The tension inside Newman Enterprises was suffocating, a nearly tangible fog that wrapped itself around the executive suite and refused to lift. The city below hummed with life, oblivious to the storm building inside the mahogany walls. Nikki Newman moved like a woman on a tightrope, each step measured, her hands trembling as she rifled through drawers and files she had no business touching. But desperation had stripped caution from her. Tonight, she wasn’t just Nikki Newman—the loyal wife, the matriarch. She was a woman who had glimpsed the abyss her husband was preparing, and she knew she couldn’t stand idly by.

Her fingers brushed the metallic edge of a hidden USB drive tucked beneath files labeled Project Goliath. The AI initiative Victor had always denied. The program designed to cripple the Abbott legacy, a digital weapon capable of ruining lives with the push of a button. Nikki’s breath caught as she lifted it, her heart hammering. “Why, Victor?” she whispered, her voice barely audible, as if saying it aloud could somehow undo the betrayal. “Why do you always have to take it this far?”

The room suddenly shifted with a presence that froze her blood. “My baby,” Victor’s low, commanding rumble filled the space. Nikki spun to see him in the doorway, his figure dark against the dim corridor light. He didn’t look enraged—he looked disappointed, the kind of disappointment that pierces deeper than anger. The USB slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the desk.

Victor entered slowly, closing the door with a definitive click. His gaze was unyielding, a predator who had finally cornered his prey. “You are ransacking my private office. Conspiring against your own husband,” he said, each word deliberate.

“I’m not conspiring,” Nikki cried, retreating until her hips hit the desk. “I’m trying to stop you—from destroying Jack, from destroying Jabot. From destroying yourself!”

“Jack Abbott?” Victor spat the name like venom. “He manipulates you, Nikki. Uses your loyalty to poison you against me.”

“No,” she shot back, her voice trembling. “This is about morality. About stopping a weapon that could ruin lives! Innocent employees, families, people who have no part in your vendettas. This isn’t just business anymore—it’s monstrous.”

Victor’s expression hardened. “Business is war. And in war, casualties are inevitable.”

At that moment, panic flared in Nikki’s chest. Weeks of stress, sobriety battles, and fear for her family erupted into instinct. Her hand flew to her purse on the nearby chair, pulling out the small revolver she had been carrying, a relic of a past threat that suddenly felt all too relevant. “Stay back!” she shrieked, the gun shaking violently in her grip.

Victor froze, eyes widening in shock. “Nikki… put that down. I just want the drive.”

“I want to stop this!” she screamed. “You’d destroy everyone to win a war with Jack Abbott!”

Victor advanced, testing her resolve. “You would shoot me? Your husband, the father of your children?”

Nikki’s finger tightened on the trigger. Her chest constricted, a storm of fear and moral conviction swirling into a single, irreversible decision. Bang!

The gunshot echoed through the office like a clap of thunder. Victor staggered back, clutching his left shoulder as dark blood seeped through the fabric of his suit. Nikki’s knees buckled as horror washed over her. “Victor!” she sobbed, dropping the gun, her hands hovering over his wound, trembling to touch him.

Victor sank into a chair, breathing ragged, pain and betrayal etched across his face. “You… shot me,” he gasped.

“I didn’t mean to!” Nikki cried, tears streaming, makeup ruined, her matriarchal composure crumbling. “I just wanted to stop the AI, to stop the destruction, to protect our family!”

“You think I am a monster,” Victor wheezed, “but you’ve crossed a line too.”

“I’m your wife!” Nikki screamed. “I’m the mother of your children! You don’t get to decide what I can handle—or who I get to protect! I will not stand by while you hurt innocent people!”

The revelation hit Victor with more weight than the bullet wound. Nikki knew the truth about his manipulations, not only against Jabot but also regarding their son, Nick, and the treacheries of Los Angeles. She had seen through the empire, the web of lies he had spun around her. And in that moment, Victor realized that control—the thing he had always prized above all—was slipping from his grasp.

“Call an ambulance,” Victor ordered, his voice rough but authoritative. “Tell them it was an accident, a mishap.”

Nikki scrambled, hands slick with his blood. The reality of what she had done—the violence, the betrayal, the near destruction of the man she loved—hit her with crushing intensity. And yet, beneath the terror, a quiet sense of triumph lingered: she had stopped the machine. She had prevented the AI from being unleashed.

Within the hour, news of the shooting sent shockwaves through Genoa City. The press framed it as an accidental discharge, but the family knew the truth was far more dangerous. In the hospital waiting room, Victoria’s heels clicked a tense rhythm, Adam’s dark eyes tracked Nikki with suspicion, and Nikki sat, wrapped in a blanket, replaying every moment over and over in her mind. The phantom warmth of Victor’s blood clung to her, a visceral reminder that decisions made in desperation never leave cleanly.

When Nikki finally entered Victor’s private room, he lay propped up against pillows, shoulder bandaged, paler than usual but resolute. “Close the door,” he instructed. She obeyed, feeling the fragile balance of power in the room shift with each heartbeat.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered, kneeling beside him. “I just… I couldn’t let you cross that line. Not with Jack, not with anyone. I had to stop the AI. I had to save lives.”

Victor, still grasping her hand, nodded slowly. “I understand. For now.” His voice regained a hint of its old steel. “But this incident has exposed weaknesses—trust is broken. Someone else knew. Someone else might have been feeding Jack Abbott.”

Nikki exhaled slowly, leaning against the bed. She knew the truce was fragile, purchased with blood and fear. The rifts in Newman Enterprises ran deeper than anyone dared admit: secrets, betrayals, and vendettas threading through the family like poison. Yet as she rested her head against Victor’s chest, listening to the steady pulse beneath her fingers, she knew one truth: she had stopped him from crossing a line from which he—or anyone—might never recover.

Outside, Genoa City sparkled under the night sky, oblivious to the chaos inside Newman Enterprises. But inside, the war for the family’s soul was far from over. Every secret, every betrayal, and every carefully laid plan now hung over them like a blade, reminding them all that in the Newman empire, power is never given—it is taken, defended, and sometimes, fought for with blood.