone from her pocket—a perfect mold of Victoria’s right index finger. She pressed it to the scanner.

The vault hissed open.

Inside, walls of safety deposit boxes gleamed in the dark. They found box 001. Alexander picked the lock in seconds.

Clara pulled out a brittle, yellowed document. It was the original transfer deed for the Majestic Sovereign Hotel, signed by her father. She pulled out a second document—a forensic handwriting analysis commissioned by Richard himself twenty years ago.

“Signature is confirmed to be a forgery. Do not proceed with standard filing,” the memo read.

Richard had kept the proof of his own crime as blackmail material against his former partners.

"We have him," Clara whispered, tears of vindication pooling in her eyes. "He stole it. He stole everything."