At 2:13 a.m., the nursery camera captured her slipping Leo's medicine into her pocket.

The rain returned to the city that evening, washing the streets in a cold, unforgiving gray. I sat in the cramped interrogation observation room at the precinct, staring through the two-way glass. Detective Grant stood beside me, his jaw set in a tight, angry line. His usual calm demeanor had completely evaporated, replaced by a simmering, dangerous frustration.

"I got the call an hour after you showed me that golden card," Grant said, his voice barely above a gravelly whisper.

He handed me a thin manila folder. I opened it to find a series of grim crime scene photographs. They showed the interior of a maximum-security prison cell. Lying on the concrete floor was the guard we had arrested at the warehouse—the same man who had laughed and told us that the Chairman was a title passed down through generations.

"The warden is calling it an apparent suicide," Grant explained, pointing a thick finger at the bruising around the man's neck in the photograph. "They say he managed to hang himself with a bedsheet while the security cameras were experiencing a convenient, three-minute technical glitch."

"You don't believe it's a suicide," I said, handing the folder back.

"Not for a damn second," Grant growled. "Look at the angle of the ligature marks. They're horizontal, not angled upward. Someone came into his cell, stood behind him, and strangled him with a garrote. Then they staged the scene to look like he did it himself."

Detective Ruiz walked into the room, holding a steaming cup of coffee. She looked exhausted, her dark eyes shadowed by long hours of reviewing security footage.

"I tracked the camera malfunction," Ruiz reported, leaning against the doorframe. "It wasn't a mechanical failure. The system was hacked externally. Someone routed a localized EMP command through the prison's own firewall. Whoever ordered this hit has access to state-level cyber infrastructure."

I felt a cold dread pool in my stomach. "The new Chairman is tying up loose ends. He’s silencing anyone who knows how the succession works."

"And he's sending a message to you," Grant said, turning to face me. "That pocket watch wasn't just a threat. It was a demonstration of reach. He wanted you to know that he was watching the exact moment we thought we had won. You need to double the security at the mansion. Tonight."