The rain hammered against the floor-to-ceiling windows of Cole Tower, each drop a tiny fist pounding the glass. I stood in the marble-floored lobby, watching Jason emerge from the private elevator with her.

Maren Green.

Even from across the cavernous space, the resemblance stole my breath. She looked exactly like the woman in the silver-framed photograph that Jason kept locked in his desk drawer—the one he thought I didn't know about. Indie Green. His first love. His dead love.

Except Indie was dead, and this woman was very much alive.

Maren's laugh carried across the lobby, light and musical, and I watched my husband's face transform into something I hadn't seen in the three years of our marriage. Wonder. The kind of unguarded joy that made my chest tighten with a feeling I refused to name.

I pressed my lips together, hard, and walked toward them.

"Jason."

He turned, and just like that, the warmth drained from his expression. His jaw clenched—that familiar tell when I'd interrupted something he deemed important.

"Savannah." My name came out flat. "This is Maren Green. Indie's twin sister. She's just returned from London."

Maren extended a delicate hand, her smile sweet enough to rot teeth. "You must be the wife. Jason's told me so much about you."

I seriously doubted that. I shook her hand anyway, feeling the coldness of her fingers even through her practiced warmth. Up close, the resemblance to the photos was uncanny, but something was different. Indie's eyes in those pictures had held light. Maren's glittered with something else entirely.

"Welcome back to New York," I managed.

"I've asked Maren to join Cole Enterprises," Jason said, already turning away from me, back to her. "She has an MBA from Oxford and extensive experience in corporate finance. She'll be taking over our financial operations."

The marble floor seemed to tilt beneath my feet. "Financial operations? Jason, that's—"

"Effective immediately, your household allowances will be suspended." His voice could have frozen the rain outside. "All financial requests go through Maren now."

I stared at him, waiting for the punchline that never came. "You're serious."

"Completely." He narrowed his eyes, and I saw it—that familiar suspicion that had poisoned our marriage from the beginning. "My mother was right about you, wasn't she? You married me to get access to Cole money. To spy on the company for her."

The accusation hit like a slap. We'd had this argument before, behind closed doors, but never in front of a stranger. Never with such cold finality.

"That's not—" My voice cracked. I swallowed hard, fighting the tremor in my hands. "Jason, I love you. I've never—"

"Love." He laughed, bitter and sharp. "Right. We'll see how long that lasts without the credit cards, won't we?"

Maren tilted her head, mock sympathy dripping from her features. "Oh, this is awkward. Should I give you two a moment?"

"No need," Jason said. "Savannah was just leaving."

I wanted to scream. To grab him by his thousand-dollar suit and shake him until he saw me—really saw me, not the corporate spy phantom his paranoid mother had planted in his head. Instead, I did what I'd learned to do in this marriage: I swallowed the pain and held my head high.

"Fine," I whispered.

I made it to the elevator before my phone rang.

The hospital's number flashed on the screen, and my stomach dropped. Mom. I'd been supposed to meet her for lunch today, but Jason had insisted I come to the office instead.

"Ms. Spencer?" The nurse's voice was professionally gentle, which somehow made it worse. "Your mother has been in an accident. A hit-and-run. You need to come immediately."

The phone nearly slipped from my shaking hands. "How bad?"

"Critical. The doctor will explain when you arrive, but—" A pause, heavy with meaning. "She needs surgery. Emergency surgery. The costs—"

"I'll handle it," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "I'm coming now."

I spun on my heel and ran back through the lobby, my heels clicking frantically against the marble. Jason's office. Twentieth floor. I stabbed the elevator button repeatedly, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Please. Please let him help. Whatever he thinks of me, he can't refuse this.

The elevator crawled upward, each floor an eternity. When the doors finally opened, I burst into Jason's office without knocking.

He looked up from his desk, irritation flashing across his face. "Savannah, I'm busy—"

"My mother." I pressed my lips together, fighting the tears that burned behind my eyes. My hands wouldn't stop shaking. "She's been hit by a car. She needs surgery now, Jason. Please. I need—"

"Money." He leaned back in his leather chair, his expression carved from ice. "Of course you do. What a convenient emergency."

"This isn't—Jason, she's dying—"

"Enough." He held up one hand, dismissing my mother's life with a casual gesture. "I told you. All financial requests go through Maren now. Take it up with her."

He returned to his paperwork as if I'd already left.

I found Maren in the executive suite down the hall, settling into an office that had been empty yesterday. She looked up as I entered, and I watched her register my tear-streaked face with something like pleasure.

"Savannah! What a surprise." Her voice carried that singsong quality, like she was talking to a child. She traced her fingers along the edge of her new mahogany desk. "How can I help you?"

I forced the words out, each one scraping my throat raw. "My mother needs emergency surgery. I need access to funds. Please."

Maren's smile widened. She opened a drawer, pulled out a single bill, and tossed it across the desk. It fluttered to the floor at my feet.

