It's almost midnight.
The hallway outside Arin's hospital room is quiet….except for the faint beeping of machines and the soft shuffle of nurses. Juno Thorne stands by the door, arms crossed, eyes sharp.
Then—
Kian appears.
Disheveled. Pale. Drenched from the rain he didn't wait to escape. His tie is gone, shirt wrinkled, hair damp and falling into his haunted eyes.
He doesn't look at anyone.
He walks past the nurses.
Past Juno.
And opens the door.
Inside.
Lianna is curled up in the armchair beside Arin's bed, her arms crossed over her chest like a shield. She looks up sharply when the door creaks open.
Kian steps in.
He sees Arin asleep….his son..,,bandaged, his small chest rising and falling with each breath. Something in Kian's face breaks.
He drops to his knees beside the bed, clutching the edge of the mattress.
"That's my son in there," he whispers. His voice cracks.
Lianna doesn't move.
Kian looks up at her. His eyes are bloodshot.
"Let me protect you both. Please."
She rises slowly, cold and unreadable.
"Why?" she says. "You think this wouldn't have happened if I'd stayed quiet?"
Kian shakes his head.
"No," he says, jaw tight. "I think this happened because of me."
He stands. Paces once. Then stops.
"My father has enemies. Powerful ones. I was warned….if I got too close to exposing anything, they'd come after what I cared about."
"You mean who you care about," she corrects, biting.
He nods once, silent.
"And why," she asks, "aren't they going after you?"
Kian meets her gaze.
"Who says they aren't?"
A beat.
"They're just smart enough to know it'd hurt more this way."
He walks toward her. Slowly. Gently. As if approaching a frightened deer.
He sits beside her, leaving space. Then, cautiously, he lays his hand over hers.
Lianna stiffens.
She breathes in….deep, conflicted.
And pulls her hand away.
Outside.
Across the street, high in a dark hotel window
A sniper watches through his scope.
Target locked, Kian Vale.
Finger on the trigger.
Breath held.
But the shot never comes.
The crosshairs hold steady…
And then the lens retracts.
A voice crackles in the sniper's earpiece.
"Not yet."
—-
Juno Thorne isn't just a lawyer.
She's a tactician.
She walks into Lianna's penthouse office in sharp heels and sharper focus, holding a thick leather file stamped with confidential seals. Her lips are pressed in a tight line. She doesn't sit.
"The Vale Family Holdings….unsealed."
Lianna raises her eyes slowly. "You got through the lock?"
Juno tosses the file onto the desk.
"I got through the fortress."
Inside the file,
Hidden trusts buried under years of dummy filings.
Offshore accounts registered in Monaco and Belize…..many linked to a trust labeled:
"Arin Trust – Initials K.V."
A web of shell companies with one repeatedly recurring name:
J.H. Vale.
Lianna narrows her eyes. "That's not Kian's initials. Who is that?"
Juno pulls out a faded envelope from the back of the folder.
"There's someone in the family no one talks about," she says. "Possibly older than Kian. Possibly erased."
She lays down a photograph.
Black and white. Blurry. Taken decades ago.
A boy, maybe ten, stands beside a young Henry Vale, both dressed in black suits. The boy's eyes are sharp. Hollow. The back of the photo reads in cursive,
Jonas H. Vale.
"You need to understand what you're up against," Juno says softly. "This isn't just about money. This is about legacy. Power. Bloodlines. And someone is rewriting history to stay in control."
Lianna stares at the photo….at the boy who isn't supposed to exist.
"Why hide him?"
"Because he either died…" Juno begins.
She stops. Opens her tablet. Slides it forward.
A scanned death certificate.
Jonas H. Vale.
Cause of death: "accidental fall."
Date: 18 years ago.
Juno swipes again—
And reveals a passport application from two years ago.
Same face. Same name.
Meanwhile…
At Vale Corp, Henry Vale bursts into a board meeting late. He's trembling. Agitated. His suit jacket is buttoned wrong.
He slams a folder on the table.
"You. You're done." He points at his own COO. "You think I don't know what you're doing? You're all rats. All of you!"
The room goes dead silent.
One executive whispers, "He's losing it…"
Another mutters, "Or something's coming."
Cliffhanger,
Juno closes the file and turns to Lianna.
"Jonas Vale didn't die."
"He disappeared."
She looks up, voice ice-cold,
"And someone's funding his return."
—-
The house is too quiet.
Lianna checks the windows…..once, twice, a third time. Every lock. Every latch. Her footsteps echo down the hallway like whispers of her own fear.
She peeks into Arin's room.
The boy is fast asleep, curled up in a galaxy-patterned blanket, his dark curls tousled across the pillow.
Lianna kneels beside him, fingers trembling as she brushes a strand of hair from his cheek.
"You're going to be okay," she whispers.
"Mama's going to make sure of it."
She stays there longer than she should, just watching his little chest rise and fall, until her own eyes start to sting.
Then—
The house alarm blares.
A violent, metallic wail shatters the silence.
Lights flood the hallway. Armed guards rush through the estate. Lianna grabs the emergency phone from her drawer.
"What is it?" she demands.
"Motion detected near the east perimeter," the guard reports. "We're sweeping the area now."
Juno calls moments later from her own security channel.
"Someone triggered your fence sensors. But the cameras show… nothing."
1:43 AM.
Lianna's phone rings.
Kian.
His voice is sharp. Hoarse. Urgent.
"I think I know who's behind this."
Lianna grips the phone tighter. Her breath halts.
"Who?"
"A brother," Kian says.
"Not legally adopted. Not even acknowledged. He was a mistake Henry tried to erase. A bastard child who never got the name… or the life."
Lianna steps into her office, locks the door.
"He's real. They called him The Jackal."
The name chills her. "Why would he come after me?"
There's a pause. Then Kian's voice turns cold.
"He's not coming after you.
He's coming for what we built.
And who we love."
The next morning.
Security tightens at Arin's school. Armed men patrol the gates. Parents whispers.
A guard approaches Lianna's car with a sealed package.
"This was found outside the school gate, ma'am. No return label."
She rips it open—
Inside,
A single photograph of Arin at recess.
A red X slashed over his face.
And below it, a handwritten note on heavy card stock,
"You took his last name. Now he'll take yours."
Lianna's hand clenches around the photo.
Her eyes narrow.
"Let him come."
But her voice breaks on the last word.