SHE THOUGHT NO ONE SAW HER PUSH HER PREGNANT DAUGHTER-IN-LAW OFF THE CLIFF—UNTIL THE COLD DEAD HAND ON HER SHOULDER SPOKE!

They kicked open the heavy oak doors of Blackwood Lodge, moving through the cavernous great hall where broken champagne glasses and abandoned decorations from the fateful gala still lay frozen under a blanket of dust and drifted snow.

The floorboards groaned beneath their tactical boots as they reached the observation deck—a massive cantilevered glass and steel terrace suspended directly over the four-hundred-foot vertical cliff face.

Beyond the glass, the blizzard was an impenetrable void of swirling white and roaring wind.

Sitting in a high-backed leather chair at the very edge of the glass floor, wrapped in an exquisite white mink coat that contrasted violently with the bruised, soot-stained skin on her face, sat Victoria Sterling. In her hand, she swirled a crystal glass of amber scotch.

On the table beside her rested not a gun, but a heavy military-grade remote detonator with a blinking green digital readout.

"You're late, Daniel," Victoria said without turning around, her voice echoing coldly off the glass walls. "I expected a former Black Watch operative to navigate a simple blizzard in half the time."

Daniel raised his rifle, aiming directly between her shoulder blades. "Stand up, Victoria. Keep your hands where I can see them, or I put three rounds through your spine."

Victoria chuckled—a dry, rasping laugh that ended in a harsh cough. She turned slowly in the chair, facing them. Her eyes were sunken, rimmed with red, but they gleamed with the terrifying, manic brilliance of a cornered demon.

"Shoot me, Daniel," Victoria challenged, holding up the remote detonator between two slender, trembling fingers. Her thumb rested lightly on the red toggle switch. "Go ahead. The charges are set directly into the support pylons beneath this glass deck. Twelve blocks of C4, anchored into the bedrock. If my thumb slips off this pressure switch... the entire cantilever collapses into the ravine."

Julian stepped forward, tears freezing on his cheeks as he stared at the woman who gave him life. "Mother... please. Look at what you've done. Look at what you've become! Surrender... please, just let it end!"

Victoria looked at Julian with an expression of withering disgust. "You are no son of mine. You're an Eleanor Vance sympathizer. A weakling who surrendered thirty years of empire for a woman who will never truly love you."

She turned her gaze onto Emily, who stood holding baby Daniella tight beneath her heavy winter coat.

"Look at you, Emily," Victoria whispered, her voice dripping with venomous envy. "You clawed your way out of the ice. You carried that wretched brat through the freezing cold. You thought you beat me. But you don't know the truth, do you?"

Emily stepped forward, unyielding, her hand gripping the revolver inside her pocket. "The truth is you're a murderer, Victoria. You killed my mother. You tried to kill me. And tonight, you die alone."

"I killed your mother because she was a thief!" Victoria screeched, her voice cracking with insane fury. "And the biggest thing she ever stole from me... was you, Emily!"

The entire room seemed to freeze. The howling wind outside suddenly felt dead and distant.

Emily stopped in her tracks, her breath catching in her throat. "What... what did you say?"

Victoria threw her head back and laughed—a sound of sheer, unadulterated madness that echoed off the shaking glass.

"Eleanor was barren, you stupid girl!" Victoria hissed, her eyes locking onto Emily with venomous triumph. "Thirty years ago, I gave birth to twins. Julian... and a baby girl I gave away to be hidden because she was born out of wedlock with my father's greatest rival! Eleanor Vance didn't steal money—she stole my daughter! She ran with you, raised you as her own, and gave you her name!"

Julian staggered backward, his face turning paper-white. "No... no, that's impossible... that's a lie!"

"Check the Swiss vault, Julian!" Victoria shrieked, tears of psychotic rage streaming down her face. "Check the birth records! Emily isn't your wife... she is your twin sister!"

The horror slammed into the room like a physical blow. Emily felt the ground beneath her vanish; the air rushed out of her lungs in a sickening, suffocating wave of nausea and revulsion.

Before anyone could speak, before Daniel could process the monstrous revelation, the sound of heavy boots crunched through the snow behind them in the main hall.

Daniel spun, his rifle raised—

A figure stepped through the shattered oak doors, shrouded in a heavy arctic parka, holding an automatic shotgun leveled directly at Daniel's chest.

The hood dropped.