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F ROM THE LOOK L EONIE GIVES THE ENVELOPE, I KNOW INSTANTLY the worth of what I hold in my hand surpasses everything behind the vault door.

“You did your job well,” I commend her. “You couldn’t guide me outright, couldn’t negotiate with me directly.

Instead, you earned my trust, and you chose your moment.

When we returned from Norway, I suspected.

What you stole was never in the vault. The vault was the reward you were offering me, not the job.

You told me your real treasures were in the Cotswolds.

As you intended, the phrasing stuck with me. ”

The exhilaration of hope enters Leonie’s eyes.

“When Mia attempted her heist and the ring’s combination didn’t work, I realized I had the final piece of the puzzle,” I continue. “A combination to something precious, gifted to you by your husband, engraved on your wedding ring. You honeymooned in the Cotswolds. Everything fit. I took the bait.”

My hand is steady as I hold the envelope.

“I have a man in London, after all,” I say.

In the end, it had been easy. Abigail hacked Leonie’s property records.

With the address, I contacted my former Pawn.

When I impressed the importance of the errand, Peter McCoy was more than willing to venture into the English countryside, where he used the ring’s combination to open the lock in the Cotswolds cottage.

He flew into Zurich this afternoon with precious cargo.

Inexpressible relief filled me when I reunited with McCoy. On the premise of needing a heartbroken escape from Volenvell, I went down to the Rothbad café earlier today, where I found him enjoying himbeerkuchen . I wonder who recommended that.

McCoy looked exhausted, flight-weary, and very happy to see me. Like himself, in other words. His new fortune has fortified his cold-weather wardrobe, and I complimented him on his khaki peacoat. Then he produced the envelope I now hold in my hand.

“It was in the safe. Same combination as the one you gave me,” he explained. “Like she… wanted it to be found.”

I returned to Volenvell, promising him we could discuss my post–high school plans next week.

“It wasn’t memories you kept in your cottage.

It was this,” I say. “A list of everyone in the Knives and every illegal thing they did to join. The ultimate blackmail list. Nearly a hundred marks. What did you use it for, I wonder? Was there someone in particular you were searching for? If you’d released any of the information you found, you’d be dead. ”

I confirmed the contents the moment I returned to my room. The envelope’s value made perfect sense. What was it the Knives’ venerable chairman kept emphasizing? Information is everything , Otto counseled me.

Two names were missing, I noticed. Andrew and Dashiell Owens. I found this interesting. Whatever misdeeds or initiation requirements were recorded in the club’s ledger for my closest relatives, Leonie had expunged them. Even for the son she planned to send down for her heist.

“ Excellent work,” Leonie pronounces, her eyes shining with pride. It is the most earnest praise I’ve ever received from my father’s side of the family. “I knew you could do it. You are my heir, Olivia. In every way.”

Her declaration echoes my father’s. You are my legacy. Heiress to an empire of thieves.

With Dash, the comment felt like a retort, a recrimination, intended to steal my composure in retaliation for the money I stole from him.

With Leonie, it just feels… true.

I know, deep in my heart, which one is worse.

“Now all you have to do is plant this on Dashiell and contact your new friends in the Knives, and you can have everything ,” she says, her voice vibrating with excitement.

“You’ll be the hero of the club, and you can have Volenvell, the vault, every last piece of my legacy.

What’s more, you’ll have the revenge you sought against your father when you first stole from him.

They won’t kill him, with his public persona, his professional connections.

They already know he’s useful. He was one of them for ten years.

They’ll force him to do their bidding while taking everything he cares about from him. ” She shrugs. “It’s what they do.”

She steps closer to me. Not close enough to grab the envelope, of course.

“It’s everything you’ve ever wanted, my dear,” she says.

Clutching the white paper, I welcome her words.

I imagine the future they hold. The operational headquarters of my grandmother’s castle.

The names of those responsible for my grandfather’s murder.

