Erica stood perfectly still by the massive glass walls of the hospital lobby.

Outside, in the sun-baked valet area, stood Colten and Ivy.

Colten was screaming into his cell phone, his face red with rage, demanding to know where his driver was. Ivy stood behind him, wiping away fake tears and playing the victim.

Erica narrowed her eyes.

The ORACLE System booted up its tactical environment scanner. A pale blue grid overlaid the busy Manhattan street outside.

Accessing municipal traffic data ports... Analyzing vehicle density and traffic light sequencing.

A bright red trajectory line painted itself across Erica's vision. The system calculated the physics of the intersection at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street.

Collision imminent in exactly three minutes. Target vehicle match: Black Maybach, registered to Colten Fischer.

Erica's lips curled into a vicious, mocking smile. She decided to give the happy couple a parting gift.

She pushed through the revolving doors. Her bare feet hit the scorching asphalt. She walked straight toward Colten, her posture relaxed but her eyes locked on target.

Colten saw her coming. He took a step back, his face twisting in disgust. He thought she was coming back for more money.

Ivy peeked out from behind Colten's shoulder. "You got your money! Get out of here! Are you trying to extort us again in public?" she screeched.

Erica ignored the barking dog. She crossed her arms over her chest. She tilted her head, looking at Colten with a disturbing, manic pity.

"Beautiful weather today," Erica said, her voice dropping into a raspy, theatrical whisper. "Perfect weather for a funeral."

Colten's face flushed with anger. He raised his hand, ready to strike her across the face.

Erica didn't flinch. She just stared at his raised hand with such dead, freezing intensity that Colten's muscles locked up. He slowly lowered his arm.

Erica leaned in close. She lowered her voice to a haunting, prophetic pitch.

"If you want to live to see tomorrow, Colten," she whispered, "do not take Fifth Avenue when you leave this hospital."

She pointed a finger toward the street. "At the 42nd Street intersection. A heavy transport truck is going to lose its brakes. It's going to crush your Maybach into a cube of scrap metal."

Colten stared at her for a second. Then, he threw his head back and let out a loud, barking laugh.

"You are completely out of your mind!" Colten yelled, pointing at her face. "You're not just a blackmailer, Erica. You're a certified psycho!"

"She lost her mind in prison," Ivy sneered, clinging to Colten's arm. "Playing a witch now? Pathetic."

Erica shrugged. She uncrossed her arms and let them hang loosely at her sides. "I warned you. Dead men don't listen."

Tires screeched lightly against the pavement. The black Maybach finally pulled into the valet zone, stopping right in front of them.

Colten turned to the driver. He wanted to prove to this crazy bitch just how powerless she was.

"Take Fifth Avenue!" Colten barked loudly, making sure Erica heard every word. "And don't you dare slow down at the 42nd Street intersection! Push through the yellow!"

The driver looked confused, but he nodded and opened the rear door.

Colten shoved Ivy into the leather backseat. He turned back to Erica, raised his hand, and flipped her a hard, aggressive middle finger. He climbed in and slammed the heavy door shut.

The Maybach's engine roared. The car shot out of the hospital driveway, speeding directly toward the intersection.

Erica stood on the hot asphalt. She watched the red taillights shrink in the distance. She glanced at her bare wrist, pretending to look at a watch.

She started counting down in her head.

Ten. Nine. Eight...

Three. Two. One.

A massive, sickening crunch echoed across the Manhattan skyline.

It was a deep, metallic explosion of sound, followed instantly by the shrieking of tires and the shattering of safety glass.

Inside the hospital lobby, people gasped. Patients and nurses rushed to the glass windows, pointing down the avenue. A thick plume of black smoke began to rise into the blue sky from the direction of 42nd Street.

Erica smiled. It was a cold, satisfied expression.

She turned around and walked back through the revolving doors into the air-conditioned lobby. She needed a computer. It was time to take back what was hers.

Her eyes scanned the waiting area. She locked onto a young guy sitting in the corner. He was frantically typing on a high-end Alienware gaming laptop.

The distant sound of sirens made the boy look up, stretching his neck to see out the window.

Erica walked up behind him. Her footsteps were completely silent, like a ghost stalking its prey.

She reached out and tapped him firmly on the shoulder.

The boy, Cody Vance, jumped in his seat. He spun around and saw Erica.

She was wearing a bloody hospital gown, barefoot, with hair sticking to her sweaty forehead. Cody immediately pulled his Alienware laptop closer to his chest, his eyes wide with suspicion.

