PART 2: The Secret Inside the Flash Drive

At 2:17 a.m., I discovered that my cousin had been planning my death for almost a year.

And the woman I intended to marry had been helping him.

Elena returned with a small laptop she’d borrowed from the hospital’s administrative office. She locked the door behind her, drew the curtains, and placed the computer on the table beside my bed.

Her hands were shaking.

“Are you sure you should be doing this?” she whispered. “Your doctor said you need complete rest.”

I looked at the black flash drive in her palm.

“Rest is what people do when they believe they have tomorrow.”

I held out my hand.

The movement sent a sharp pain through my ribs. I clenched my teeth until the worst of it passed, then took the drive from her.

“Help me sit up.”

“Mr. Vance—”

“Please.”

Something in my voice made her stop arguing.

She adjusted my pillows and carefully raised the head of the bed. I was sweating by the time I could see the laptop screen clearly.

For several seconds, I simply stared at the initials engraved on the flash drive.

A.V.

Anthony Vance had grown up beside me. We had attended the same schools, spent summers at our grandfather’s estate, and buried our fathers within eighteen months of each other.

When I inherited the controlling shares of Vance International, Anthony was the first person I offered a position.

He had called me his brother.

Apparently, he’d been waiting for the right moment to become my executioner.

I inserted the drive.

A folder appeared on the screen.

FRIDAY — FINAL TRANSFER.

Inside were bank statements, scanned contracts, photographs, and dozens of emails.

Elena leaned closer.

“What does it mean?”

I opened the first document.

It was a draft agreement transferring a significant portion of my private holdings to an offshore investment company. The signature at the bottom belonged to a man who had been dead for six years.

My father.

I felt the room tilt.

“This is impossible.”

“What is it?”

“My father never signed this. He died before the company was even established.”

I opened the next file.

A photograph appeared.

Anthony stood outside a private club in London, shaking hands with a man I recognized immediately.

Victor Hale.

A former business partner I’d forced out of Vance International after discovering he had stolen millions from our pension fund.

Victor had disappeared from public life three years ago.

Now he was standing beside my cousin, smiling as if they had just won the lottery.

The next document contained a payment schedule.

One payment had been made six months ago.

Another had been made two weeks ago.

The final payment was scheduled for Friday morning.

The recipient’s name was Chloe Bennett.

Elena pressed a hand against her mouth.

“She’s being paid to marry you?”

“No.”

I scrolled farther down.

The amount was almost twelve million dollars.

My stomach tightened.

“She wasn’t being paid to marry me,” I said. “She was being paid to make sure I never lived long enough to change my will.”

A new file caught my attention.

PROJECT BLACK VEIL.

I clicked it.

The screen filled with a series of photographs taken outside my penthouse, my office, and the private garage beneath my building.

One showed Nico standing beside my Bentley.

Another showed me leaving a restaurant three nights before the crash.

The final photograph had been taken less than an hour before the accident.

My car was parked beneath the garage lights.

Someone had crouched beside the front wheel.

The face was partially obscured, but the man’s expensive watch was unmistakable.

Marcus Reed.

My consigliere.

The man who had cried beside my hospital window.

Elena whispered, “How many people are involved?”

I didn’t answer.

I was staring at the final document.

It was a short email sent from an account registered under Anthony’s name.

Once Julian is declared dead, the emergency provisions activate. Chloe gets her money. Victor gets his shares. Marcus controls the internal investigation. By the time anyone realizes the documents are fraudulent, the assets will already be beyond reach.

Beneath the message was a reply.

And if Julian survives?

Anthony’s answer consisted of six words.

Then make sure he doesn’t survive Friday.

For a moment, the hospital room disappeared.

I heard only the blood pounding in my ears.

They hadn’t simply tried to kill me.

They had built an entire machine around my death. Every person had a role. Every transfer had been calculated. Every lie had been prepared in advance.

