The steady beep of the heart monitor was the only sound in the recovery room.

Every breath felt like broken glass scraping against the inside of my ribs.

My left eye was swollen shut, a parting gift from my husband.

Liam adjusted the IV drip, his face set in a hard, grim line.

In his white lab coat, he looked more like the military doctor he used to be than the chief physician of Riverside Hospital.

“Your vitals are stabilizing, Claire,” he said, his voice low and steady.

“How bad is the scan?” I asked, the words raspy in my throat.

“Three fractured ribs. A mild concussion. But the internal bleeding has stopped.”

He touched my hand gently, avoiding the dark purple bruises circling my wrist.

I looked past him toward the chair in the corner of the dim room.

A black leather laptop bag sat there, partially hidden under his coat.

Inside that bag was Ethan’s personal drive.

It contained fifteen years of offshore accounts, shell companies, and the bribed officials who built Apex Development.

“He is going to come for it, Liam,” I whispered.

“He can’t,” Liam replied. “The police arrested him two hours ago at the private airfield.”

I tried to let out a breath, but the tightness in my chest didn’t ease.

Ethan was not the type of man to let a pair of handcuffs stop him.

He had too much money, and too many powerful people owed him favors.

“Are you sure he’s locked up?” I asked. “Really sure?”

“Detective Vance called me himself,” Liam said, pulling a chair closer to my bedside. “They booked him. He is in a holding cell at the central precinct. There is no bail hearing until Monday.”

Rain lashed against the glass of the third-floor window.

Outside, the neon sign of the hospital blurred in the wet darkness.

Liam reached over and unzipped the black bag just enough to see the silver chassis of the laptop.

“Is the data safe?” he asked.

“I mirrored the ledger to three secure servers before he caught me,” I said. “But this physical drive has the original cryptographic keys. Without it, the prosecutors can’t prove the files weren’t altered.”