The world was a blur of white and black. The snow was falling so hard it erased the horizon. Deidre lay curled at the base of the headstone, her body temperature dropping, her breaths coming in shallow, ragged gasps.

A beam of yellow light cut through the storm. Dwayne Boggs, the cemetery groundskeeper, trudged through the knee-deep snow, his flashlight sweeping the graves. His dog, a thick-coated German Shepherd, was pulling hard on the leash, barking frantically toward the hill.

"Whoa, whoa!" Dwayne yelled over the wind. He followed the dog, his boots crunching loudly. The flashlight beam landed on a patch of black against the white snow.

Dwayne rushed forward, dropping to his knees. He brushed the snow off Deidre's face. Her lips were blue, her skin like ice. Her chest barely moved.

"Jesus Christ," Dwayne muttered. He unzipped his heavy military-green coat and wrapped it around her. He pulled his radio off his belt. "Dispatch, this is Boggs. I need an ambulance at sector four. I have a woman, hypothermic, unresponsive."

Static. Nothing but the howling wind.

"The storm knocked out the towers," Dwayne realized, panic rising. He needed help now. He patted her pockets, looking for a phone. He found her clutch in the snow. He flipped it open. It was a high-end smartphone, still showing a sliver of battery.

He pressed her cold finger to the sensor. It buzzed in rejection, the screen flashing red. He cursed under his breath, taking her freezing fingertip and rubbing it vigorously with his own thumb, trying to force some warmth back into the deadened skin. He pressed it down a second time. Another failure. On the third try, the phone finally unlocked. The wallpaper was a photo of a dark-haired man. The call log had one number at the top, labeled simply "Danial."

Dwayne hit dial. He pressed the phone to his ear, listening to the rings. One. Two. Three. Miles away, in the master bedroom of the Tribeca penthouse, Daria glanced at the phone buzzing on the nightstand beside the deeply sleeping Danial. Seeing the caller ID, she smirked, sliding her manicured finger across the glass to intercept the call.

"Hello?" A woman's voice answered. It was low, husky, and dripping with annoyance. It wasn't the voice of a man.

"Who is this?" Dwayne asked, confused. "I'm calling from the Westchester cemetery. I found a woman unconscious in the snow. The phone says to call this number. She needs an ambulance, but the roads are blocked. I need a snowmobile or a chopper."

There was a pause on the line. Daria sat up in Danial's bed, watching the bathroom door where the shower was running. A slow, cruel smile spread across her face.

"Is she dying?" Daria asked, her voice flat.

Dwayne was taken aback by the question. "She's in bad shape. Are you family? I need to know what to do."

"I'm her family," Daria said smoothly. "Listen to me carefully. Don't call an ambulance. They'll never make it in time, and the cold will kill her before they do. I have a medical team on standby in the city. Bring her to Manhattan."

Daria rattled off an address in Tribeca. "Use the cemetery's snowcat. Bring her directly to the underground garage. Do you understand?"

Dwayne hesitated. It sounded insane. Why not a hospital? But the woman on the phone sounded authoritative, and the snow was falling harder. He had no other options.

"Okay," Dwayne agreed. "I'm bringing her down."

Twenty minutes later, the heavy, tracked snowcat rumbled into an underground parking garage in Tribeca. Dwayne jumped out, carrying Deidre in his arms. A woman in a dark coat was waiting, flanked by two large men.

"Put her down," the woman ordered. It was Daria. She looked completely different from the vulnerable pregnant woman at the restaurant. She was sharp, cold, and commanding.

Dwayne laid Deidre on a gurney that had been rolled out. One of the men handed him a thick envelope. Dwayne opened it. It was stuffed with hundred-dollar bills.

"Take your vehicle and go," Daria said. "Forget you ever saw us."

Dwayne looked at the money, then at the unconscious woman. Something felt deeply wrong, but he was just a groundskeeper. He wasn't a hero. He took the money and walked away.

Deidre was loaded into a private elevator. It shot up to the penthouse floor. She was carried into a lavish apartment and dumped unceremoniously on a white leather sofa.

The warmth of the apartment was suffocating. Deidre's body began to thaw, the pain returning in agonizing waves. Her eyelids fluttered. She forced her eyes open, her vision swimming.

