The girl smiled, a soft, enigmatic expression that Trevor couldn’t quite place. Was it a polite “nice to meet you” or something more? He stood frozen, staring at her, completely forgetting the caviar mousse cake in his hand.
She looked away, a subtle blush creeping onto her cheeks, and scanned the dessert spread. Her hair was styled in an intricate mermaid braid, adorned with tiny, colorful seashells that shimmered under the soft lights.
Recovering his senses, Trevor jumped into the role of a diligent host. “Do you like seafood? These are the house specialties. I’m having the savory caviar mousse, it’s a perfect blend of salt and cream. The shrimp white chocolate is fantastic, too. And the carrageen moss pudding looks intriguing, though I haven’t tried it yet. Care to be the first?”
Her gaze lingered on him, her smile softening. She reached for a plate of the carrageen moss pudding, and Trevor moved instinctively, handing her a small dessert spoon. As she took it, their fingers brushed. A sudden, warm current that seemed to spark between them and settle deep in their hearts. They stood there, locked in a shared smile, as if the world had frozen and Cupid’s arrow had finally found its mark.
Then, a dry cough shattered the moment.
A man with a thick beard, wearing a deep orange tuxedo, approached. The girl immediately set the pudding and spoon back on the table and stepped toward him. He whispered something in her ear. She gave Trevor one last lingering look, smiled, and vanished into the crowd with the man.
Trevor stood alone, feeling a hollow sense of loss. After a moment of stunned silence, he followed them toward the exit. It was a repeat of the Halloween party: four bodyguards waited at the door. Two draped long, heavy coats over the girl and the man, while the others handed them black bucket hats. They merged with another group dressed in identical dark coats and hats, moving like a synchronized unit as they left the building.
Just as Trevor wondered who they were, he saw Andrew Douglas and several of Franco’s high-level business partners emerge into the lobby, deep in conversation. A cold knot formed in his stomach. Could the girl belong to a family with connections to Franco’s dirty business? Her olive skin suggested she might be from Southern Italy, perhaps she didn’t even speak English. He shook his head. Too many Godfather movies, he told himself. Back to the party.
He made his way back, cutting through the rowdy, laughing crowds until he reached the team at the bar. They were already gathered around Adams, waiting for him.
“Mr. Edson, Mr. Franco requires your presence,” Adams said with a professional, tight-lipped smile. “All of you. He has a lead he wishes to share.”
“He’s got Victoria,” Spion whispered as they walked, his tone grim. “I don’t like where this is headed.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” Adams said with a dismissive shrug. “Mr. Franco claims he finally knows who hired the assassin, and he wants you all in the room when he confronts them. Though, if I’m being honest, he’ll almost certainly pin it on Victoria. He’s told me as much a dozen times already.”
“Well,” Lady News said with a wry smile. “Let’s see how smart he really is.”
Adams led the way, escorting them via the Premium Elevator to an opulent suite. Inside, Victoria was already seated on a velvet sofa, sipping tea with an eerie calmness, flanked by a wall of four security guards. Franco was standing by the floor-to-ceiling glass doors of the balcony, silhouetted against the night sky. He turned to greet them the moment they stepped inside, his expression unreadable.
“Please, have a seat, detectives,” Franco said, gesturing toward the sofas. “I hope you enjoyed the party, but it’s time for us to get down to business.” He turned to his staff with a sharp nod. “Adams, guards, leave us.”
“Mr. Franco, I heard you’ve made a breakthrough regarding who’s trying to kill you,” Lady News said as they took their seats.
“He’ll probably say it was me,” Victoria scoffed, setting her teacup down. “Bringing us all in here to play detective game… let’s see how ridiculous this gets.”
Franco ignored her. He paced the room with dramatic flair. “I am here to reveal who blackmailed me, stole my Tinderbox, attempted my life, and ordered the break-in at my mansion tonight.”
Victoria hummed a bored tune. The detectives exchanged amused glances.
