The monitor beside my hospital bed hummed a steady, rhythmic beep. Every pulse felt like a war drum. For three days, the world thought Emily Parker was dead, frozen beneath twenty feet of powder in the unforgiving Aspen wilderness. According to the state of Colorado, certificate number 88421, I was legally deceased.

My husband, Ethan Vance, was currently collecting my ghost.

Outside the window, a slate-gray rain washed over Denver, matching the temperature in my veins. My fractured wrist throbbed beneath a heavy white cast, and my torso was bound in tight medical wraps to stabilize my cracked ribs. But the physical agony was nothing compared to the quiet, calculating fury burning behind my eyes.

"They filed the paperwork at 9:00 AM sharp," Jonathan Cross said, stepping into the private VIP recovery suite.

He didn't look like a multibillion-dollar insurance tycoon at that moment. He looked like a father who had just been handed a loaded gun. His silver hair was brushed back, his tailored charcoal suit immaculate, and his eyes—the exact same shade of stormy gray as mine—were locked onto the legal documents in his leather folio.

"Fifty million dollars deposited into an offshore escrow account in the Cayman Islands," Jonathan continued, setting the folder on my tray table. "Managed by a shell corporation named Apex Holdings. Guess who owns ninety percent of its shares, Emily?"

A dry, humourless smile touched my cracked lips. "Brittany."

"Bingo," Jonathan murmured, pulling up a chair and sitting beside me. "Your loving friend and your grieving husband. They thought they pulled off the crime of the century. They buried a decoy body—or rather, Ethan managed to stage your disappearance so convincingly that the local sheriff's department suspended the physical search after forty-eight hours due to the avalanche risk. They assumed you fell into a crevasse."

"They don't know I'm awake?" I asked, my voice still a raspy whisper from the ice that had scorched my throat.

"The head of this hospital is under my direct payroll, and your chart has been sealed under a classified medical directive," Jonathan said, leaning forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "Officially, you do not exist. To the world, Emily Parker is a tragic victim of nature. But to Cross National Insurance—and to me—you are the primary witness of an attempted aggravated murder and insurance fraud conspiracy."

He reached out, his warm, steady hand covering my bruised fingers. "Tell me what you want to do, sweetheart. Do you want to ruin them legally? Do you want to strip them down to their last penny, take their homes, their cars, their social standing?"

I looked down at the wedding ring still loose on my left ring finger—a diamond Ethan had bought using a fake loan he claimed was for his startup company.

"Ruin them?" I whispered, shaking my head slowly. "No, Jonathan. Bankruptcy is too kind for people like that."

I lifted my gaze to meet my biological father's, letting him see the absolute darkness that had settled inside my soul the moment Ethan laughed as I fell.

"I want them to feel every single second of the terror I felt on that ledge," I said softly. "I want them to build their dream life on top of a foundation of glass—and then, when they think they've won everything... I want to drop the hammer."