Eleonora wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand. She kept a tight grip on Justice's wrist and pulled her away from the medical suite.

They walked deeper into the estate. The sterile smell of the hospital faded, replaced by the heavy scent of old paper and cedarwood.

Eleonora stopped in front of a heavy oak door. She pushed it open and pulled Justice inside.

It was a massive private study. Bookshelves stretched up to the vaulted ceiling. Eleonora turned the deadbolt, the metal lock sliding into place with a heavy thud. The silence in the room was absolute.

Eleonora walked behind a massive mahogany desk. She reached up and pulled a framed oil painting away from the wall. Behind it was a steel wall safe.

She spun the dial. The mechanical clicks echoed in the quiet room. She pulled the heavy steel door open and reached inside.

Her hands trembled as she pulled out a worn, velvet-wrapped wooden box.

Eleonora placed the box on the desk. She peeled back the velvet and pushed the box toward Justice.

Justice looked down. Inside the box rested a rolled piece of yellowed parchment.

"This marriage is not a business deal," Eleonora said. Her voice was thick with emotion. "Derek Barnes thinks he sold you. He knows nothing."

Eleonora took a deep breath. "Twenty years ago, your mother, Seraphina, and I made a blood pact."

Justice's chest tightened. The air in her lungs felt suddenly cold. Her mother's name. This was the only reason she had allowed Derek to drag her back to New York.

Eleonora unrolled the parchment. The paper was brittle, covered in strange, jagged symbols and a paragraph of English text.

"The prophecy," Eleonora whispered, tracing the English words. "It states that when the Aguirre bloodline faces extinction, only the blood of Seraphina can bring salvation."

Justice's eyes dropped to the jagged symbols bordering the text.

Her heart skipped a beat.

The English text was completely authentic, a binding relic of her mother's desperate past. But Justice's attention drifted to the margins. Scrawled faintly along the edge, disguised as decorative bordering, was a highly specific, chaotic cipher. It was the exact cipher her deadbeat master, Corwin Shepherd, used to leave her grocery lists in the mountains.

Justice's eyes darted across the tiny symbols, her brain automatically translating the code.

Dear disciple. This is the inescapable fate your mother carved out for you. The prophecy is real, and the blood pact is binding. Embrace your destiny. P. S. Master is out of money for video games. Since you're marrying a billionaire, wire me half your dowry. Good luck.

Justice's teeth ground together. A hot spike of irritation shot through her stomach. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides, the knuckles popping in the quiet room. She felt a profound sense of solemn destiny regarding her mother, immediately undercut by the overwhelming urge to fly back to the mountains and burn Corwin's cabin to the ground.

But her face remained a mask of cold awe. She didn't let a single muscle in her face twitch.

Eleonora reached across the desk and grabbed Justice's hands.

"Please," Eleonora begged, her voice breaking. "Do not hate this family because of your father's greed. If you stay by Auguste's side, the entire Aguirre empire will protect you."

Justice forced her breathing to slow down. The sheer weight of the genuine prophecy anchored her. If Corwin had tracked down this sacred document just to leave a pathetic ransom note on it, it meant her mother's legacy in this estate was exactly where she needed to be.

Justice looked up. She met Eleonora's desperate eyes and gave a slow, firm nod.

"I will stay," Justice said. Her voice was quiet, steady. "I am his fiancée."

Eleonora let out a choked sob. She pulled Justice across the desk into a tight, crushing hug.

Ten minutes later, Eleonora led Justice to the guest wing. She opened the door to a sprawling, luxurious suite and left Justice to rest.

Justice stepped inside. She ignored the silk sheets and the crystal chandelier. Her eyes landed on the faded, canvas backpack that had been placed neatly at the foot of the four-poster bed—the Aguirre security team was nothing if not efficient.

She crossed the room, dropped onto the edge of the velvet sofa, and pulled the backpack toward her. She unzipped the hidden bottom compartment and pulled out a battered, matte-black laptop.