“There is one secret I’ve kept,” Franco continued, his voice dropping to a theatrical baritone. “A secret about my past in the Neverlands. Forty years ago, I attended a party with my stepbrother. The hostess was a girl I loved; she fell ill, and I went home to ask my stepmother to brew a potion to cure her. My stepmother was a witch, and a clumsy one. An accident occurred. A fire consumed the house, killing my father and stepmother. I barely escaped. My stepbrother always believed I set that fire. He spent his life threatening to kill me, which is why I came to this country. I told only one person that story. You, Victoria.” He pointed a trembling finger at her.
Victoria didn’t flinch. “So what?”
“That proves nothing,” Report Man said, his voice flat. “Just because she is privy to your secrets doesn’t make her a mastermind.” The team nodded in unison, exchanging unimpressed looks.
“There is one detail I neglected to mention, detectives,” Franco said, pacing in a tight circle as if weighed down by the gravity of the thought. “The content of the blackmail. I deleted the emails because they were nothing but filth—filth spoken in my dead stepbrother’s exact tone, accusing me of causing the fire that killed my parents. But my stepbrother is in the ground. So, who else would send the blackmail? Who else but her?”
“It’s a logical connection,” Lady News noted, nodding as she exchanged a pleasurable look with the team.
Victoria remained unmoved, her only response the quiet clink of her teacup.
“She must have used some AI to mimic my stepbrother’s speech, but I saw through the deception at a glance,” Franco sneered. “When that failed, she grew desperate. She hired a professional to steal my Tinderbox, then sent an assassin to finish me. But thank Gods, her incompetence is as great as her malice; both attempts failed. In a fit of humiliation, she sent a burglar to my mansion tonight to dig up dirt for her scandal-mongering.” Franco turned toward Victoria with a cold, triumphant smile. “But you failed again, Victoria. Your thief is dead. One of my loyal servants discovered the body and reported it to me immediately. You have no moves left.”
“How do you know she sent the burglar?” Trevor asked.
“The burglar was Juana, one of the maids. A girl Victoria hired personally. I should have fired her the moment I filed for divorce.”
“If you cannot command the loyalty of your own staff, Connor, that is your failing,” Victoria remarked. She placed her tea on the table with practiced grace. Before anyone could blink, she drew a handgun from her black knee-high boot. The muzzle was aimed directly between Franco’s eyes. “Sit,” she commanded, her voice like ice. “We’re going to make a deal.”
“Ma’am, please, don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Trevor said, his voice low and steady as he held up a hand in a calming gesture. “Victoria, put the weapon down,” Lady News added, her composure finally cracking into visible worry. The rest of the team tensed, their eyes darting between Victoria’s finger on the trigger and the lack of cover in the opulent room.
“She won’t do it,” Franco said, though his voice wavered. “She can’t escape this building.”
“Maybe I don’t want to kill you,” Victoria said, her eyes cold as ice. “But what if I shot that tiny thing hanging between your legs? You’d spend the rest of your life regretting every girl you ever touched.”
The color drained from Franco’s face. He sat. “What do you want?”
“A copy of your private files. Just the photos of you with those boys and girls. For my protection.”
“Fine. But I need to reach into my pocket.” Victoria nodded. Franco moved slowly, but instead of a phone, he whipped out a heavy silver hip flask and hurled it at her with all his might.
The flask caught Victoria square in the forehead. She gasped, her finger jerking on the trigger. CRACK. The shot missed Franco, shattering the glass balcony door behind him. A freezing wind, carrying the first flakes of a blizzard, roared into the suite.
Guards burst through the door instantly. “Seize her!” Franco roared.
The team stood frozen in the aftermath of the blast, watching as the guards swarmed Victoria. Dazed and weakened by the heavy impact of the flask, she could barely struggle as two men hauled her to her feet by her arms.
“Give me a gun!” Franco bellowed, his face contorted with a mixture of fear and fury. He snatched a pistol from the nearest guard and leveled it at Victoria’s head, his hand shaking with adrenaline. “Now,” he spat, “let’s see who is really in charge.”
