The brake lights ahead were a river of red, bleeding into the wet asphalt. Traffic on the Long Island Expressway was grinding to a halt. It was the perfect excuse, but Dawn needed more than traffic. She needed a medical emergency.

She pulled down the visor and slid the cover off the vanity mirror. The light automatically flicked on, illuminating her face.

It was strange to see herself like this. Twenty-four years old. Her skin was pale, translucent almost, without the gray undertone of malnutrition. But it was her eyes that held her attention. They looked old. They looked like they had seen things that shouldn't exist.

She raised her right hand into the light. She spread her fingers, then curled them into a fist. She did it again. Flexion. Extension. The movements were smooth. The tendons danced under the skin.

She closed her eyes and visualized the procedure for a craniotomy. The steps flowed through her mind like a favorite song. Incision. Flap. Dura. The knowledge was there. The muscle memory was there. They had taken her license, destroyed her reputation, and locked her away, but they couldn't cut the skill out of her brain.

She was still an Asset.

Beside her, Catrina sighed loudly, tapping furiously on her phone screen. "This service is garbage. I can't even load my stories."

Dawn glanced sideways. On Catrina's screen, a chat bubble popped up. The name at the top was Dozier Buckley.

Is the little mouse with you?

Dawn felt a phantom pain in her stomach, a ghost of the ulcers she'd developed during the trial. Dozier. The man who treated bankruptcy like a sport.

She snapped the vanity mirror shut. The plastic click sounded like a gunshot in the quiet cabin.

Catrina jumped. "God, you're jumpy. What is wrong with you? Is it your... thing?"

She meant the anxiety. The family's favorite euphemism for Dawn's existence.

Dawn turned to her. She let her shoulders slump. She allowed her lower lip to tremble just slightly. It was a performance she had perfected to survive the guards in Block D.

"I don't feel well," Dawn whispered. "The air... it feels thin."

Catrina rolled her eyes, but she shifted away, pressing herself against the door as if anxiety were contagious. "Don't start this, Dawn. Not tonight. The Montgomery name can't afford another one of your public episodes. Do you have your pills?"

Dawn reached into her clutch. Her fingers brushed the orange bottle of Xanax. She didn't need the pills. She needed the prop.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Dawn said, adding a wet cough for effect.

O'Malley looked back again. "Miss Dawn? You look pale."

"I can't breathe," she gasped, clutching her chest. She leaned forward, putting her head between her knees. It wasn't entirely a lie. The proximity to Catrina, the memories, the looming threat of Dozier-it all made the air feel heavy.

"O'Malley, there's an accident ahead," Dawn said, her voice muffled by her knees. "I saw the alert on my phone."

"I see the slowdown, Miss," O'Malley said.

Dawn's mind raced. Her sources had confirmed it an hour ago: a high-value target was being moved tonight, and a rival firm had contracted a team to intercept. The resulting 'accident' on a quiet service road was the linchpin of her entire strategy. She had to get there.

She sat up, gasping dramatically. "I need to get out. I need air. Or I need to go home."

"We are not stopping on the highway!" Catrina shrieked.

"Turn around," Dawn commanded. The steel in her voice slipped through the cracks of her victim persona.

Catrina blinked. "What?"

"Take me back to the Hamptons house," Dawn said, gripping the leather armrest until her knuckles turned white. "I'm going to throw up. Do you want vomit on your vintage Valentino?"

Catrina looked at Dawn, then at her own dress. The threat was physical and immediate.

"Fine!" Catrina threw her hands up. "O'Malley, find an exit! We'll drop her at the estate and then you can drive me back. I'll just be fashionably late. Honestly, the drama."

O'Malley nodded. "Yes, Miss."

He signaled and merged into the right lane, heading for the upcoming exit ramp. As the car tilted, turning away from the city, away from Dozier, away from her old fate, Dawn felt a click in the universe.

She had changed the path.

But she wasn't just running away. She was running toward something.

The Lincoln navigated the exit ramp, the tires hissing against the wet pavement. The rain had started in earnest now, drumming a frantic rhythm on the roof.

Dawn kept up the act, taking shallow, ragged breaths. Every time Catrina looked like she was about to protest the detour, Dawn would let out a dry heave, and Catrina would recoil, pressing a scented handkerchief to her nose.

"You are ruining everything," Catrina muttered. "Dozier is going to be furious. He hates flakes."

"Better a flake than a spectacle," Dawn wheezed.

O'Malley turned the car onto the secondary road that led back toward the East End. It was a darker route, lined with dense woods that swallowed the headlights. This was the road less traveled, the one the locals used to avoid the summer tourists.

"Why is it so dark?" Catrina complained. "This is creepy."

"It's the shortcut," O'Malley said. "Fastest way to the estate."

Dawn closed her eyes, counting the seconds. Her intel pinpointed the time of impact at 7:42 PM. She checked the dashboard clock. 7:38 PM.

They were close.

"Can't you drive faster?" Catrina snapped. "I'm missing the red carpet photos."

"The road is slick, Miss Catrina," O'Malley said, his voice tight.

Dawn felt the car sway as a gust of wind hit them. The storm was intensifying. A gray rhino. That's what they called a highly probable, high-impact threat that everyone ignored until it was too late. The storm was a gray rhino. The financial collapse of her father's company was a gray rhino.

And somewhere on this road, Jennings Stafford was about to meet his own gray rhino.

"Slow down," Dawn said suddenly.

"What?" Catrina looked at her. "You just want to make me later?"

"I said slow down!" Dawn shouted.

O'Malley, startled by the authority in her tone, tapped the brakes.

