MY SISTER-IN-LAW PUSHED ME DOWN THE CHURCH STAIRS IN MY WEDDING DRESS—AND HER REASON WHY FROZE MY BLOOD

The rain had turned into a torrential downpour, washing the blood from the stone steps of the estate.

Paramedics swarmed the shattered conservatory, their shouts professional, clinical, and urgent. They loaded Julian onto a gurney, a plastic oxygen mask fogged over his pale lips, IV lines already pumping fluids into his veins.

"Is he going to make it?!" I screamed over the roar of the engines, holding onto the edge of the gurney, my hands still covered in his blood.

"He's stable for now, ma'am, but we need to transport him to Westchester Trauma immediately!" the medic shouted back. "Are you coming with us?"

I looked at the ambulance. I looked at the man I loved, fighting for his life behind the glass.

Then I looked out toward the dark, jagged cliffs at the edge of the estate—the rocky precipice that overlooked the churning, black waters of the Long Island Sound.

Through the flashing red and blue lights, I saw a lone, slender figure stumbling through the wet grass toward the cliff’s edge. Behind her, twenty yards back, Christian was closing the distance.

"Save him," I whispered to the paramedic, stepping back into the rain. "I have to finish this."

I didn't run like a victim. I ran like the daughter of David Hayes.

My bare feet tore against the wet gravel, the sprained ankle sending sharp needles of agony up my leg, but the adrenaline burned hot and pure in my veins. The wind off the sound whipped my soaked hair across my face as I broke through the treeline onto the open, granite promontory.

Victoria was trapped.

She stood at the very lip of the seventy-foot drop. Below her, the black ocean crashed violently against the jagged teeth of the rocks, white foam churning in the storm. Her designer clothes were shredded, her face smeared with mud and eyeliner, her auburn hair whipping wildly in the gale.

Christian stood ten feet away from her, his hands raised in a calming gesture, though his scarred face was set like stone.

"Step away from the ledge, Vicky," Christian yelled over the roar of the surf. "The marshals have the perimeter. There are no boats. There are no helicopters. It’s over."

"It’s not over until I say it’s over!" Victoria screamed, her voice cracking with pure madness. She saw me emerge from the trees, and her eyes flared with a lethal, obsessive hatred. "Look at her! The little builder's daughter! You brought her to destroy us, Christian! She infected this family!"

I stepped past Christian, stopping five paces from the edge. The salt spray stung my eyes, but I didn't blink.

"You didn't hate me because of a trust fund, Victoria," I said, my voice carrying over the thunder, cold and steady. "You hated me because my father was an honest man. And your entire life is a fraud."

Victoria’s chest heaved. A bitter, hysterical laugh tore from her throat.

"Honest?!" she mocked. "Honesty is a myth invented by poor people to comfort themselves when they freeze in the winter! My father built an empire! Christian was too weak to expand it! Julian was too soft to protect it! I was the only Vance who understood what power required!"

"Power?" I took a step closer. Victoria flinched, shifting her weight dangerously close to the crumbling edge of the granite. "You're not powerful. You're a coward who hid behind hitmen and forgeries. You kicked me down the stairs because you were terrified. You knew that the moment Julian loved someone outside your toxic web, you would lose control over him forever."

"He was *mine*!" Victoria shrieked, the raw, incestuous psychological possessiveness of her madness finally breaking to the surface. "Julian belongs to this house! He belongs to *me*! Not some nobody from Chicago with mud under her fingernails!"

"Julian survived your mother's bullet," I told her, letting the words strike her like stones. "He's alive, Victoria. And the last thing he saw before he passed out was the monster you really are. You didn't just lose the empire tonight. You lost your brother. You will spend the rest of your life in an eight-by-ten cell, and Julian will never, ever visit you."

The realization hit Victoria with the force of a physical blow. The manic fire in her eyes flickered, replaced by a sudden, hollow void of absolute ruin. She looked at Christian—the brother she had tried to incinerate. She looked at me—the woman who held Julian's heart.

Behind us, a dozen federal tactical agents crested the hill, their assault rifles raised, tactical lights cutting through the rain.

"Victoria Vance!" a loudspeaker boomed. "Step away from the ledge! Hands where we can see them!"

Victoria looked down at the black, churning water seventy feet below. The cold Atlantic that had almost claimed Christian four years ago was waiting for her.

She looked back at Christian, a grotesque, tragic smile spreading across her lips.

"Tell Julian..." she whispered, her voice barely carrying over the wind, "that he was always my favorite."