There was an emergency parachute pack there.

"Juliette, pull the cord!" Richard yelled.

My hand shook as I clawed for the rip cord. The parachute bloomed open above us, instantly slowing our descent.

With every ounce of strength left in me, I wailed toward the helicopter, "Theodore, you have to save Dad, or you'll regret this for the rest of your life!"

Theodore merely sneered, raising his sniper rifle once more. This time, the muzzle was aimed at my wrist.

"My dad is enjoying his life on a cruise, but you… You're about to learn what it feels like to lose those closest to you!"

The crack of the rifle echoed in the air before the bullet tore through my wrist.

The pain drained the strength from my hand in an instant, and Richard fell toward the bottomless cliff like a kite with its string cut.

"Dad!"

The scream that tore from my throat was the most harrowing sound I had ever made.

My vision went dark, and I nearly passed out. The basket hung precariously by a single, fraying cable, swaying over the cliff.

Beside me, Margaret lay unconscious, her fate uncertain.

Not far away, Theodore and Natalie sat comfortably inside the helicopter, casually sipping red wine as if they were merely watching a performance.

Natalie clapped her hands, and a drone carrying a black metal box hovered toward us.

From a distance, she smiled at us and said, "I heard killer bee venom can stimulate the heart, Ms. Kane. I'm only trying to help save her."

The box opened above us. Hundreds, then thousands of black killer bees swarmed out.

Their buzzing sent a chill running down my spine as the swarm rushed toward us.

Ignoring the pain in my wrist and the weight of my own despair, I threw my battered body over Margaret and shielded her as tightly as I could.

That was when I saw Richard's briefcase. It had fallen into the corner of the basket and gotten wedged there. The zipper had split open, revealing the edge of a metal device inside.

Recognition struck me. It was the military-grade drone signal jammer Richard's company had just developed, the one they hadn't announced to the public yet.

Only yesterday, he had boasted with pride that once activated, every drone within a ten-mile radius would be rendered useless.

In an instant, the 1,000 drones that had been hovering so menacingly suddenly went dead.

Like headless chickens, they lost all control, colliding into one another in mid-air before plunging into the depths of the cliff.

The smiles on Theodore and Natalie's faces stiffened.

Theodore immediately sensed that something was wrong. This was absolutely not technology that ordinary civilians could get their hands on.

Panic finally broke through his composure as he demanded, "What did you do? What is that thing?"

He lifted the sniper rifle again, his eyes burning with a murderous rage. He leveled the muzzle at my head, snarling, "You bitch! You ruined my proposal. I'm going to kill you!"

He pulled the trigger without hesitation.

I closed my eyes and waited for death.

But instead, a sharper, clearer crack echoed through the air.

A second bullet came flying in at greater velocity from the side and struck Theodore's bullet in midair with perfect accuracy, shattering it into a spray of brilliant sparks.

My eyes snapped open, only to see that five pitch-black attack helicopters marked with golden griffin emblems had appeared out of nowhere.

They descended menacingly, surrounding Theodore's private helicopter.

A hatch on one of the attack helicopters swung open. A tall man in a military uniform rappelled down from the helicopter and landed steadily on Theodore's aircraft.

With a heavy punch, he sent Theodore crashing to the floor before seizing the rifle from his hands in one fluid motion.

"Theodore, how dare you!"

The voice carried across the air, cold and commanding, and the man's gaze was sharp enough to cut.

It was Leonard Shaw, Theodore's uncle.

Completely dazed from the blow, Theodore stared at Leonard and still tried to talk his way out of it.

"Uncle Leonard, thank God you're here! It was Juliette. That woman is insane. She kidnapped my parents because she wants the Shaw family fortune, and she's the one controlling those drones!"

Leonard didn't waste a second listening to his excuses. He merely gave a cold wave of his hand.

A professional rescue team rappelled down from the sky in an instant, pulling Margaret and me out of the buckling basket.

At that point, Margaret's life was still hanging by a thread.

The moment a paramedic parted the matted hair from her face, now swollen and red from the stings, Theodore looked as if he'd been struck by lightning.

He froze dead in his tracks.

Every drop of color drained from his face. His lips trembled, but the sound that came out of him was barely held together.

"M-Mom… what are you doing here?"

Leonard looked down at him chillingly, as if staring at a dead man walking.

"The watch on Richard's wrist is embedded with a high-level distress signal exclusive to the Shaw family. The moment it's activated, I receive it as long as I'm within a hundred-mile radius. Theodore, take a wild guess. What else did I receive besides the distress signal?"

Before the entire crowd, Leonard produced a military tablet and hit play.

The screen was filled with the raw, unfiltered audio and video feed captured by the black box of Theodore's own helicopter.

It captured everything, including Theodore's instruction to ram the hot air balloon, his vicious conversation with Natalie, and the moment he shot his own father, the way he forced me to sign the agreement, and the moment he released the killer bees.

Every syllable and every frame was documented. There was no way to deny any of it.

The truth was laid bare before everyone.

Theodore turned white as a sheet, his legs giving out beneath him as he crashed onto the floor with a heavy thud.

Realizing how badly things had turned, Natalie spun around and tried to run back into the cabin. However, two massive security guards caught her, dragging her back effortlessly and slamming her onto the floor.

Just then, the search and rescue team down on the cliff reported back.

"We've found Mr. Richard Shaw on a slope below the cliff. H-He's still alive!"

A rush of relief flooded my chest, but the next sentence made my heart plummet.

"But he took a massive blow to the head, and there's severe intracranial bleeding. He's… already in a vegetative state."

The moment those came through, Margaret drifted back to consciousness.

She didn't cry, nor did she cause a scene. She merely stared at her own son with hollow, empty eyes.

Then, summoning every last ounce of strength, she raised her hand and delivered a stinging slap across Theodore's face.

The sharp crack seemed to shatter the last of Theodore's defenses and drain the remaining life from her. She went rigid and collapsed backward before losing consciousness again.

…

When I woke up, I was in one of the best private hospitals owned by the Shaws.

The top surgeons had already operated on my wrist, but the prognosis was grim. The nerve damage was permanent. I would never again be able to hold a pen to sign those beautiful, steady names that had once signaled my victories.

Margaret sat by my bedside.

Her hair had turned grey overnight. The gentle warmth that used to fill her eyes was gone, replaced by a hollow, chilling stillness.

She slid an old signet ring engraved with a griffin onto my good hand.

"Juliette, this token belongs to the head of the Shaw family. From now on, the Shaws answer to you. I'm exhausted, and I'm done. I only want one thing now."

She looked at me, enunciating every word with chilling resolve. "Make them wish they were dead."