The penthouse reeked of Victor Lee's arrogance—expensive leather and stale cigar smoke clinging to the air like guilt. My lockpick trembled in the dim light. *Click.* The Monet swung aside, revealing a steel safe with a keypad that gleamed under my phone's flashlight.
**First try:** 9-3-0-1. My sister's birthday
*Error.*
**Fifth try:** The code from her last text to me.
*Error.*
**Ninth try:** The date of her murder.
The safe hissed open.
*"I found a hidden safe, cracked the combination, and retrieved documents labeled 'Erebus' and 'Nightshade'—my sister's code name."*
-The "Erebus" file stuck to my sweating palms—bank transfers with **judges' names** beside amounts that could buy a mansion. One date matched my sister's final article.
The "Nightshade" file had a **photo paperclipped to the kill order**: my sister mid-laugh at our last dinner, a red X over her face. Liu Chen's scrawl: *"Silence permanently. Burn the body."*
A floorboard groaned. Liu Chen leaned in the doorway, twirling a **serrated hunting knife**—the kind that leaves jagged wounds.
*"Nine tries?"* He tsked. *"Your sister guessed it on three."*