Just in time.

Ahead of them, the darkness was broken by a flash of sparks. A massive shape had sheared through the guardrail on the curve. It wasn't a normal car. It was a black SUV, tumbling down the embankment into the ravine.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" O'Malley slammed on the brakes fully. The Lincoln skidded, the anti-lock brakes pulsing against the sole of his foot.

The car came to a halt twenty yards from the broken rail.

Silence filled the cabin for a heartbeat, broken only by the slap of windshield wipers.

"Did you see that?" O'Malley's voice shook.

"Drive," Catrina whispered. "O'Malley, just drive. That's none of our business. We don't want to get involved."

Dawn was already unbuckling her seatbelt.

"Are you insane?" Catrina grabbed her arm. "It's pouring rain! You're sick!"

Dawn looked at Catrina's hand on her arm, then up at her face. "I'm feeling better."

She shoved the door open. The wind ripped it from her grasp. Rain lashed at her face instantly, soaking the silk dress within seconds. It was freezing, but the cold made her feel alive. It sharpened her senses.

"Miss Dawn!" O'Malley yelled, scrambling for his umbrella.

Dawn didn't wait. She hiked up her silver skirt and climbed over the guardrail. The mud was slippery, sucking at her heels. She kicked them off. Barefoot, she slid down the embankment toward the wreckage.

The SUV was on its side. Smoke was already curling from the engine block. The smell of gasoline was thick and pungent, masking the scent of the pine trees.

Dawn reached the vehicle. The windows were shattered but held together by the lamination-bulletproof glass. This wasn't a civilian crash.

She wiped the mud from the rear window and peered inside.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the interior in a stark, strobe-light effect.

The driver was slumped over the wheel, his neck at an impossible angle. Gone.

But in the back, a man was pinned. He was conscious. His face was a mask of blood, but those eyes... she would know those eyes anywhere. They were the color of steel and just as cold.

Jennings Stafford.

The man who, unbeknownst to him, had anonymously funded the appeal that shaved five years off her prison sentence. The man whose calculated disappearance for three months would cause his company's stock to plummet, creating the vacuum that Dozier Buckley would fill.

He hadn't disappeared. He had been here. Dying in the mud while she was meant to be sipping champagne at a gala.

Not this time.

The heat radiating from the undercarriage was intense, fighting against the cold rain. Dawn could hear the hiss of water hitting hot metal.

"Miss Dawn! It's going to blow!" O'Malley was at the top of the ridge, shining a flashlight down.

"Throw me the jack handle!" Dawn screamed back.

O'Malley didn't argue. He slid down the mud, the tire iron in his hand. He handed it to her, his face pale.

Dawn took the heavy iron bar. She didn't strike the glass blindly. She aimed for the corner, where the stress points were highest. She swung with her entire body weight.

Crack.

The safety glass spiderwebbed. She swung again. And again. On the fourth blow, the laminate gave way. She used the hook of the iron to peel the sheet of glass back like a sardine can lid.

She crawled inside.

The world tilted. The interior was a mess of deployed airbags and loose luggage. Jennings Stafford was suspended by his seatbelt, his body hanging at an awkward angle.

As soon as she got close, a hand shot out.

It clamped around her throat.

Dawn froze. The grip was weak, trembling, but the intent was lethal.

"Get... away," Jennings rasped. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.

He thought she was the assassin coming to finish the job.

Dawn didn't pull away. She didn't panic. She looked straight into his dilated pupils. She placed two fingers on his wrist, right over the radial artery.

"Thready pulse. Tachycardic," she said, her voice calm and professional, cutting through the chaos. "Multiple rib fractures are compromising your breathing, and you have a compound fracture of the left tibia. I can feel a hematoma forming on your chest. If you don't let go, you'll pass out in thirty seconds and burn to death in two minutes."

Jennings blinked. The medical jargon seemed to short-circuit his fight-or-flight response. His hand dropped from her throat.

"Who..."

"Dawn Hoffman," she said. "I'm getting you out."

She reached for the seatbelt release. It was jammed. Of course it was.

"O'Malley! Knife!"

O'Malley passed her a pocket knife. She sawed through the thick webbing. As the belt gave way, Jennings's weight shifted. She braced herself, catching him before he could crash into the door panel.

He was heavy. Solid muscle and dead weight. He groaned, a low, guttural sound of agony that vibrated against her chest.

"I've got you," she whispered near his ear. "I need you to push with your good leg. On three."

"I can't..."

"You can, or you die," she said. "One. Two. Three!"

He pushed. She pulled. They tumbled out of the broken window together, landing in the mud.

The pain must have been blinding, but Jennings didn't scream. He just clenched his jaw so hard she thought his teeth would shatter.

"Move! Move!" O'Malley grabbed Jennings's other arm.

They dragged him ten feet, twenty feet. The mud made it impossible to get traction. Dawn's bare feet were cut and bleeding, but she didn't feel it.

Whoosh.

The gas tank ignited. A wave of heat slammed into their backs, throwing them forward.

Dawn landed on top of Jennings, shielding his head with her arms. The explosion roared, shaking the ground. Debris rained down around them-bits of metal, plastic, and burning rubber.

For a moment, they just lay there. Dawn could feel his heart hammering against her own. She could smell the copper scent of his blood mixing with the expensive musk of his cologne and the acrid smoke.

He was looking up at her. His face was streaked with mud and blood, but his gaze was clear. He was assessing her. Even now, on the brink of death, he was calculating.

"You're... Montgomery's daughter," he whispered.

"Yes," she said, pushing herself up. She wiped the rain from her eyes. "And you're heavy."