And Nico had died because he happened to be sitting behind the wheel of my car.

My fingers tightened around the edge of the laptop.

“I want them all in the same room.”

Elena looked horrified.

“You can’t confront them now. You’re barely able to sit up.”

“I don’t intend to confront them.”

I looked at the flash drive.

“Not yet.”

I copied the files to an encrypted account and sent a separate package to a lawyer outside my company. Then I removed the drive and slipped it beneath my mattress.

Elena watched me silently.

“There’s something you should know,” I told her.

She straightened.

“I wasn’t always a good man.”

Her expression softened, but she didn’t interrupt.

“For years, I thought money could solve every problem. If someone was loyal, I rewarded them. If someone betrayed me, I destroyed them. I never bothered to ask what happened to the people standing in the middle.”

I thought of the way Chloe had treated Elena.

I thought of the countless employees whose names I’d never learned.

“And when Chloe humiliated you in my penthouse, I did nothing.”

Elena lowered her eyes.

“You didn’t notice me, sir. That’s different from hurting me.”

“No.” I swallowed against the pain in my throat. “It’s just a more comfortable way of doing it.”

She said nothing for a long time.

Then she asked, “What happens now?”

I looked at the clock.

2:46 a.m.

“Now we give them exactly what they want.”

She frowned.

“You mean you’ll pretend to stay in a coma?”

“Until Friday.”

“And what about Chloe?”

A cold smile crossed my face.

“Let her believe she’s already won.”

At that moment, Elena’s phone vibrated.

She glanced at the screen and went pale.

“What is it?”

“It’s a message from the head housekeeper.”

She turned the phone toward me.

Mr. Vance’s fiancée has ordered all his personal belongings removed from the penthouse tomorrow morning. She says the wedding is canceled and the estate needs to be prepared for a change in ownership.

I stared at the message.

The wedding was scheduled for Saturday.

Chloe hadn’t even waited for Friday to arrive before erasing me from her life.

“There’s more,” Elena whispered.

She opened another message.

She also asked whether you were working tonight. She wants to know if you still have access to the private elevator.

I looked at Elena.

“Did you tell anyone you came here?”

“No.”

“Did anyone see you?”

She hesitated.

“I don’t know.”

Before I could ask another question, footsteps sounded outside the door.

Two men.

One spoke quietly.

“The fiancée said the housekeeper might have taken something.”

The other answered, “Search her locker first. If it’s not there, check the service corridor.”

Elena’s face drained of color.

The footsteps stopped directly outside my room.

A shadow appeared beneath the door.

Then someone tried the handle.

I grabbed Elena’s wrist.

“Get under the bed.”

She stared at me.

“Now.”

She slipped behind the curtains beside the medical equipment just as a nurse’s voice sounded in the corridor.

“Can I help you gentlemen?”

“We’re here on behalf of Mr. Vance’s family.”

“You’ll need authorization.”

A brief silence followed.

Then one of the men said something that made my blood run cold.

“Miss Bennett said we could take whatever we needed.”

Chloe.

She had sent them.

The men moved away, but I didn’t relax until their footsteps disappeared.

Elena emerged from behind the curtains.

“They know about the drive.”

“Perhaps.”

“What if they come back?”

I looked at the door.

“Then we make sure they regret choosing this room.”

But beneath my anger, another realization had begun to take shape.

The people behind my attempted murder were becoming nervous.

They were searching for evidence.

And if they were searching this early, it meant someone had already warned them that their plan was falling apart.

Someone who knew about the flash drive.

Someone inside the hospital.

I turned toward Elena.

“Tomorrow morning, I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“Find out which nurse has been assigned to my room every night since the crash.”

“Why?”

“Because I suspect the person who wants me dead isn’t finished trying.”

I closed my eyes and forced my breathing to slow.

Three days remained until Friday.

And for the first time since the accident, I wasn’t afraid of dying.

I was afraid of discovering how many people had helped arrange it.