BURY

3 AM

3:02 AM.

Vincent Valentino's house was not a house. It was a fortress made to look like a house.

White gates, white cameras, white stone. Same as Damon's, but older. Colder. The garden didn't have a dead tree. It had no garden at all. Just concrete.

Damon cut the engine two blocks away.

"Lawyer's safe is in Vincent's study," he whispered, handing me black gloves that were too big. "Study is past Marco's bedroom. We have to go through Marco's room to get there without triggering the hall sensor. Vincent sleeps with motion sensors in the hall. Paranoid."

"Through Marco's bedroom."

"Yes. Marco sleeps at 3 AM. Heavy sleeper. Pills."

He said it like he believed it.

We went over the wall. My black coat caught on the top. Damon lifted me over like I weighed nothing.

The side window to Marco's room was unlocked. Damon had paid someone. $10,000 for one window.

He slid it open.

Dark. Smelled like cheap cologne and cigarettes and the torn red dress.

Marco's bedroom was a mess. Clothes on floor, pink lipstick on the mirror - my lipstick from earlier? - and in the middle of the bed, Marco.

Awake.

Not asleep. Awake. Sitting up in bed, wearing only black sweatpants, the bottom half of the torn red dress tied around his chest like a joke, like a trophy. Chest bare, hair messy. Eyes wide, drugged but awake.

In his mouth - a folded paper. White. Blue ink visible at the edge.

My forged $47M signature. The lawyer's copy.

He had it in his mouth.

He smiled around it.

"Took you long enough," he mumbled through the paper, ink probably on his teeth now. "I've been waiting since midnight. Daddy said you'd come at 3 AM. He knows Damon. Damon always comes at 3 AM when he's desperate."

Damon had his gun up instantly, silencer on.

"Marco, take the paper out of your mouth and put your hands up."

Marco didn't. He laughed, paper still between his teeth, and leaned back on the bed.

"Make me, cousin. Shoot me and Daddy wakes up and the alarm goes and Lena goes to prison at 8 AM. You need this paper. Not a photo. The original. With her real forged signature that my father filed with the notary tonight. Without this, she is a felon."

I stepped forward before Damon could stop me.

"Marco. Give me the paper."

He looked at me, up and down, black coat, black gloves too big, silver dagger at my throat.

"Lena. You look better in black than red. Red was too... innocent. Black is you. When you begged - oh wait, that was Maya."

He took the paper out of his mouth, held it up. Wet at the corner, blue ink smudged slightly, but still readable: LENA CRUZ, $47,000,000.

"Do you know how long I practiced your name? Two weeks. L-E-N-A. Like a child writes it. Do you want it? Come get it."

He held it out, arm stretched, but too high for me to reach without climbing on the bed.

Damon grabbed my arm. "Don't. It's a trap. He wants you on the bed."

"I know it's a trap," I whispered back. "Everything in this house is a trap."

I climbed onto the bed anyway. One knee, then the other. Mattress sinking. Marco smelled like sweat and cologne and iron.

I didn't kiss it off him. I didn't play his game.

I grabbed his wrist - the one holding the paper - and twisted. Hard. The way they taught us in the group home when boys tried to take your food.

He yelped, surprised. Foster-kid strong, not gym strong. Different.

Paper dropped. Onto the red-dress fabric on his chest.

I snatched it, jumped off the bed.

At the same second, Marco grabbed my ankle, pulled. I fell, knee hitting floor.

Damon was there, gun to Marco's head in half a second, knee on Marco's chest, red dress fabric ripping again under his knee.

"Let her go."

Marco let go, hands up, laughing, even with a gun to his head.

"You've got it, Lena. Now what? You can't leave. Hall sensor. Daddy's awake downstairs waiting with his silver ring and his rosary. You think you break into a Valentino house at 3 AM and just walk out?"

As if on cue, downstairs, a door closed. Heavy. Old church door sound.

Vincent's voice, from downstairs, calm, praying: "Damon? Marco? Is that you? I heard a window."

Footsteps. Coming up.

Damon looked at me, at the paper in my fist - wet, real, original with notary stamp - at the window, at the door.

Two choices: window, 15-foot drop to concrete, alarm will trigger when we land. Or door, straight into Vincent, who had been waiting since 10 PM for me to come steal back my own name.

I made the third choice.

I went to Marco's closet, grabbed his white shirt - clean, ironed - and wrapped the $47M paper in it, then shoved it up inside my black coat, against my chest, under the silver dagger.

"Marco, where is the hall sensor off switch?" I whispered fast.

He smiled, bleeding from where Damon kneed him. "Why would I tell you?"

"Because if your father finds me here with this paper, he will kill Damon for bringing me. And if Damon dies, you never get the family ring. Your father will give it to his lawyer, not you. You want the silver ring, Marco? Tell me."

That hit. Marco's eyes flicked to the door, footsteps closer.

"Behind my mirror. Red button. But you have three seconds after you press it before it resets and screams."

Damon ran to the mirror, smashed it with his elbow - glass shattering - red button, pressed.

Silence. Then a beep. Three seconds.

We ran. Out of Marco's room, into the hall, past the study - I saw the open safe, empty now, because Marco had taken the paper - down the stairs.

Vincent was at the bottom of the stairs, in a white robe, rosary in hand, silver ring glinting. Not surprised. Waiting.

He looked at me, at my coat bulging where the paper was hidden against my heart.

"Did you get it, Lena?"

I didn't answer. Breathing hard.

Damon stepped in front of me, gun still up, but Vincent had two men behind him now, guns up too.

Standoff in a white fortress at 3:07 AM.

Vincent held out his hand, palm up, like a priest offering communion.

"Give me the paper, Lena. And I won't file the copy my lawyer already scanned. You walk out. No prison. We forget tonight. Or keep it, and I file at 8 AM and you run forever with Damon's name on your back too."

The paper was wet against my skin, under my coat, under the dagger blade that was also a weapon.

$47M forgery. Original proof. If I gave it back, I had nothing. If I kept it, I was a felon by sunrise.

Damon whispered without looking back: "Lena, whatever you do, don't give it to him. We can prove forgery with that."

Vincent smiled. "You have five seconds to decide who you trust, Lena. Him? He put a camera behind your mirror. Or me? I only put your name on $47M."

Five. Four. Three.

Outside, sirens. Not police. Vincent's private security, circling the house, lights flashing against the white stone.

We were trapped at the bottom of the stairs, paper against my heart, silver dagger cold, gun in Damon's hand shaking for the first time since I met him.