Medical Intervention

The blue light of Sarah's phone screen painted her face in ghostly monochrome. The little girl who had deposited fifty thousand dollars was gone, replaced by a woman with hard lines around her mouth and a Glock in her hand.

"Sarah?" Marcus whispered, his voice catching on the dust in the shaft.

"Quiet," she hissed. She pointed the gun down at him, but her eyes were darting to the crack of light below where Julian was tearing the Trophy Room apart.

She was in the upper access panel of the dumbwaiter, suspended between the first and second floors. She must have been hiding there, waiting. Listening.

"Did you bring it?" she asked again, her voice barely audible over the sound of Julian's rage downstairs.

Marcus reached into his waistband and pulled out the blue ledger. He held it up.

Sarah reached down. Her fingers brushed his, cold and trembling. She snatched the book, clutching it to her chest like a shield.

"Why?" Marcus asked. "Why are you helping me?"

"I'm not helping you," she said. She tucked the ledger into her coat. "I'm securing my future. Julian is an idiot. He'll burn it. Or lose it. Or try to sell it to the wrong people."

"And you?"

"I'm going to use it," she said. "To make sure Dad stays in prison. And to make sure I stay out."

Below them, Julian let out a roar of frustration. Something heavy crashed against the wall.

"He's going to kill someone," Marcus said. "If he finds Arthur dead..."

"He won't find him dead," Sarah said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small vial. *Epinephrine.* "Arthur always keeps a stash. For emergencies."

She dropped the vial down the shaft. Marcus caught it.

"Go back," she ordered. "Save him. If he dies now, the accounts freeze. We lose everything."

"You want me to save the man who ruined your life?"

"I want you to save the man who holds the purse strings," Sarah corrected. "Now go. Before Julian burns the house down with us inside."

She started to climb up the shaft, toward the second floor.

"Wait," Marcus said. "Elena. She's at the prison. With your mother."

Sarah stopped. She looked down at him, her expression unreadable in the blue light.

"I know," she said. "I told her to go."

"You... you helped her?"

"I gave her a head start," Sarah said. "Because if she takes down Dad, I get the trust fund. And if Dad takes down her... well, I still get the trust fund."

She smiled, a cold, brittle expression.

"It's just business, Marcus. Dad taught us well."

She disappeared into the upper darkness.

Marcus was alone in the shaft, holding the vial of epinephrine. He looked at the ledger-shaped void in his waistband. He had lost the proof. But he had gained a terrifying insight into the Vance family dynamic.

It wasn't a family. It was a shark tank.

He opened the panel and slipped back into the Trophy Room. It was empty. The noise was coming from the bedroom down the hall.

Marcus ran. He burst into the bedroom just as Julian was raising a heavy candlestick over Arthur's prone body.

"Stop!" Marcus shouted.

Julian spun around, wild-eyed. "You! Where were you?"

"Getting this," Marcus said, holding up the vial. "He's in cardiac arrest. Move!"

He pushed past Julian and injected the epinephrine directly into Arthur's thigh.

Nothing happened for a second. Then two.

Then Arthur gasped. A ragged, choking sound that filled the room. His eyes flew open, wide and terrified.

He looked at Julian. Then at Marcus.

His gaze dropped to Marcus's waist. He saw the bulge where the ledger used to be was gone.

He tried to speak, but only a gurgle came out.

But then, slowly, a smile spread across his face.

He lifted his hand. He pointed at Marcus. Then he closed his fingers into a fist.

*You have nothing.*

He knew. He knew Sarah had it.

He gripped her wrist with bruising force, his nails digging in, proving his weakness is a lie.