The Basement

10:35 PM. Lane Mansion Basement.

The basement door was always locked. Grandpa's rule. "No one goes down there unless Lane Group is in danger," he used to say.

Tonight the padlock was broken. Lying on the floor.

The light inside was flickering yellow.

I held Alexander's hand tight. We didn't turn on the flashlight. We walked down the concrete stairs slowly, no sound.

The basement was not a basement. It was Grandpa's secret archive. Walls of old Starlight design ledgers from 1980, his war medals, my mother's first sewing machine, and in the middle — a big oil painting of Grandpa in his CEO chair.

The painting was crooked. Someone had moved it.

And Lisa was there.

She was no longer in the torn white qipao. She changed into black clothes, hair tied, wearing gloves. She had a crowbar in one hand, trying to pry open the old safe hidden behind the painting.

Next to her feet was a bottle of gasoline and a lighter.

She wanted to burn the evidence.

"Hurry... hurry..." she muttered, sweating. "David said Sophia knows... I have to burn it..."

I stepped into the light.

"Looking for this?"

Lisa jumped, turned around, crowbar raised.

"YOU! How did you—"

Alexander stepped in front of me instantly.

Lisa laughed, crazy laugh. "You think you won? You think your mother waking up changes anything? Sophia, you are still a little girl who needs a man to stand in front of her!"

"I don't need him to stand in front of me," I said, pushing Alexander gently aside. I walked up to her myself. "I need him to watch how I finish this myself."

Lisa swung the crowbar at me.

In my last life, I would have closed my eyes.

This life, I dodged, grabbed her wrist the way Alexander's bodyguard taught me this morning in the car — "Twist, not pull" — and twisted hard.

The crowbar fell. Lisa screamed.

I kicked it away.

"You killed my grandpa with medicine," I said calmly, voice shaking but hands steady. "You poisoned my mother for three years. You tried to kill my baby brother in her womb. And now you want to burn his will?"

Lisa knelt on the floor, holding her wrist. "Your father made me! He made me! He said if old man doesn't die, we never get money!"

"Show me the forged will."

She pointed to the safe, which was already half open. Inside was a yellow envelope and a stack of cash.

I opened the envelope. Second will. Dated one week after Grandpa died. Signature: Elena Lane gives up all shares to David Lane and Lisa Wang as guardians. Forged. Badly forged. My mother's signature was elegant, this one was shaky.

I took out my phone and took photos. Video. Every page.

"Thank you, Auntie Lisa. You just gave me attempted destruction of evidence and forgery. 10 years minimum."

Lisa suddenly grabbed the gasoline bottle and poured it on herself and on me.

"If I go to jail, you go with me! We burn together!"

She flicked the lighter.

Alexander moved faster than I could see. He kicked the lighter out of her hand mid-air. It flew across the basement and landed in a bucket of water.

Then he grabbed the gasoline bottle and threw it away.

"Enough," he said, voice like ice, looking at Lisa like she was already dead. "You touched my wife twice tonight. There won't be a third time."

He pressed his earpiece. "Come down. Two minutes."

Footsteps. 10 bodyguards came downstairs, including two female police officers Alexander had called from the hospital.

"Take her, and call the police for real this time. Charges: attempted murder, forgery, poisoning."

"No! No! David! David will save me! He loves me!" Lisa screamed as they handcuffed her.

As if on cue, the basement stairs made noise.

My father appeared at the top, in his pajamas, face pale, holding his phone.

"What's happening? I heard screaming... Lisa? Sophia?"

He saw Lisa handcuffed. Saw the open safe. Saw the photos on my phone.

He understood instantly.

"Sophia... I can explain... your grandpa... he was sick anyway... we just..."

"You just helped kill him?" I said, holding up the forged will. "Father, Mom just woke up. She told me you gave Lisa the medicine box."

My father fell to his knees on the stairs.

"Sophia, please! I did it for you! For us! Your grandpa was going to give everything to your mother, nothing to me! I am his son! I am a Lane! I—"

"You are not a Lane," I cut him off. "A Lane doesn't kill his own father. A Lane doesn't poison his own wife. A Lane doesn't sell his daughter for a $20M investment from Miller Group."

I walked up the stairs, past him, not touching him.

"From tonight, you are not Vice President anymore. You are suspended. The board will vote tomorrow to remove you from Lane Group completely."

"Sophia! You can't! I am your father!"

I stopped at the top of the stairs, looked back at him kneeling there, Lisa crying on the floor, the safe open.

"My father died three years ago with Grandpa. The man downstairs is just Mr. David Lane who used to be my father."

Alexander came up behind me, put his coat over my shoulders because the basement was cold, and took my hand.

"Let's go home, Mrs. Knight. Your mother needs you tomorrow. And you need sleep. You have a collection to launch in 5 days."

"What about them?" I asked, looking down.

He looked down at my father and Lisa, like looking at trash.

"My men will stay until police come. They are not worth your time anymore."

We walked out of the mansion, leaving the light on in the basement, leaving the painting of Grandpa finally straight again.

Outside, the night air was cold but clean.

In the car, Alexander drove himself, no driver. He said, "CEO Lane, you didn't need me tonight. You did it all yourself."

"I know," I said, leaning my head on the window, holding the jade ring. "But I like it when you stand behind me anyway. Just in case I get tired."

He smiled and reached over, holding my hand while driving.

"Then I will stand behind you forever. Just in case."

My phone buzzed. Hospital.

Dr. Patel: _Mrs. Knight, your mother is asking for you. She says she remembers where your grandfather hid the original Starlight diamond — worth $50M._

I looked at Alexander.

"Turn around. We go back to hospital."

"Yes, CEO Lane."

The car turned in the dark, heading back to the only real family I had left.