Chapter 4 THE SAFE

(Damien's POV)

Midnight covered the townhouse in a dark, eerie shadow. The air smelled like dust and rot.

I walked slowly through the empty house. The floor creaked under my feet. Cobwebs hung everywhere, sticking to my face as I passed. I wiped them away, my fingers covered in dust. Disgusting!

The townhouse was old and abandoned, but you could still see it was once expensive. The floors were marble, now dirty and scratched. The walls had fancy moldings, though the paint was peeling. Everything was falling apart, but you could tell it used to house wealth.

I reached the master bedroom. The big closet was made of cedar wood. I ran my fingers along the panels until I felt a tiny crack in the wood. Just like Victoria's team had said.

I pressed hard on the hidden spot and there was a quiet click. Then, the panel slid open without a sound.

There, a biometric safe glinted in the moonlight. State-of-the-art. The kind we used in our Zurich vaults.

My cufflinks caught the light as I entered the override codes in anticipation, the backdoor sequences only Blackwood executives knew. I smiled as the safe beeps twice before opening.

My eyes widened in shock.

The safe was completely fucking, empty.

A dry laugh escaped my mouth as I slammed the metal door. Of course. Serena had known we'd find this. She knew we'd waste resources breaking into a decoy.

The grandfather clock downstairs chimed three a.m. as I pulled out my phone, illuminating the dust covered bedroom which used to be mine.

I typed a message, "Safe was clean. She played us." And I clicked send.

Eleanor's response came instantly. "Then you'll play harder. My office. Now."

The townhouse's front door creaked as I exited. Rain poured down on silver curtains, soaking through my coat within seconds. My driver leapt to open the Rolls Royce's door, but I waved him off. I needed a walk. I needed to think.

Halfway down the block, headlights flared behind me.

"Get in, little brother." Victoria's black Maybach purred at the curb, her smirk visible through the rain-streaked window.

I slid into the leather seat, the car's heat making my soaked clothes steam. "You're up late." I said.

"Unlike you," she said, tossing me a tablet, "I don't break into empty houses for fun."

The screen showed security footage from Vaughn Innovations' R&D lab dated tonight. Serena in a lab coat, demonstrating something to a room full of investors. My gut twisted at the sight of Adrian Cole leaning close to examine her work, his hand brushing her elbow.

Victoria's manicured nail tapped the timestamp. "While you were chasing ghosts, she was securing another $200 million in funding."

I zoomed in on the schematic behind them. "Is that..."

"The NV-147 prototype?" Victoria's laugh was razor sharp. "Complete with our proprietary neural interface. She's not just using stolen tech, Damien. She's improved it."

Rain blurred the windows as we sped through Tribeca. The numbers didn't lie, at this rate, Vaughn Innovations would overtake Blackwood's tech division within eighteen months.

"Eleanor wants her stopped," Victoria murmured, applying lipstick in the vanity mirror. "Permanently."

I stiffened. "We're not killers."

"No?" She snapped the mirror shut. "Then why does Serena's lead engineer suddenly have a Swiss bank account worth five million dollars?"

The car fell silent.

We both knew what that meant. Eleanor had already made her move.

The Maybach turned onto Fifth Avenue, its wipers fighting the downpour. Through the rain, I caught a glimpse of the Vaughn Innovations tower, lit up like a beacon at this ungodly hour.

Serena's kingdom. Built with my family's bones.

How did she manage to pull this off? I wondered. A part of me was amused.

Victoria followed my gaze. "Still think she's the girl you married?"

Lightning flashed, illuminating the building's glass facade, and for a split second, I swore I saw a silhouette in the top-floor window. Watching and waiting.

Then darkness swallowed it up.

We drove into Blackwood's estate. Eleanor's study smelled of bergamot.

"Pathetic." She said, her voice dripping with disgust, but she didn't look up from her ledger, the ancient book spread across her desk like a corpse on an autopsy table. "First you lose the wife. Then the patents. Now you let her mock us with this... pantomime."

I remained standing despite the exhaustion weighing my bones. "The safe was a distraction. She wanted us to..."

"Of course it was!" Eleanor's cane struck the floor hard enough to make the Tiffany lamp rattle. "While you were rummaging through closets like some common thief, she was hosting investors!" Her icy gaze lifted. "Tell me, dear grandson. At what point do you stop being outplayed by a girl from Queens?"

The insult landed exactly as intended. Serena's humble origins had always been Eleanor's favorite insult.

Victoria wrapped herself over the armchair. "We could always leak those photos of her in Monaco..."

"No!" I bellowed. The word came out sharper than I intended.

Eleanor's eyebrow arched. "Sentiment?"

"Strategy." I leaned over her desk, pointing to a ledger entry dated five years back. "Dad approved the initial NV-147 funding. If this goes to court..."

"It won't." Eleanor snapped the ledger shut. "Because you're going to retrieve what's ours. By any means necessary."

She slid a file across the desk. Inside, surveillance photos of Serena's daily routine. Her gym. Her favorite cafe. The private maternity clinic she visited twice last month.

My breath caught. "She's pregnant?!"

Victoria snorted. "Please. The clinic's her new R&D partner. They're working on some fertility AI." She tapped the photos. "But look who else is making house calls."

The next image hit like a sucker punch, Dr. Adrian Cole leaving the same clinic, his coat pocket bulging with what looked like prototype chips.

Eleanor smiled, showing her teeth. "Seems your wife's been busy in more ways than one."

I stared at the photos until they blurred. The timelines matched. The stolen tech. The sudden funding. The way Serena had strategically dismantled my empire piece by piece.

This wasn't revenge.

It was a goddamn masterclass.

And the most terrifying part?

I'd never been so turned on in my life.