One hundred dollars.

"There," she said sweetly. "That should be more than enough for whatever little problem you have."

I stared at the bill on the carpet, then at the woman who'd thrown it there, and understood with perfect clarity: this was no accident. This was war.

And I was losing.

The hospital smelled like bleach and broken promises.

I sat in the plastic chair outside the ICU, that hundred-dollar bill crumpled in my fist. The nurses had stopped making eye contact with me three hours ago, when I'd handed them Maren's insult and watched their professional sympathy curdle into something else. Pity, maybe. Or contempt.

They'd moved Mom to a different ward. Not the gleaming private rooms on the upper floors where Cole Enterprises executives recovered from their skiing accidents and stress-induced exhaustion. The underfunded wing. The place where fluorescent lights flickered and the linoleum was cracked and the machines that went ping were older than my marriage.

"Ms. Spencer?"

The doctor's face told me everything before his mouth opened. I watched his lips move, heard words like complications and insufficient resources and we did everything we could, but they were just sounds. White noise beneath the roaring in my ears.

"Can I see her?"

He hesitated, then nodded.

Mom looked small in the narrow bed, her skin the color of old newspaper. The machines around her had gone quiet. Someone had already turned them off, already decided she was gone, and I hadn't been there. I'd been begging my husband for scraps while my mother died alone.

My hands shook as I reached for the locket around her neck—the vintage heirloom she'd worn every single day of my life. The only thing her own mother had left her. The only thing of value we'd ever owned.

The chain was still warm.

I pressed my lips together hard enough to taste blood, but it didn't stop the sound that ripped from my chest. Not a sob. Something rawer. The death rattle of the woman I'd been—the one who'd believed love required sacrifice, who'd thought if she just endured enough, proved herself enough, Jason would finally see her.

That woman died in this room too.

I clasped the locket around my own neck, feeling its weight settle where my heart used to be. The metal was cool now against my skin. I touched it once, twice, anchoring myself to something real.

"I'm going to find out who did this to you," I whispered. "I promise."

The grief was a living thing, clawing up my throat, but beneath it, something else crystallized. Cold. Sharp. Unbreakable.

Determination.

---

Jason was in his study when I got home, nursing a glass of amber liquid that caught the lamplight. Whiskey. The expensive kind he only drank when his stomach was bothering him. He'd been going through a bottle a week lately.

He looked up as I entered, his eyes narrowing. "Where have you been?"

"The hospital." My voice came out flat. Dead. "My mother died."

I waited for something. Anything. A flicker of remorse. A softening around his mouth. The Jason I'd married—the one I'd convinced myself existed beneath the paranoia and cruelty—would have stood up. Would have reached for me.

This Jason took another sip of whiskey.

"Convenient timing," he said.

The words hit like a physical blow. "What?"

"Don't play dumb, Savannah." He set the glass down with a sharp click. "You think I don't see what you're doing? Weaponizing this tragedy for sympathy? Trying to manipulate me into—what? Giving you access to Cole accounts? Proving my mother wrong about you?"

I stared at him, this stranger wearing my husband's face, and felt nothing. The grief that had consumed me in the hospital had frozen solid, a glacier in my chest.

"My mother is dead," I repeated slowly, testing each word.

"And I'm sorry about that." He didn't sound sorry. He sounded irritated, like I'd interrupted something important. "But life goes on. In fact, Maren's birthday party is this weekend. I expect you to attend."

My hand moved unconsciously to the locket at my throat. "You expect—"

"We need to keep up appearances." He clenched his jaw, that familiar tell. "The board is already asking questions about our marriage. About you. I won't have you embarrassing me by playing the grieving daughter while—"

"While what, Jason?" The glacier cracked, and something hot and terrible leaked through. "While you pour whiskey on your ulcers and pretend my mother didn't just die because your paranoia is more important than her life?"

His hand trembled slightly as he reached for the glass again. "Maren's party. Saturday night. Eight o'clock. Wear something appropriate."

He turned his back on me, dismissing me like I was one of his assistants.

I stood there, touching the locket, feeling its weight, and made a decision.

If Jason wanted appearances, I'd give him appearances. I'd smile at Maren's party. I'd play the dutiful wife.

And while I did, I'd watch. I'd listen. I'd gather every scrap of evidence I could find.

Because someone had killed my mother, and my husband's mistrust had helped them do it.

The old Savannah would have wept.

The new one started planning.

The ballroom of the Cole estate glittered like a jewelry box—all crystal chandeliers and champagne flutes catching light. I stayed near the marble pillars at the edge of the room, trying to become part of the architecture. My arm throbbed where I'd pressed concealer over the bruises from carrying Mom's casket three days ago. The locket rested heavy against my sternum, a weight that kept me tethered to something real.

