The black Maybach tore through the congested streets of Manhattan.

The driver kept his eyes glued to the road, too terrified by the suffocating pressure radiating from the backseat to even breathe loudly.

Godfrey leaned his head against the leather headrest and squeezed his eyes shut. The freezing air of the Manhattan Family Court from five years ago seemed to fill the car, chilling his blood.

He heard the judge's gavel slam down. He saw Alyse standing at the defendant's table, her spine perfectly straight. There was no guilt in her eyes. Not a single ounce of regret.

Her lawyer had projected the photos onto the screen-Alyse walking into a hotel with an unidentified man.

Godfrey remembered the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He remembered staring at her with bloodshot eyes, demanding to know why.

Alyse had looked at him with a calmness that made him want to rip the room apart. She told him she was sick of the fake, suffocating life of a billionaire's wife.

She had voluntarily given up hundreds of millions of dollars in alimony from the Hammond family, asking only for an immediate termination of the marriage. Her absolute ruthlessness had felt like a physical slap across his face.

The neon lights of the city flashed across Godfrey's rigid jawline, dragging him out of the nightmare and back into the speeding car.

His thumb unconsciously rubbed against his left cufflink. It was a habit he couldn't break. The silver cufflink was the last birthday gift Alyse had ever given him. He had never taken them off.

His phone vibrated again. It was Zane.

"She just paid the bill," Zane said, his words rushing out. "She's leaving."

Godfrey leaned forward. "Run the yellow," he ordered the driver.

The Maybach's engine roared, the sound mirroring the violent storm tearing through Godfrey's chest.

"Wait," Zane added, his voice dropping lower as he peered around the frosted glass. "I just saw her driver loading a garment bag into her SUV. It had the official crest of the Lee family's charity gala printed right on the front. And I overheard her tell the bodyguard to head straight to the Waldorf Astoria."

Godfrey's eyebrows snapped together.

The Waldorf Astoria was entirely booked tonight by the Lee family. It was the night of the matriarch Beatrice's annual charity gala.

His stomach tightened. Alyse showing up in New York tonight, at that specific hotel, was not a coincidence.

The ruthless business instincts that made him a billionaire snapped awake.

"Keep eyes on her," Godfrey commanded. He tapped the glass partition. "Change route. Head straight to the Waldorf."

He hung up the phone and stared down at the screen. He opened the photo Zane had sent. He zoomed in on the little blonde girl's face.

He stared at the shape of her nose, the curve of her eyes, desperately searching for traces of the man named Guthrie. The venom of jealousy chewed away at his insides, burning a hole in his stomach.

A few blocks away, Alyse held Nora's hand as they walked out of the restaurant. The freezing wind whipped the hem of her coat. She wrapped Nora tightly in her arms.

A sleek, unmarked black SUV pulled up to the curb. The driver, a heavily built bodyguard, stepped out and opened the rear door.

Alyse lifted Nora into the car seat. Before she climbed in, she threw a glance over her shoulder toward the booth where Zane had been hiding. A faint look of mockery flashed in her eyes.

She slid into the car, and it merged seamlessly into the traffic.

Alyse pulled a heavily encrypted phone from her bag. Before opening the schematics, she quickly tapped out a message to Guthrie, attaching a live GPS tracking link. 'Godfrey's hound spotted me. Might get messy later. Keep an eye on my location and stay on standby,' she typed, hitting send before switching apps. The screen illuminated her face, displaying the detailed security schematics of the Lee family's gala.

Her index finger tapped rhythmically against the edge of the phone. She typed a rapid string of code, bypassing the firewall and temporarily blinding the security cameras in a specific sector of the hotel's underground garage.

Nora hugged her stuffed rabbit, looking around the dark car.

"Mommy, are we going to a big party?"

Alyse looked at her daughter's innocent eyes through the rearview mirror. Her voice was incredibly soft.

"No, sweetie. We aren't going to a party. We're going on a hunt."

At a busy intersection, the black Maybach and the SUV passed each other.

In that split second, through the tinted glass, Godfrey caught the faint outline of a familiar profile.

He whipped his head around, his heart slamming violently against his ribs. But a massive city bus pulled forward, completely blocking his line of sight.

His lungs burned. He pounded his fist against the door panel.

"Drive faster!" Godfrey barked.

He had to intercept her before she walked into that ballroom. He had to grab her by the shoulders and demand the truth.

The grand architecture of the Waldorf Astoria finally loomed in the night sky. The entrance was swarming with paparazzi and New York's elite.