With fond regrets to McCoy’s hopes for my undergraduate education, I would literally have the world to leverage for my own ends. “It is,” I admit.

She smiles. The warmth of family, lit with the shine of ambition.

I eye the gleaming doors.

“Or it was,” I say.

Leonie freezes.

“The Knives killed my grandfather,” I say slowly. “They threatened me. And you want me to deceive them? To protect you instead?”

“I want you to throw your father to them,” Leonie corrects, seething. “You’re already in danger if you’ve joined them, believe me.”

“What choice did you leave me? They’re already here , Leonie,” I insist, speaking fast. “They know everything . They will come for us. They—”

Explosions echo outside.

I jump, remembering the last time I heard explosions right outside the Volenvell vault. The panic that ignites in me is instant, primal and gripping.

Leonie has the same reaction. She clutches my arm, not the one with the envelope.

No, I remember how I felt down here just days ago.

With your life on the line, everything else—wealth, power, information—vanishes.

“It’s the fireworks. It’s midnight. That’s all,” Leonie reassures me. Reassures herself . “We’re safe.”

My heart hurtles. “We’re not ,” I insist, my hands shaking while I put together the pieces she hasn’t yet. “Didn’t you see him? The man who tried to get into the vault already? He’s here tonight. Mia’s crew.”

My grandmother’s cold facade cracks. “He’ll be thrown out. He’s no one.”

“He’s a Knife,” I reply. “Mia was working for the club when she tried to get into the vault. They were with her as club representatives and reinforcements. Think about it. How else could he have gotten out of jail so quickly? How could he be here? The Knives are already in your home. Watching you. Who knows how many of them are here. You aren’t safe,” I say. “None of us are.”

Her hand has become a claw on my arm. Her eyes dart to the stairwell, her conviction wavering.

“We will be,” she reasons, fighting to steel control into her voice.

“We just have to give them Dashiell,” she half orders, half implores.

“You have the envelope—He’s here. Say you—you found this in his room.

His childhood room,” she proposes frantically.

“Give them Dash,” she concludes. “We could still have everything.”

“Or you could give them me,” I say.

Now Leonie falters, not following.

I touch my necklace. The diamond. My grandfather’s gift.

“What if,” I suggest lightly, spinning my counterstory, “I was Andrew’s true heir?

We had a very special relationship. And I’m somewhat of a prodigy when it comes to theft.

What if my grandfather acted alone and then left me the list after his death?

Explains its disappearance without connection to you.

I have the list in my hands. Your name would be cleared. ”

Leonie blinks, frowning. “Dash is cleaner,” she protests. “But you…” She shakes her head. “You’re just a girl to them. They’d kill you in a heartbeat.”

“It’d be easy,” I agree. “It’s hard to miss the cliffs surrounding this castle.

Accidents happen. Underage drinking. New Year’s Eve, you know.

Or a dare from the friends everyone’s seen me with this week,” I consider calmly.

“They could kill me, and Interpol could collect my body from the mountaintop without anyone asking questions.”

My grandmother watches me now, open-mouthed.

“You’d be free. Tell me you didn’t consider it,” I finish.

She glares. Her hesitation says everything.

She doesn’t get the chance to reply. Up the stairwell, the West Tower door slams open. My father’s voice comes down to us. “Olivia! They’re coming!” He sounds desperate, out of breath.

It sends chills down my spine. I’ve heard Dash careless and furious, lazy and shrewd, charming and cunning. I’ve never, never heard my father sound scared. Until now, this very moment, I wouldn’t have thought him capable.

“The Knives—” he starts.

Then a thud. Powerful. Hefty. He grunts, half gasps. Like he’s been hit.

The stairwell door slams shut. Pounding footsteps follow. Then Dash crashes into the dungeon, his face bloody. “I locked us in,” he pants. “But… they’re coming back. We don’t—I don’t—I don’t know how long we have.”

The sight of crimson running chaotic down my father’s face stops my heart. I wanted to hurt him once. Never like this.

