Zara didn't sleep.
She stood in the vault, staring at the security log like it was a knife pressed to her throat.
Bridget's access code used after her death.
Only one person knew it.
Logan.
And the way he'd used it… cold, Precise. Like he was still working for Harrison.
Or worse, always had been.
---
6:22 A.M. Logan's Apartment
She didn't knock.
She used the spare key he never knew she kept.
He was shaving in the bathroom, humming to himself.
"You stole from me," she said.
Logan froze mid-stroke.
"Zara."
She tossed the vault log onto the sink.
"Bridget's code. Accessed two nights ago. After she was already dead. Only two people knew her passphrase...me, and you."
His jaw clenched. "Let me explain."
"I swear to God if you say that line again, I'll put a bullet between your eyes."
Logan slowly lowered the razor. "It wasn't what you think."
"Then what was it?" she demanded.
"Insurance," he said simply.
Zara blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I knew Bridget was slipping," Logan said. "She was loyal, yes. But she was planning to go public with everything, your contract with Wolfe, your father's real death report, even your mother's sealed therapy files. If that got out..."
"You killed her."
"No!" he shouted. "I didn't touch her. I tried to stop it."
"And failed," she hissed.
She stepped closer, nose-to-nose.
"You once promised me you'd protect my name. You said you loved me."
Logan's voice cracked. "I did."
Zara's voice dropped, cold as frost. "Then you should've loved me enough to stay the hell away from my enemies."
She walked out.
Not with fury.
But with clarity.
---
10:10 A.M. Wolfe Private Room
Damian watched the footage of Logan entering the vault.
He said nothing.
Just rewound it. Again and again.
Then turned to Cain. "We bring him in."
Zara stopped him. "No. We let him move."
"Why?"
"Because he's not done yet," she said. "And I want to know who he's working for now."
Damian frowned. "You think he flipped sides?"
"I think he never had one."
3:42 P.M. Zara's Mother's House (Upstate NY)
Zara hadn't seen her mother in nearly a year.
The woman who once ruled society dinners now sat in silent in a soft chair by the window, hair silver, eyes still sharp.
"I need you to tell me the truth," Zara said.
Her mother looked up slowly.
"I already did."
"No, You gave me pieces. I want the full picture."
---
Flashback – 1996
Her mother stood at a party. Young Damian Wolfe was watching her, not flirtatious, not aggressive.
Just… staring.
She was unnerved and Richard had waved it off.
"He's just ambitious," he'd said. But now she told Zara the rest.
"That boy... he followed me for weeks, He watched you, Watched what school you were at, what playground you liked. I thought maybe I was paranoid. Until one day, I confronted him."
Zara's heart pounded.
"What did he say?"
Her mother stared out the window.
~ "He said, 'I'm not here for you, ma'am. I'm here for her.'"
Zara went cold.
"And you didn't tell Dad?"
"I did. He laughed."
Zara stood, furious.
"You should've told me."
Her mother's voice, weak but clear: "And made you afraid of your own shadow? I didn't want you to grow up thinking the world was full of monsters."
Zara paused.
"Then you should've taught me how to become one."
---
6:00 P.M. Damian's Penthouse.
Zara returned, and told him everything.
About her mother, The stalking, The way he'd haunted their lives long before she could speak for herself.
Damian didn't deny it.
He just looked… tired.
"I was obsessed," he said. "Not with you. With revenge. But then it became you. And I didn't know how to undo it."
Zara stared at him.
"All this time, I thought I was walking into your world. Turns out you built it around me."
Damian didn't speak.
Zara stepped forward.
"I need you to promise me something."
"Anything."
"If this ends in fire, you walk away."
Damian frowned. "No."
"I mean it," she said. "If I go down, you survive. You rebuild. You protect what's left."
Damian stepped close.
Took her face in his hands.
And said, "Zara, I've burned every lifeboat for you. I'm either standing beside you when this ends, or I'm ash too."
She kissed him. and it tasted like goodbye.
---
Private Jet Runway, 11:40 P.M.
Damian was handed a black envelope. From an anonymous courier.
Inside: a photo of a woman in handcuffs.
Name: Clara Montaldi, Alive and Hidden and a prisoner of Harrison Vance's final offshore facility.
Attached was a handwritten note:
~"You want her?
Bring me Zara. Alive.
No tricks.
Or Clara dies. Again."
---
Damian stared at the photo for a long, long time.
Then he texted Zara.
~"Whatever happens… I love you. And I'm sorry."
He then turned to Cain. "Prep the jet."
Cain blinked. "You're going?"
"Yes."
"You're walking into a trap."
Damian nodded.
"It's not a rescue mission.
It's a trade