“Dad? What are you doing?!” Fiona stood in the doorway, followed by Alisa, Mateo, and a panicked Adams. She stared at the scene—the shattered glass, the guns, her mother’s bloodied face. “Mom, what’s happening?”
“Fiona, go back to the party!” Franco hissed, lowering the gun slightly. “Adams, take her home!”
“No!” Fiona screamed, stepping into the room. “Tell me what is happening!”
“Your father is going to murder me, Fiona. Isn’t it obvious?” Victoria’s voice was ragged as she recovered from the blow, her eyes burning with a mixture of pain and cold fury.
“She tried to kill me first!” Franco roared, the pistol trembling in his hand as he leveled it back at Victoria’s chest. “She’s the one who planned the blackmail, the break-in, the hits. She is pure evil!”
“No! Stop it!” Fiona screamed. She strode across the room and threw herself directly into the line of fire, shielding her mother.
“Fiona, get away from there!” Mateo shouted, his voice cracking with terror for his wife.
Paralyzed by the sight of his daughter in the crosshairs, Franco’s finger froze on the trigger. He slowly lowered the gun, his face pale with the realization of what he had almost done.
“Your father is a monster, Fiona,” Victoria said, her voice dropping to a deadly, hollow rasp. Knowing she had nothing left to lose, she let the secrets spill like poison. “Human trafficking, money laundering, sex abuse of children, murder…he built his empire on a foundation of blood.”
“Shut up, you crazy bitch!” Franco screamed, his face turning a sickly shade of purple.
“You’re a coward, Connor,” she continued, ignoring him. “Even now, you lie to these detectives. You think I couldn’t see through your lie? Your stepmother was the one with the power, the witch. The Tinderbox was hers, not your father’s. You didn’t ‘barely escape’ that fire, you set it. You murdered them both and watched them burn just to get your hands on that box. I knew the moment you first told me that pathetic story.”
Fiona backed away, her eyes filling with tears. “Dad? Is it true? You murdered your father and stepmother?”
“She was a witch and a stepmother, Fiona, she was a supervillain, just like in fairy tales!” Franco pleaded, his voice cracking with desperation.
“And the other things?” Fiona’s voice was a ghost of a whisper, her eyes wide with a growing, sickening realization. “The human trafficking? The abuse of children?”
“She was part of it!” Franco roared, gesturing wildly at Victoria. “She took her share! She enjoyed the wealth it brought us just as much as I did!”
“I don’t even know who you are,” Fiona whispered, tears streaming down her face as she backed away from them both. “You aren’t my parents. You’re monsters.”
“We did it all for you,” Victoria said, her voice trembling but firm. “To give you a life of beauty, so you would never have to see the ugliness of the world.”
“She’s right,” Franco added, stepping toward his daughter. “Do you think it was luck that made you a principal player? That won you all those awards? I bought your career, Fiona. I paid for every standing ovation. Even your mentor, Lady Anna, do you think she got her seat on the City Musicians’ Association through talent? She slept with me for it. In this world, everyone pays a price to move up, and I was the one they had to pay. I didn’t want that for you. I built this empire, this elite circle, so you could live inside the fairy tale, protected from the truth.”
“Fiona, we love you,” Victoria cried, the tears finally breaking through. “You don’t understand what it was like when my father went bankrupt, what my mother and I had to do just to survive. I would have burned the world down to make sure you never had to live like that.”
“No,” Fiona sobbed, her voice breaking as she backed toward the shattered balcony. A sudden, violent gust of wind carrying needles of snow swept into the suite, making everyone in the room shiver with a sudden, primal fear.
“Fiona, come back to me!” Mateo cried, lunging toward her. But at that moment, the storm turned into a white-out. A localized blizzard roared through the opening, so fierce and blinding that it was impossible to keep an eye open.
When the wind finally died down as abruptly as it had started, the room fell into a deathly silence. Fiona was standing on the coffee table by the ledge, already balanced on the railing. She looked at them one last time, her face wet with tears. “My whole life was a lie,” she whispered. Then, she let herself lean back into the dark, falling away into the night.