“What do you mean?” Leonie shrills. “Where’s Otto?”

Even now, Leonie—despite her impressive gamesmanship, her Owens signature cunning—hasn’t connected Otto Karlson to her decades-long surveillance. I have to hand it to the Knives’ premier. The guy knows how to run an operation.

She doesn’t know Otto won’t save us, and I can’t tell her. I won’t risk exposing his secret identity to Leonie. They’d kill you in a heartbeat.

Otto Karlson, with his sallow smiles, his genteel deception, his flawless manners, would give the order.

Dash looks to me. He’s gotten control of his windpipe. His voice comes deadly serious. “They don’t care about the vault anymore,” he utters. “They know we’re here. They just want revenge.”

“Did they get weapons inside?” I ask.

More explosions ricochet overhead. Leonie looks up, her eyes searching for the answer. Fireworks? Or… are the fireworks just cover for something sinister?

“I think it’s safe to assume yes,” Dash replies.

“Where’s—everyone?” I ask. “Why are you alone?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Jackson’s arrival threw everything off.”

“Someone will come for us,” Leonie murmurs. Her self-consolation sounds like an incantation, praying for a reality far from our own.

“Olivia—” Dash says.

“They might be too late,” I inform my grandmother coldly, controlling my hammering heart.

“Olivia,” Dash interrupts once more, pulling my gaze. His voice is something worse than desperate now—defeated. “I’m sorry,” my father says. “I tried.”

Even in the midst of everything, his sincerity holds my focus hostage. More firsts in our father-daughter relationship, I guess. I’ve caught my father cheating, endured his fits of impatience and the subsequent contrition my mom forced out of him.

I’m sorry. I tried.

Voices sound outside. Muffled shouts. Like orders, or warnings.

Leonie’s hand flies to her heart.

I fight to keep my nerves even. I’ll need every bit of wit and logic I have if I’m going to get through this. Heavy impacts pound above—someone slamming something into the West Tower’s heavy wooden door. Jackson’s warning rings in my ears as if I’ve heard an explosion.

Every bang echoes around the dungeon and through my chest. The Swiss watch of my heist winding down to midnight, literally and figuratively. The intruders will smash through the door eventually. It’s only a matter of minutes.

“The vault,” I say.

Leonie’s eyes shoot to me. “What about it?” she prompts impatiently.

My words come fast and frantic. “It… it could be like a panic room. Grace told me vaults like these can survive almost anything. It could keep us safe until someone comes.”

“No,” Leonie replies.

Fear cuts deep into my core.

No? Even now? The Owens matriarch is keeping us out of her diamond hoard even now ?

Dash rounds on her, evidently of similar mind. Vicious judgment comes much easier to my father than fear or contrition. “You’d damn us all just to keep your fortune safe? You pathetic, horrible woman,” he spits.

Leonie meets his gaze, unflinching. “Someone will come for us.”

More pounding echoes down the stairs. The door starts to splinter.

No. No. No. My stomach churns. I feel minutes narrowing down to seconds.

This isn’t how it was supposed to go. The plan—everything, crumbling around me, burying us in rubble.

What will happen to my crew? I want to believe they’ll find their way out, but—I can’t help, not trapped here.

With everything constricting, I look to—my father. My gaze locks with his.

“Dad,” I start. “I—”

His eyes widen.

Dad , not Dash .

Leonie is watching us, eyes darting from father to daughter—until she lets out a groan of frustration.

“Stop this,” she orders. “We aren’t dying. Not in my home.”

Swiftly, she moves to the vault. She starts spinning the dial, inputting the combination.

Knee-weakening relief rushes over me. Finally. Finally. I look to the shining vault door, our monolith of salvation—unable to ignore how my father’s gaze never leaves me, even in the moment of deliverance.

The lock disengages. Leonie cranks the handle.

The door opens wide, revealing what I’d longed to see, even if… not exactly like this.

In the shadows, the vault’s precious contents wait.