My mother locked me in a room with five high-powered lawyers and expected me to sign away everything my father had left me. What she didn’t know was that I wasn’t the ordinary government employee my family had always dismissed me as. I was Colonel Sienna Sterling, commander of a specialized military intelligence unit, and while she thought she was cornering a grieving daughter, I was quietly counting the five attorneys around the table and waiting for them to discover that I had prepared an ambush of my own. –

False walls.

Double backs.

Compartments nobody noticed unless they knew where to press.

I closed my hand around the key.

“When can I access it?”

“You already can.”

He nodded toward his laptop.

“My associate is at the office.”

My mother’s head snapped toward him.

“What?”

Martin clicked a key.

The screen changed.

A live video feed appeared.

A young woman stood inside my father’s office beside his old drafting table.

Two cameras were visible behind her.

So was a uniformed private security officer.

Victoria went completely still.

The associate spoke through the laptop.

“Colonel Sterling?”

“I’m here.”

“I have the cabinet in view.”

Martin nodded.

“Proceed.”

The woman inserted a duplicate key.

Opened the lower drawer.

Removed the bottom panel.

Beneath it was a narrow steel compartment.

My father.

I could almost hear him saying, Never trust a cabinet that wastes six inches of depth.

The associate lifted out three ledger books.

A flash drive.

A sealed document pouch.

And a small digital recorder.

My mother whispered one word.