She saw a crystal chandelier above her. She tried to sit up, but a sharp, tearing pain in her chest forced her back down. Her throat was so dry it felt like sandpaper.

Click. Click. Click.

The sound of high heels on hardwood floors echoed through the room. Daria walked into Deidre's line of sight. She was holding a glass of red wine, looking down at Deidre with an expression of pure disgust.

Deidre's eyes widened. She recognized the apartment. It was Daria's. She tried to scramble backward, her muscles screaming in protest, but she was too weak.

Daria laughed, a cruel, mocking sound. She kicked Deidre's hand, which was hanging limply off the sofa. "Look at you. You look like a frozen rat."

Deidre bit her tongue, tasting blood. She forced herself to focus. "Where is Danial?" she rasped.

Daria walked over to a sleek bar cabinet and poured herself more wine. "Danial? Oh, he's sleeping like a baby." She pointed to a closed door down the hallway. "Right in that bedroom."

Deidre shook her head in disbelief. "You're lying."

"Am I?" Daria picked up a remote from the coffee table and clicked it. A large screen on the wall flickered to life. It showed a live feed of a bedroom. Danial was lying on the bed, shirtless, fast asleep.

The image was a knife to Deidre's heart. She gripped the edge of the sofa, her nails tearing into the leather. He was here. He was in the next room, Every day, he sleeps with his mistress like this, while his wife lay dying on the floor.

Daria walked over, her heels clicking deliberately. She crouched down until she was eye-level with Deidre. Her eyes were glittering with malice.

"You know, Deidre," Daria whispered, her voice soft and deadly, "tonight is a very special night. It's the perfect time to clear the air. To talk about some old secrets."

Deidre stared into Daria's eyes. A chill that had nothing to do with the snow swept over her. She was trapped in the lion's den, and the lion was ready to play.

Deidre tried to push herself up, but her arms were shaking too badly. Daria reached out with one finger and pressed it against Deidre's collarbone, shoving her back into the cushions. It was a tiny motion, but it held absolute dominance.

Daria swirled the wine in her glass, her eyes fixed on Deidre's chest, watching the erratic, labored rise and fall. "Tell me, Deidre. Do you remember the Hamptons yacht party? Five years ago?"

Deidre's breath caught. The Hamptons. The yacht. The explosion. The memories were a blur of fire, smoke, and agonizing pain. It was the event that had ruined her heart.

"Of course I remember," Deidre gritted out. "You almost died."

Daria threw her head back and laughed. It was a sharp, grating sound that echoed off the high ceilings. Some of the red wine sloshed out of her glass, staining the pristine white rug.

"You stupid girl," Daria said, wiping a tear from her eye. "Everyone thinks I'm the hero. Everyone thinks I pushed Danial out of the way just before the blast hit. Everyone thinks I was struck by the falling beam, destroying my heart to save the man I loved."

Deidre's jaw clenched. "That's exactly what happened. And Danial has spent the last five years treating you like glass because of it. You got your happily ever after."

Daria stopped laughing. She leaned in close, her face inches from Deidre's. "It wasn't me, Deidre. I was terrified. The moment the fire started, I jumped overboard and swam for my life. I didn't look back."

Deidre's mind went blank. The ringing in her ears returned, louder this time. She stared at Daria, her eyes wide with shock. "What?"

"I said, it wasn't me." Daria enunciated every word slowly, savoring the reaction. "The person who stayed behind in the fire, the person who shielded Danial with their own body, the person who took the hit from that steel beam... was you, Deidre."

Deidre's body began to tremble violently. The memories she had suppressed-the searing heat, the crushing weight on her chest, waking up in a hospital bed alone-rushed back. She had saved him. She had nearly died for him. And when she woke up, Danial had proposed to Daria.

"How..." Deidre's voice was a broken whisper. "How could you? How could you steal that?"

Daria stood up, looking incredibly smug. She reached up and unbuttoned the top three buttons of her silk blouse. She pulled the collar aside, revealing the skin below her collarbone.

There, marring her perfect skin, was a massive, jagged scar. It looked exactly like a burn wound, puckered and discolored.

"Medical tourism is a wonderful thing," Daria said, tracing the edge of the scar with a manicured nail. "I paid a small fortune to a specialist in Switzerland. He used laser ablation and skin grafts to create this masterpiece. It looks real, doesn't it? Even Danial believed it. He cried when he saw it."