Justice sat on the edge of the velvet sofa. She ran her thumb over the cold metal casing of the laptop. Her eyes narrowed, sharp and dangerous.

Justice walked to the heavy bedroom door and twisted the brass lock. It clicked shut. She moved to the windows and yanked the thick blackout curtains closed, plunging the room into darkness.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, resting the laptop on her knees. She pressed the power button.

The screen flared to life, casting a harsh blue glow across her face. It didn't load a standard operating system. It booted straight into a black terminal window.

Justice's fingers hit the keyboard. They moved in a blur, the keys clacking in rapid-fire bursts. She typed a sixty-four-character alphanumeric string-a self-destructing password.

Three seconds later, the screen flashed white.

Before entering the global network, she ran a localized script. Her fingers danced across the keys, bypassing the Barnes family's pathetic firewall in less than four seconds. She pulled up the confidential financial reports, estate deeds, and the Barnes family trust. A cold smirk touched her lips as she rapidly cross-referenced the data. Emery Covington. Zero Barnes blood. Zero equity. A mere squatter living on Meredith's allowance. Justice downloaded the unredacted files into a hidden partition; leverage was always useful.

She bypassed six layers of global proxies and logged into the highest-tier bounty board on the Dark Web under the alias 'L'.

The moment her status turned green, the private message icon in the top right corner began flashing violently. The notification ping echoed sharply in the silent room.

Justice clicked the top pinned bounty. The sender's IP was buried under heavy encryption.

The title read: Urgent: Seeking 'Savior' for neurological restoration.

Justice scrolled down. The bounty was set at fifty million US dollars. Attached to the file was a high-resolution scan of a patient's brainwaves.

Justice stared at the jagged lines of the EEG scan. The corner of her mouth twitched upward into a cold sneer.

It was the exact same brainwave pattern she had just seen on the monitor downstairs. It was Auguste Aguirre's chart.

Justice didn't hesitate. She moved her cursor to the rejection button and clicked it.

A text box popped up asking for a reason. Justice typed quickly: Not interested in waking people who are pretending to sleep.

She hit send. She immediately ran a wipe protocol, erasing her digital footprint, and slammed the laptop shut. She shoved it back into the hidden compartment of her bag.

Three floors down, buried deep beneath the estate in a windowless, climate-controlled server room, Silas Croft sat staring at a wall of monitors.

Silas wore a headset. He was Auguste's absolute shadow, the head of the Aguirre intelligence network.

Suddenly, a sharp burst of static crackled in his left earpiece.

Silas stiffened. He grabbed a pen and a legal pad. The static came again-short and long bursts of electrical interference.

It was a direct feed from a pressure sensor hidden beneath the mattress in the medical suite. Auguste was tapping his finger against the mattress. Morse code.

Silas translated the taps as they came in.

Investigate Justice Watkins. Highest clearance.

Silas frowned. His stomach churned with confusion. Why was the boss suddenly targeting the uneducated girl Derek Barnes just dropped off?

But Silas didn't question orders. He spun his chair to the main terminal. He typed in his biometric passcode and accessed the global intelligence database.

He typed in Justice's name, her Social Security Number, and the address in the Rust Belt. He hit enter.

The progress bar filled instantly. Justice's file popped up on the screen.

Silas scrolled through it. His frown deepened.

The file was pristine, but in a way that defied all modern logic. She supposedly lived in the same Rust Belt town for the last ten years, yet the municipal database showed absolutely nothing. No utility bills registered in her or her guardian's name. No library records. No medical history, not even a single prescribed aspirin. She existed purely as a name in a local public school's attendance ledger-a complete ghost in the system.

A cold sweat broke out on the back of Silas's neck. His instincts screamed that this file was a manufactured ghost. A perfect cover story.

Silas highlighted the entire file. He encrypted it into a secure packet and added a red-flag note: Target profile artificially sanitized.

He routed the packet to an offline server that only Auguste could access once he officially "woke up."