Maren held court in the center of the room, draped in emerald silk that probably cost more than my mother's funeral. She laughed at something a board member said, tilting her head in that way she had—mock innocence wrapped around malice. Her eyes swept the crowd and landed on me.

Her smile widened.

"Savannah!" Her voice cut through the chamber music, singsong and sharp. "Don't hide in the shadows. Come say hello to the birthday girl."

Every head turned. I felt their stares like pinpricks—the board members who thought I was a gold digger, the socialites who'd never accepted me, the executives who answered to Maren now. I pressed my lips together and moved forward, my heels clicking against marble that probably cost more per square foot than my mother's life had been worth.

"Happy birthday," I managed.

"How thoughtful of you to come." Maren traced her fingers along the champagne flute in her hand. "Especially after your recent... loss. Jason told me you've been so emotional lately."

The crowd murmured. Sympathetic on the surface. Judging underneath.

"I wanted to show you something special," Maren continued, gesturing to a handler near the terrace doors. "A birthday present to myself. All the way from Southeast Asia."

The handler approached carrying a glass terrarium. Inside, coiled and gleaming, was a snake—easily six feet long, its scales catching the chandelier light in patterns of gold and black. The crowd oohed appreciatively.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Maren's eyes glittered with that same reptilian quality. "And so misunderstood. People think she's dangerous, but she's just... protective of what's hers."

She took the terrarium from the handler, her movements deliberate. "Would you like to hold her, Savannah?"

"I don't think—"

"I insist." The sweetness in her voice had teeth. "Unless you're scared?"

The challenge hung in the air. I watched Jason across the room, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed in that permanent suspicion. Waiting for me to embarrass him. To prove his mother right about me.

I reached out.

Maren's hand slipped—or seemed to slip. The terrarium tilted. The snake's head emerged, tongue flicking, and then it struck.

The pain was instant and electric. Fangs sank into my forearm, and I gasped, stumbling backward. Blood welled up hot and fast, soaking through my sleeve. The snake dropped to the marble floor, coiling, and the crowd scattered with shrieks that sounded more excited than alarmed.

"Oh no!" Maren pressed her hands to her mouth, her eyes dancing. "How clumsy of me. Someone call—well, actually, she's not venomous. Probably. The breeder said she was mostly harmless."

Laughter rippled through the crowd. Nervous. Entertained.

I pressed my hand against the wound, feeling my pulse hammer against my palm. The room tilted. I needed to leave. Needed to clean this, treat it, get away from these people who watched my pain like it was dinner theater.

I turned toward the exit.

Jason appeared in my path, solid as a wall. His face was carved from ice, but his hands trembled slightly at his sides—that tell he got when his stomach was bothering him. When the ulcers were eating him alive.

"Where do you think you're going?" His voice was low, dangerous.

"I'm bleeding, Jason. I need to—"

"You need to stop making a scene." He stepped closer, his breath smelling of whiskey. "Do you have any idea how this looks? You come to Maren's party, you insult her gift, and now you're going to run away like a victim?"

The blood dripped from my elbow onto the white marble. "I was bitten by a snake."

"Accidentally." His jaw clenched harder. "Maren already apologized. But you can't just accept it gracefully, can you? You have to make everything about you. Your mother. Your pain. Your endless need for attention."

Something hot and terrible surged up my throat. "My mother is dead because you wouldn't—"

"Enough." He grabbed my uninjured arm, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "You want to keep your personal accounts? You want your little fashion hobby to survive? Then you're going to walk back over there, get on your knees, and apologize to Maren for ruining her birthday."

I stared at him. This man I'd married. This stranger.

"On my knees," I repeated.

"Show some proper respect." His eyes narrowed to slits. "Or I'll make sure you have nothing left. No accounts. No business connections. No way to survive without me. Your choice."

The ballroom had gone quiet. Everyone watching. Waiting.

I touched the locket at my throat with my bloody hand, leaving a red smear on the vintage silver.

Then I walked back to Maren.

Her smile was radiant as I approached, her head tilted in that mockery of sympathy. She knew she'd won. She always knew.

I started to lower myself to my knees, the pain in my arm nothing compared to the glacier cracking in my chest.

"Wait," Maren said, her voice bright with discovery. "Is that a locket? How charming. Vintage?"

My hand moved instinctively to cover it. "It was my mother's."

"Oh, how perfect!" She clapped her hands together. "I've been looking for something exactly like that. For my collection. You should give it to me. As a birthday gift."

The world stopped.

"No," I whispered.

Maren's eyes glittered. "No?"

"It's all I have left of her."

"Jason," Maren called, her voice still sweet. "Your wife is being difficult again."

I watched him cross the room. Watched him look at my bleeding arm, at my face, at the locket I clutched like a lifeline.

"Give her the necklace, Savannah."

"Jason, please—"

"Security," he called, his voice carrying across the marble. "Lock the doors. No one leaves until my wife learns some manners."

The click of the locks echoed like gunshots.

Maren held out her hand, waiting.