Deidre lunged. She didn't care about the pain in her chest. She didn't care that she could barely stand. She just wanted to rip that fake scar off Daria's face.

But two large hands grabbed her shoulders from behind, slamming her back into the sofa. The bodyguards. They held her down, their grips like iron vices.

Daria looked down at her, shaking her head in mock pity. "He felt so guilty. He swore he would spend his life making it up to me. Every time he holds my hand, every time he buys me a gift, it's because he thinks I saved his life. And the best part? He thinks you're just a weak, useless burden he has to tolerate."

Tears spilled down Deidre's cheeks. She wasn't crying because she was sad. She was crying because of the sheer, cosmic injustice of it all. She had given her heart-literally-to Danial, and Daria had stolen the credit and used it to destroy her.

Daria reached for a document on the coffee table. She picked it up and threw it at Deidre's face. The sharp edge of the paper sliced across Deidre's cheekbone, drawing a thin line of blood.

Deidre looked down at the document. It was a property transfer agreement. Danial was gifting a sprawling mansion in Beverly Hills to Daria. The note, dated from last month, read: For our five-year anniversary. Thank you for my life.

The rage inside Deidre hit a boiling point. Her heart rate spiked, the organ fluttering wildly in her chest like a bird trapped in a cage. She clutched her shirt, gasping for air, her vision graying at the edges.

Daria watched her struggle, a cruel light in her eyes. "Not yet, Deidre. We're not done."

She snapped her fingers. The bodyguards released Deidre and stepped back. Daria walked to the mantelpiece and picked up a silver-framed photograph.

Deidre's heart stopped. It was the only photo she had of Lily. A tiny, wrinkled newborn with her eyes closed, cradled in Deidre's arms. It was the only proof that her daughter had ever existed.

"Put it down," Deidre snarled. Her voice was barely human. It was the sound of a mother protecting her young.

Daria ran a long fingernail over the glass, right across Lily's face. The scraping sound made Deidre's skin crawl. "Look at this. A dead little thing. She didn't even live long enough to open her eyes. And yet, she gets a fancy grave and a spot on the Ortega family tree. It's so unfair, isn't it?"

Deidre didn't think. She just moved. She shoved the heavy coffee table out of the way, the muscles in her arms tearing with the effort, and lunged at Daria.

Daria sidestepped easily. Deidre missed, crashing into the mantelpiece. She fell to the floor, her elbow landing squarely on a shard of broken glass from the dropped wine glass.

Pain shot up her arm. Blood immediately soaked through her sleeve, dripping onto the white rug. But Deidre didn't feel it. She only had eyes for the photo in Daria's hand.

Daria stood over her, looking down with a triumphant smirk. She had Deidre exactly where she wanted her: broken, bleeding, and desperate.

"You know," Daria said, her tone light and conversational, "you've always blamed God for taking your baby. You've always thought that ectopic pregnancy was just bad luck."

Deidre froze. The blood pounding in her ears seemed to stop. She looked up at Daria, a terrible premonition gripping her soul.

Daria smiled, a wide, terrifying smile. "What if I told you it wasn't bad luck at all? What if I told you that pregnancy was perfectly healthy?"

The words hung in the air, heavy and toxic. Deidre's mind refused to process them. The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the sound of Deidre's ragged breathing.

Deidre's hand shot out, grabbing Daria's ankle. Her grip was weak, but the desperation in it was terrifying. "What did you say?" she rasped, her voice shaking so badly it was almost unrecognizable. "What do you mean, healthy?"

Daria looked down at Deidre's hand on her ankle with utter disgust. She kicked out, her sharp heel scraping against Deidre's wrist, forcing her to let go. She stepped back, her eyes shining with sadistic glee.

"Two years ago," Daria said slowly, enunciating every syllable, "you were pregnant. And it was a perfectly normal, healthy, viable pregnancy. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that baby."

Deidre's brain felt like it was exploding. The ringing was deafening. She shook her head violently, refusing to accept the words. "No. No, the doctor said it was ectopic. The fallopian tube ruptured. I was bleeding out-"

"The doctor lied," Daria interrupted, her voice cold and hard. "Dr. Eduardo Lamb. I paid him two million dollars to alter your ultrasound images and forge your blood work. He made it look like an ectopic pregnancy."

