Chapter 1 - The Shadow of the PastThe roar of the helicopter blades deafened everything, but the man’s voice echoed directly inside my head.
“Emma…” he whispered, his eyes filled with a mixture of raw agony and desperate relief. “I finally found you.”
Pain was ripping through my ribs with every shallow breath I took, but the confusion burned hotter. “Who… who are you?” I gasped, my lips cracked and numb from the sub-zero wind.
“My name is Gabriel Vance,” he said, his hands moving with military precision to wrap me in a thermal heating shroud and secure my fractured spine. “I’m your uncle. Your mother’s twin brother. I’ve been looking for you for fifteen years, Emma. But there’s no time. You’re bleeding, and your baby’s heart rate is dropping. We have to go now.”
As the rescue winch pulled us up toward the dark belly of the unsanctioned helicopter, I looked down at the icy ledge one last time. Blood stained the white snow—a crimson marker of where Emma Carter was supposed to have died.
Inside the airborne medical bay, a team of private surgeons went straight to work. Monitors beeped frantically.
“She has internal bleeding!” a doctor yelled over the turbine engine. “Fetal distress! We need to perform an emergency C-section right now, or we lose them both!”
“Do whatever it takes!” Gabriel ordered, his voice trembling as he gripped my icy hand.
I looked into the eyes of this stranger—a man who looked so much like the faded photograph tucked inside my mother’s old diary. “Save my baby…” I choked out, tears freezing on my cheeks. “Don’t let Michael win.”
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“He won’t,” Gabriel swore, his blue eyes turning to pure steel. “I promise you, Emma. He think he just inherited fifty million dollars. He has no idea he just started a war with the Vance family.”
Anesthesia surged into my veins. The blackness swallowed me whole once more, but this time, it wasn’t the cold hands of death—it was the warm promise of retribution.
