He Came Home Early and Found a Pet Collar Around His 6-Year-Old Son’s Neck. His New Wife Called It “Discipline”—Until Her Own Mother’s Phone Revealed What They Had Planned Before the Party Even Began. / Chapter 35 / 80

Chapter 35 - The Shadow at the Mausoleum

The world seemed to spin beneath Daniel's boots. "You're lying. Emily's father died twenty years ago in a private jet crash outside Zurich."

"A convenient fairy tale Emily paid European tabloids three million dollars to manufacture," Victor Sterling said smoothly, stepping closer. The guards raised their carbines, but Victor lifted a single gloved finger, stopping them. "Emily was brilliant. A prodigy in bio-encryption and algorithmic banking. But she grew soft. She believed our wealth was 'stained with blood.' She wanted to dissolve the Trust, redistribute our private holdings to public charities."

Victor's face hardened, the veneer of aristocratic charm vanishing into pure venom. "She stole the private cryptographic master key—the biometric algorithm that controls every offshore account, every private security satellite, every shadow ledger from London to Singapore. She coded it to Mason’s unique DNA markers, and then she had it surgically implanted beneath his collarbone before she staged her own final disappearance."

Daniel felt a nausea rising in his throat. "And Vanessa? Diane? The collar? What were they to you?"

"Disgusting, greedy bottom-feeders," Victor spat with utter disdain. "Diane Vance owed forty million to our subsidiary lending firms after her husband died. I offered to clear her debt and give her a five-percent stake in the Trust if she placed Vanessa in your home, seduced you, and retrieved the boy's biometric sample under the guise of an 'accidental' medical checkup."

Victor sighed, shaking his head. "Unfortunately, Vanessa was an unhinged sadist. Putting a dog collar on my grandson? Locking him in a shed? She let her petty, insecure jealousy cloud the mission. She wanted to humiliate the boy because he was Emily’s. Julian was sent in to clean up her mess and retrieve the drive by force. But now, Daniel... the game is over."

"He is my son," Daniel snarled, his grip tightening on the pistol. "He doesn't belong to your sick empire. He will never give you that key."

"He doesn't have a choice," Victor murmured softly. "The drive requires two things to unlock: his biometric signature, and his heart rate elevated above one hundred and forty beats per minute under clinical extraction. He doesn't need to survive the extraction, Daniel. Only the tissue does."

Before Daniel could pull the trigger, the piercing, frantic blare of a car horn echoed from the chapel woods behind him.

*Mason.*

Daniel's head whipped around. Through the trees, he saw two men in black balaclavas smashing the rear passenger window of the armored SUV with titanium crowbars.