The room tilted. Deidre's stomach heaved, but there was nothing in it to throw up. She remembered that night. The sudden, agonizing pain. The blood soaking the sheets. The rush to the hospital. The frantic doctors.

"Danial was in Europe," Daria continued, pacing slowly in front of the sofa. "It was so easy. I just had to wait for the 'emergency' to happen, and then Dr. Lamb did the rest. He made it look like your tube had ruptured. He convinced the surgical team that it was a life-or-death situation."

Deidre clutched her stomach, the phantom pain of that night ripping through her. "You killed her. You killed Lily."

"Oh, it gets better," Daria sneered. "Dr. Lamb couldn't just operate without consent. And since Danial was your next of kin, they had to call him. He was on his private jet, flying over the Atlantic."

Daria paused, letting the suspense build. She looked directly into Deidre's eyes. "Danial authorized the surgery. He gave the verbal consent over the satellite phone. With a single word, he signed your daughter's death warrant."

The words hit Deidre like a physical blow to the chest. The air rushed out of her lungs. Danial. It was Danial's voice that had ended Lily's life. He had killed their daughter, not knowing she was perfectly healthy, because Daria had set the trap.

"And just to add a little insurance," Daria added with a shrug, "Dr. Lamb removed your healthy fallopian tube while he was at it. Just to make sure you wouldn't be popping out any more little Ortegas."

A scream ripped from Deidre's throat. It wasn't a human sound. It was the raw, primal howl of a mother who had just learned that her child had been murdered by the people she trusted most. The sound bounced off the walls, piercing through the apartment.

Deidre didn't feel her heart condition. She didn't feel the gash on her arm. She only felt a blinding, all-consuming rage. She exploded off the floor, her body moving before her mind could catch up.

Daria's eyes widened in shock. She hadn't expected Deidre to have any strength left. She stumbled backward, her hands raised.

Deidre grabbed a fistful of Daria's perfect blonde hair. She yanked it hard, dragging Daria's head down. With her other hand, she swung.

Smack.

The sound was deafening. Deidre's palm connected with Daria's cheek with every ounce of strength she possessed. The force of the slap whipped Daria's head to the side.

Daria cried out, her hand flying to her face. Blood immediately started to seep from her lip where her teeth had cut the inside of her cheek.

Deidre didn't stop. She raised her hand again, the rage taking over. Smack. The second slap was harder than the first. She poured all her grief, all her betrayal, all her hatred into that blow.

Daria's eyes rolled back. Her knees buckled. She stumbled backward, her high heel catching on the edge of the rug. She fell sideways, crashing into the sharp corner of the glass coffee table.

Crack.

Daria's forehead hit the heavy glass. She collapsed onto the floor, clutching her head. Blood began to pour from a gash on her temple. She curled into a ball, her hands moving down to her stomach.

"My baby!" Daria shrieked, her voice filled with genuine terror. "The baby! It hurts!"

The bedroom door flew open.

Danial stood in the doorway, his hair disheveled, a silk robe tied loosely around his waist. His eyes were wild, still foggy with sleep, but they quickly focused on the scene in front of him.

He saw Daria, crumpled on the floor, bleeding from the head, crying and holding her pregnant belly. He saw Deidre standing over her, her hand raised, her face contorted with fury.

His face drained of color. Then, it twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage.

"She's crazy!" Daria screamed, pointing a bloody finger at Deidre. "She attacked me! She's trying to kill my baby!"

Danial moved like a predator. He crossed the room in three long strides, shoving Deidre out of the way. He fell to his knees beside Daria, gathering her into his arms. "Daria! Daria, look at me. Are you okay? Is the baby okay?"

Deidre watched him cradle the woman who had murdered his daughter. A hysterical, broken laugh bubbled up from her chest. It was a sound of absolute madness, echoing in the quiet room.

Danial looked up at her, his eyes blazing with hatred. "What the hell is wrong with you? Have you completely lost your mind?"

Deidre stopped laughing. She pointed a trembling finger at Daria. "She's a liar! She lied about the yacht! She killed Lily! She paid the doctor to kill our daughter!"

"I said, shut up!" Danial bellowed. He reached out, his large hands shoving her shoulders with brutal force. She stumbled backward, her feet tangling in the thick rug.