Silas pressed a button on his console, sending a single, microscopic vibration back to the mattress sensor.

In the medical suite, Auguste felt the faint buzz against his spine. The muscles in his jaw relaxed slightly. The hunt had begun.

Morning sunlight poured through the massive glass dome of the estate's sunroom, casting geometric shadows across the lace tablecloth.

Justice sat at the round table. She wore a simple white knit sweater. She held a silver fork, slowly eating a piece of melon.

Outside the glass walls, three black, bulletproof Maybachs rolled to a stop on the edge of the lawn. Four men in dark, tailored suits stepped out, clutching thick leather briefcases.

The butler escorted the men into the sunroom. They stopped a respectful distance from Eleonora, who sat opposite Justice.

The lead lawyer opened his briefcase. He pulled out a thick stack of documents bound in a blue cover. He handed it to Eleonora with both hands.

Eleonora didn't even glance at the cover. She slid the heavy stack across the table. It stopped right next to Justice's teacup.

Justice put her fork down. She looked at the bold black letters printed on the top page: Aguirre Holdings Group.

"I am transferring five percent of the group's non-voting shares to your name," Eleonora said, her voice smooth and calm.

The lawyers behind her stiffened. One of them sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

Justice's eyes flicked to the lawyers, then back to the paper. Five percent. That was billions of dollars. Derek Barnes would have sold his own organs for a fraction of a percent.

"This was the dowry promised to your mother in the original pact," Eleonora explained, her eyes softening as she looked at Justice. "It belongs to you."

Justice felt the warmth in Eleonora's gaze. It was genuine.

Justice didn't feign humility. She didn't gasp or shake her head. She reached out, took the heavy gold fountain pen the lawyer offered, and signed her name on the dotted line.

The lead lawyer stared at her. His eyes widened slightly at her absolute lack of hesitation. She signed away billions as if she were signing a receipt for coffee.

Eleonora smiled. The deep wrinkles around her eyes crinkled. She liked this girl's spine.

The lawyers packed up the signed documents, bowed deeply, and left the sunroom.

Eleonora reached across the table and covered Justice's hand with hers.

"Go see him, Justice," Eleonora pleaded softly. "Sit with him. Talk to him. I know your presence will bring him back to us."

Justice looked at the old woman. An image of Auguste's perfectly still, arrogant face flashed in her mind.

Justice's lips curved into a sharp, terrifying smile.

"I will take very good care of him," Justice promised.

Justice stood up. She left the sunroom and walked down the long, carpeted hallways toward the medical suite.

When she reached the heavy steel door, the two armed guards stepped aside immediately. Eleonora had given her absolute clearance.

Justice stepped inside. The door hissed shut behind her, sealing the room.

She didn't walk to the bed. She walked straight to the electronic control panel on the wall.

Her fingers danced across the keypad. She input a manual override sequence. The heavy deadbolts inside the door slammed into place with a loud, metallic clack. The room was locked from the inside.

Justice turned around. She walked to the corner of the ceiling. She reached up and yanked the power cord out of the security camera. The red recording light died.

Three floors below, in the subterranean server room, a massive monitor flashed crimson. CRITICAL ERROR: MEDICAL SUITE FEED LOST. DOOR LOCK OVERRIDE. Silas bolted upright, his heart slamming against his ribs. He slammed his hand onto the intercom button, grabbing his sidearm with the other, ready to dispatch the tactical team. Before he could shout the order, a sharp, double-burst of static crackled in his earpiece. It was the mattress sensor. Stand down. Silas froze, his hand hovering over the panic button. He stared at the red error screen, a drop of sweat rolling down his temple. The boss was intentionally trapping himself in a blind room with the new girl.

Justice dusted off her hands. She turned and walked slowly toward the bed.

Auguste lay perfectly still. But his enhanced hearing had picked up the sound of the deadbolts locking and the cord snapping.

Under the sheets, Auguste's heart gave a violent, heavy thump against his ribs.