Chapter Three

As the midnight tide rose above my ankles, I lay lurking in the shadows of the Monterey harbor. Victoria's iconic "Poseidon," the family's symbolic transport ship, lay like a silent behemoth on the sea. Inside, a staggering twenty million dollars worth of hallucinogens—enough to suffocate the entire region's underground market—awaited unloading.

Infiltrating the cold control room was easier than entering my own kitchen. Over the years, the entire family's security and logistics system had been built almost entirely under my watchful eye. I had meticulously crafted countless redundant locks within this system to protect it from corporate espionage, all for Victoria's ambitions. Yet, even the most brilliant creators know best how to dismantle their masterpieces from within.

I skillfully used the console's internal code to lock the compressor frequency of the refrigeration system at its peak, simultaneously severing the alarm feedback loop. With a piercing metallic scraping sound, chemical corrosion inhibitors cascaded from the pipes, rapidly corroding the expensive cargo. I leaned against the cold control panel, watching the gauges plummet to zero. I pulled out the playing card I had prepared beforehand and drew a neat, sharp "L" on the edge. It was the initial of my daughter's name, and also the death knell for you parasites.

Leaving the dock, I didn't look back. For the next forty-eight hours, I was like a virus roaming the city's veins, precisely searching for every sore spot in Victoria's wealth.

The secret warehouse in Long Beach held the slush funds and cash plundered by the Victoria family through illegal acquisitions over the past five years. The firewall there was one I had personally designed; now, with just a pre-set voltage overload, I could turn the entire warehouse into an inferno. I stood on the distant breakwater, watching the flames pierce the thick night, like a blood-stained peony blooming on the coastline.

The third hideout was in Las Vegas . I modified a small heating device and hid it inside the vault's ventilation ducts. When the casino's VIP area experienced a sudden, bizarre power outage, the temperature inside the vault soared rapidly, and the banknotes, considered vital, quickly carbonized under the intense heat.

Withdrawing from each site, I leave behind a playing card. It's my declaration to Victoria: I'm not just destroying your business, I'm erasing all evidence of your existence.

...

And in the Beverly Hills estate, a storm is brewing.

The air in the family meeting room is as heavy as solidified grease. Regional managers around the round table are clamoring about losses, the figures staggering, each report like a nail driven into Victoria's spine.

"This is absolutely not an accident, Madam," an elderly, gray-haired minister says, his brow furrowed, his voice trembling with fear. "If it were just competition, no one could so precisely sever our core logistics chain. These methods... this logic... when Arthur was still here, our security system was impenetrable; we never had such a disclosure."

Victoria, like a volcano covered in ice and snow, grips the mahogany table tightly, her knuckles white, her hands, painted with burgundy nail polish. She abruptly throws a heavy crystal ashtray against the corner, the sharp crackling sound jarring in the silent meeting room.

“Even without Arthur, I can still support this family!” Victoria’s voice was unusually sharp. Long-term insomnia left her exhausted and nervously trembling beneath her exquisite makeup. “Get out of here! Don’t mention that name! You bunch of useless trash, if you can’t even make up for this loss, then get out of this family!”

Her subordinates fell silent, scrambling away.

Victoria stood alone in the center of the hundred-square-meter conference room, her hands, painted with burgundy nail polish, gripping the edge of the mahogany table tightly. Looking out at the distant lights of countless homes, the fear of being deprived gnawed at her like a bone-deep infection. For seven consecutive days, she dialed my number, only to be met with endless dial tone. She finally realized that the “accessory” she had once thought she could summon at any time was slowly peeling away her mask of “Queen.”

And Leon, this fool who had returned, was completely oblivious to the deathly silence that threatened to break her.

He'd just returned from a film set in Los Angeles, his face still wrapped in bandages like a mummy, walking unsteadily. He swaggered into the bedroom Victoria and I used to share, watching Victoria's dejected figure.

"Honey, what's wrong? Still thinking about that slut?" He whistled dismissively, his gaze shifting to the bedside table. There sat a photograph of me holding three-year-old Lily, laughing innocently on the grass.

Leon's eyes flashed with primal disgust: "How many times have I told you, that brat's picture is an eyesore, having it here makes me sick."

He reached into the frame, ripping the photo and its heavy glass frame off, crumpling it into a ball, and tossing it into the metal trash can beside the bed.

Victoria saw this through the mirror on her dressing table. She was momentarily stunned, a mother's last instinctive reaction. But the next second, the turmoil in her eyes completely subsided. She didn't rebuke Leon, nor did she retrieve the photo. Instead, she lowered her head and casually straightened her skirt.

She chose to acquiesce. In that moment, she finally and completely destroyed the place I once held in her heart.

However, she didn't understand that Leon had torn up more than just a piece of paper; he had destroyed her last remaining glimmer of hope.

I sat in a tent a thousand miles away, remotely monitoring everything that was happening in the bedroom through a VPN connection to her mansion's security system. It wasn't the view from a telescope, but every detail I captured through a hidden sensor matrix I had already planted.

When Leon kicked the trash can back under the table, I turned off the monitor. The flashing "Signal Interrupted" message on the screen indicated that this cat-and-mouse game was now completely beyond saving.

Victoria, since you so desperately want to be destroyed, then let the fire burn even brighter.