The driver expertly navigated the Maybach into the VIP lane, bypassing the chaos and stopping smoothly at the side entrance.

Godfrey shoved the door open. The freezing wind hit his face, cooling the feverish heat in his brain, but the dark obsession in his eyes only grew stronger.

He adjusted his suit jacket. His jaw was locked tight as he walked toward the heavy, ornate doors. He was about to rip open a five-year-old scandal.

Inside the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria, the air was thick with the scent of expensive perfume and old money.

Crystal chandeliers cast a blinding, brilliant light over the crowd. A string quartet played a soft classical piece, perfectly masking the vicious undercurrents of the vanity fair.

Kendal stood in the center of the room, wearing a custom-made, starry-night gown. She was surrounded by a circle of Wall Street socialites, her smile flawless and practiced.

"To Kendal," an investment banker's wife said, raising her champagne flute with an overly sweet smile. "And to her upcoming marriage to the head of the Hammond family."

Kendal lowered her head, feigning shyness. She lifted her left hand just enough to let the light catch the massive pink diamond engagement ring on her ring finger.

Gasps of admiration rippled through the group.

Standing nearby, her mother Marlene lifted her chin. She soaked in the envy of the room, thrilled by the absolute power her daughter was about to secure.

Near the side entrance of the ballroom, Zane slipped through the heavy doors, panting heavily. His eyes darted frantically through the crowd.

He dodged a waiter carrying a tray of drinks and ducked behind a marble pillar. He pulled out his phone and sent a voice memo to Godfrey, keeping his voice to a harsh whisper.

"Her car is in the underground garage. The bodyguards just took the little girl up to a private suite."

Godfrey had just stepped through the side entrance when the audio message played against his ear.

His footsteps stopped instantly. The leather soles of his shoes screeched against the polished marble floor.

The little girl.

Those three words wrapped around Godfrey's throat like a vine covered in thorns, choking the air out of his lungs.

He leaned his back against the freezing wall. His brain ruthlessly calculated the timeline. Five years since the divorce. The kid was four or five. It was the ultimate, undeniable proof of her betrayal.

His hands began to shake uncontrollably. He thought the pain had gone numb years ago, but the agony tearing through his chest felt brand new.

Alex noticed his boss's pale face and stepped closer, his voice trembling. "Mr. Hammond... do you need to cancel the rest of the evening?"

Godfrey took a massive breath, forcing the blood back down from his head. When he opened his eyes, they were as cold and sharp as ice picks.

"No," he said, his voice completely hollow.

He straightened his spine and pushed open the heavy double doors leading into the main ballroom.

The moment the doors opened, the loud chatter in the room died down. Every pair of eyes locked onto the true king of New York.

Kendal's eyes lit up. She lifted the hem of her gown and walked toward Godfrey with the grace of a proud peacock, ready to claim her prize in front of the entire city.

But Godfrey's eyes didn't even flick in her direction. His gaze swept the massive room like a radar, searching every corner, every shadow.

Kendal reached him. She smiled brightly and reached out to loop her arm through his.

Godfrey shifted his weight and stepped to the side, completely dodging her touch.

The socialites watching from the sidelines saw everything. The whispers started instantly, spreading through the corners of the room like a virus.

Kendal's smile froze. A flash of pure humiliation and venom crossed her eyes, but she quickly forced her social mask back into place.

Suddenly, a piercing burst of static ripped through the ballroom's top-tier sound system.

The massive screen on the main stage, which had been playing a documentary about the Lee family's charity work, went completely black.

Everyone turned toward the stage. The string quartet stopped playing in shock.

The black screen flickered, and a bright green audio waveform appeared. The entire room fell into a bizarre, suffocating silence.

Then, a voice echoed through the speakers. It was a cold, steady female voice. A voice that made Godfrey's soul violently shudder.

"So, as long as I drink this, tomorrow's headlines will have the absolute proof of my affair. Right, Kendal?"

The recorded words dropped into the crowd like a live grenade.

Every single head in the room snapped toward Kendal. Her face drained of all color, turning a sickly, ashen white.

Kendal let out a piercing scream. She abandoned her elegant posture and sprinted toward the soundboard, desperately trying to rip the power cords out of the wall.

The hotel's head of security, alarmed by the sudden hijacking of their systems and the escalating chaos, rushed forward. He and another uniformed hotel guard stepped out of the shadows and blocked her path, their faces like stone, desperate to prevent a physical altercation on the main stage.

Up on the second-floor wraparound balcony, a slender figure in a minimalist black evening gown stepped into the spotlight.

