Full Story : How two women outsmarted a cold-blooded monster.

Chapter 4 : The Inside Man

The next two weeks at the Sunningdale Estate were suffocating. The perimeter was heavily guarded, and Lily was homeschooled under the watchful eye of elite tutors and Maria. Eleanor threw the entire weight of her tech empire's resources into uncovering Richard’s shadow network.

Using her company’s advanced AI algorithms, Eleanor’s private intelligence team began parsing through thousands of encrypted financial records, searching for anomalies connected to Richard's frozen assets.

Maria, however, knew that technology could only go so far. Sometimes, to catch a snake, you had to go into the pit. Without telling Eleanor, Maria requested a visitation with the one person who knew all of Richard’s darkest secrets: Vivian.

Vivian was housed in a minimum-security women’s facility upstate. When she walked into the visitation room, Maria barely recognized her. The glamorous, arrogant woman who had worn high heels to a murder attempt was gone. In her place was a hollow, defeated shell of a person, her hair graying and her eyes constantly darting in fear.

"I didn't expect you," Vivian said, sitting down across from Maria. "Have you come to gloat?"

"I don't care enough about you to gloat, Vivian," Maria said coldly, leaning closer to the plexiglass. "I'm here because Richard is trying to reach Eleanor and Lily. He has someone on the outside."

Vivian paled, her hands shaking as she gripped the phone. "If he knows I'm talking to you, he'll have me killed in here."

"If you don't talk to me," Maria countered, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "I will personally ensure the warden transfers you to general population in a maximum-security facility. You helped him try to kill my family once. This is your only chance at redemption. Give me a name."

Tears streamed down Vivian’s face as the reality of her miserable existence crashed down on her. "He always kept an insurance policy," she sobbed. "A fixer. A man who specializes in psychological warfare and corporate sabotage. His name is Silas Vance. Richard paid him five million dollars in offshore crypto just days before the incident at the penthouse. It was a contingency plan in case we failed."

Maria’s eyes narrowed. "What is Vance's objective?"

"To break Eleanor," Vivian whispered, terrified. "To make her paranoid, to make her isolate herself, and eventually... to take the child. Richard wants Eleanor to suffer the loss of her legacy."

Maria left the prison with a cold, burning fury. She immediately relayed the information to Eleanor and Marcus. The intelligence was the missing puzzle piece Eleanor’s algorithms needed. Within hours, the AI had flagged Silas Vance—a ghost in the system, a former mercenary turned corporate mercenary.

Worse, the system detected a digital breach attempting to bypass the estate's firewalls. Silas wasn't just sending letters; he was probing their defenses, looking for a weak point.

"He's trying to hack the smart-home grid," Eleanor said, standing in her command center, her fingers flying across the holographic keyboards. "He wants to disable the perimeter alarms."

Marcus drew his weapon, checking the magazine. "Do we call the authorities?"

"No," Eleanor said, a fierce, protective maternal instinct completely taking over. "If we call the police, Silas vanishes back into the shadows. Richard will just hire someone else. We need to catch Silas in the act, on our turf, on our terms. We are going to let him think he’s won."