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As soon as we step off the elevator, I hear an authoritative woman’s voice say, “Sebastian King, I am placing you under arrest for conspiracy to commit fraud, bribery of a federal official, and obstruction of justice.”

I arrive just in time to see the agent standing beside Sebastian pull a pair of steel cuffs from his belt.

“Turn around and place your hands behind your back, Mr. King.”

“Wait! Stop! Don’t touch him!”

Everybody turns. I’ve taken them by surprise and I burst through their line, using my momentum to take me through the doorway straight into Sebastian’s office. I must look wild: my hair a mess, my chest heaving, my body sweaty and shaking from adrenaline. Jesse is behind me, panting and pale.

My eyes meet Sebastian’s. The agents have recovered from their shock, and Jesse and I are suddenly surrounded.

The agent preparing to cuff Sebastian gestures angrily at me. “Ma’am, step back. This is an active federal operation.”

“You’re arresting the wrong man,” I gasp, ignoring the agent entirely and marching straight toward Sebastian.

“Isabella, get out of here,” Sebastian hisses, his voice rough. “Take Jesse and go—now.”

“No!” I slam my laptop onto Sebastian’s desk, right on top of the arrest warrant.

“Ma’am, I’m warning you—” the agent starts.

“You’re arresting the wrong man, and I have proof.” I log in to my laptop, then point at a line of code on the screen. “See this login?”

“It’s a placeholder,” Sebastian says.

“It’s what we were looking for,” I correct him. “I had the hacker look through everything again, just to be sure, and he ran the source code underneath the scrubbed logs and the bribe authorization. It isn’t an unknown employee ID. It’s a hard-coded executive override—19-94-JK.”

The blood drains from Sebastian’s face as the FBI agent’s expression tilts from hard to curious.

“Sebastian?”

I can’t tell how furious he is with me for outing what he’s worked so hard to hide. But I can’t let his father get away with this. I can’t sit back while Sebastian takes the fall and two companies go down.

“The King Corporation went public in 1994,” Jesse says quietly.

“JK stands for Julian King,” Sebastian adds. “It’s his master key.”

“Your father.” My voice is fierce. Our eyes lock. “We have the proof that Julian King paid off the DOJ special agent, not Sebastian. He planted the digital trail that made it look like it all came from Sebastian. He wasn’t just trying to cover for someone else. He was setting his own son up to take the fall for everything. You can’t deny it anymore, Sebastian. Don’t let him get away with this.”

Sebastian looks from the screen to his youngest brother. “Jesse?”

Jesse’s eyes glisten before he buries his face in his hands. “I’m sorry, Seb. I’m so sorry. I lost so much money, and Oliver from Corinth Capital was threatening to expose me unless I gave them the valuation model for Anchorstone. So, I stole it and gave it to them. But then I went to Dad because I was in so deep and Oliver still wasn’t letting me go. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Tell him the rest,” I urge him softly.

Jesse looks up, his face now tear-stained and pathetic. “Dad said he’d fix it. He made the payment to the DOJ guy to make sure there was no investigation and gave me money to cover the debts.” Jesse takes a shuddering breath. “I don’t know what he did after that; he wouldn’t tell me. I swear I don’t know the rest. But Dad said you were strong enough to deal with the fallout. He said you were the ‘good soldier.’”

The silence that follows is absolute. The FBI agents exchange glances as something inside of Sebastian fractures. I can see the shattering devastation behind his eyes. All the years of trying to please his father, of burying his own humanity to be the ruthless COO Julian wanted, of sacrificing his own happiness. He’s realizing it was all for nothing.

He was never his father’s heir. He was Julian’s human shield, his whipping boy, and he never would have gotten the approval from his father that had driven so much of his life, no matter what he did.

All he ever got for his trouble was a chance to serve as the fall guy, to be a “good soldier.”

I turn to the arresting agent and find myself looking at Special Agent Olivia Mercer, the woman who interviewed me the morning Archer was raided. We measure each other for a brief moment.

“Does that give you enough cause to give us a few minutes alone here?” I ask quietly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Aaron slip in, his gaze flicking between his brothers, who are both falling apart in their own way.