Alyse looked down at the chaos below. Her eyes tracked through the crowd and locked perfectly onto Godfrey.

A cold, vengeful smile curved her lips.

The harsh glare of the spotlight hit Alyse. Her black gown clung to her frame, radiating the absolute authority of a queen stepping out of the dark.

Gasps erupted across the ballroom floor. Several older Wall Street tycoons rubbed their eyes, refusing to believe what they were seeing.

"That's the Ellis girl," a socialite whispered, her hand covering her mouth. "The one they threw out five years ago."

The audio recording continued to play through the speakers. Kendal's sharp, malicious voice echoed off the walls.

"Cousin, who told you to get in my way?"

The sound of a glass shattering played next, followed by the heavy, sickening thud of a body hitting the floor. Every second of the audio ruthlessly shredded Kendal's perfect facade.

Preston, Kendal's father, turned purple with rage. He slammed his fist onto a cocktail table and screamed at the security guards. "Cut the main power! Now!"

The head of security ran over, sweating profusely. "Sir, we can't! The hotel's central system has been entirely locked out by an unknown hacker. We have no control!"

Hidden in the shadows of the second floor, Alyse's phone screen was rapidly scrolling with complex green code. It was the absolute, crushing power of Briar.

Godfrey stood frozen in the center of the crowd. He tilted his head back, his eyes locked onto the glowing figure on the balcony.

The words from the recording acted like a sledgehammer, smashing his entire reality to pieces.

He had spent five years believing she was a cheap cheat. He had never, not for one second, considered that the scandal was a meticulously planned trap fueled by drugs.

A violent wave of guilt, shock, and fury crashed into him. The blood vessels in his eyes burst, turning his vision red.

The reporters in the room snapped out of their shock. Like sharks smelling blood in the water, they rushed forward, cameras flashing wildly. The blinding lights illuminated Kendal's terrified, twisted face.

"It's AI!" Kendal screamed, backing away from the reporters. "It's a fake recording! She made it up!"

But the wealthy women who had just been praising her now took large steps backward, treating her like a disease.

Declan, Kendal's younger brother, pointed a shaking finger at Alyse on the balcony. He cursed violently and grabbed a heavy wooden chair, preparing to hurl it at the speakers.

Before he could lift it, two of the hotel's on-site security guards, who had been stationed by the emergency exits, rushed into the fray. They tackled Declan to the marble floor, pinning his arms behind his back to prevent him from destroying hotel property. The crowd shrieked and scattered.

Sitting in her wheelchair near the front, Beatrice, the matriarch of the Lee family, shook violently. She slammed her cane against the floor. "What is the meaning of this?!" she gasped, clutching her chest.

Alyse rested one hand casually on the white marble railing of the balcony. She ignored the screaming and the chaos below, her eyes resting coldly on Beatrice.

The audio finished playing. The green waveform vanished from the giant screen.

It was immediately replaced by a high-definition screenshot of a credit card statement from a hotel in the Hamptons, dated exactly five years ago.

The statement clearly showed Kendal's private credit card purchasing a massive quantity of date-rape drugs just one hour before the scandal broke.

The concrete proof sent the room into an absolute frenzy. The looks of shock turned into pure disgust as they stared at the pure, innocent bride-to-be.

Kendal's psychological defense shattered. She spun around and pointed directly at Godfrey, tears streaming down her face.

"I did it because I loved you!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "I did it all for you!"

The pathetic attempt to drag him down with her made Godfrey's stomach churn with physical nausea. He took a slow, deliberate step backward, severing any connection to her.

His eyes never left Alyse. He searched her cold, indifferent face, desperate to find a single trace of the warmth she used to have for him.

He found nothing but an abyss of ice.

Alyse picked up a microphone. Her crisp voice instantly cut through the screaming crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said smoothly. "That was just the appetizer."

Her words swept through the room like a blizzard. Everyone stopped moving, holding their breath, waiting for the executioner's blade to drop.

Marlene shoved her way through the crowd, pointing a shaking finger at the balcony. "You ungrateful bitch! We took you in!" she shrieked, trying to use family loyalty to silence her.

Alyse shot her aunt a look of pure contempt. Her index finger tapped the screen of her phone.

The screen behind her flickered again. It wasn't a static image this time. It was a high-resolution security video.

The timestamp in the corner was locked onto that exact night, five years ago.

The video showed Alyse, completely unconscious, being dragged down a hotel hallway by two large men. They were pulling her by her arms, treating her like a broken ragdoll, dragging her toward the infamous hotel suite.