"Look, lady, this is a public area," Cody stammered, holding a hand up. "If you want spare change, the homeless shelter is down the block."

Erica didn't say a word. She reached into the pocket of her gown. She pulled out a thick stack of crisp, hundred-dollar bills she had just extracted from the hospital lobby's advanced biometric ATM, using a cardless routing protocol to siphon a micro-fraction of her newly acquired offshore funds.

She slammed the stack of cash down hard on the table, right next to his mousepad.

"I need your computer for five minutes," Erica ordered. Her voice was an absolute, commanding bark that left no room for debate. "This is enough to buy you a new one."

Cody stared at the pile of Benjamins. He swallowed hard. Greed instantly overpowered his fear. He grabbed the cash, shoved it into his backpack, and practically leaped out of the chair.

Erica sat down. She hovered her hands over the glowing keyboard. She closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.

Initiate neural direct-link protocol.

Her fingers slammed into the keys. They moved so fast they were a blur, creating a torrential downpour of clacking sounds.

The standard Windows desktop vanished. The screen snapped to black. Rows of green code began violently scrolling down the monitor.

Cody, who hadn't left yet, stood frozen behind her. He was a computer science major, but the underlying logic flashing across his screen made zero sense to him.

Erica used the civilian laptop as a springboard. The ORACLE System instantly generated twelve layers of ghost IP addresses. She launched a brute-force assault directly at the New York Police Department's evidence database firewall.

Firewall counter-measures detected.

Erica smirked. Her fingers accelerated. She injected a backdoor code written three hundred years in the future.

The NYPD's state-of-the-art firewall shattered like cheap glass. Erica bypassed the security protocols and plunged straight into the sealed case files from three years ago.

She located the file for the original host's DUI hit-and-run. The core evidence-the dashcam video-had been physically shredded and wiped from the cloud.

Cody gasped. He slapped both hands over his mouth. He saw the NYPD badge logo flash on the screen. He realized this crazy woman in a hospital gown was hacking a federal database.

"Hey... you can't do that, that's a felony-" Cody stuttered, taking a step back.

Erica didn't turn her head. She just shifted her eyes, pinning him with a glare so lethal it felt like a physical blow to his chest. Cody stopped breathing and glued his feet to the floor.

Erica activated the system's quantum fragment reconstruction tool.

The system scoured server caches and dead data blocks across the entire eastern seaboard, hunting for the microscopic magnetic imprints of the deleted video.

The Alienware's cooling fans screamed. They spun so fast they sounded like a jet engine taking off. A faint smell of burning plastic began to waft from the bottom vents.

The progress bar crawled across the black screen. 10%... 50%... 90%...

Ding.

A crystal-clear, three-minute video popped up on the screen. It automatically hit play.

The footage showed the night of the crash. It clearly showed Ivy Thorne, blackout drunk, behind the wheel. It showed the impact. Then, it showed Colten arriving on the scene, dragging Erica's unconscious body into the driver's seat, and wiping Ivy's fingerprints off the steering wheel with his shirt.

Erica stared at the screen. The air around her seemed to drop to freezing. Her chest tightened with a violent, murderous intent.

She rapidly compressed the file. Using military-grade encryption, she blasted the video to a secure, untraceable dark web email account she had just created.

The second the transfer hit 100%, a loud POP echoed from the laptop.

The motherboard fried. The screen went dead black. A wisp of gray smoke curled up from the keyboard.

Erica stood up. She brushed her hands together, completely unfazed.

"Transaction complete," Erica said to Cody, pointing at the smoking machine. "Go buy a new one."

Cody stared at his ruined, top-tier gaming rig. He wanted to cry. But looking at Erica's terrifying, straight-backed posture, he didn't dare utter a single syllable.

Erica turned and walked toward the hospital exit. She had her money. She had her nuclear evidence. It was time to get out of this sterile hellhole.

She pushed the glass door open.

Alistair Cromwell, the Hospital Director, stood directly in her path. He was flanked by two massive hospital security agents.

Alistair's eyes lit up. He looked at Erica like she was the Holy Grail. He spread his arms wide, physically blocking her exit.

Director Alistair pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up his nose. His eyes roamed over Erica's body with a feverish, obsessive medical curiosity.

"Ms. Murphy," Alistair said, waving a new brain scan report in his hand. "Your cellular regeneration rate has shattered every known record in medical history. You cannot leave. You must return to the lab immediately for further testing."

The two massive security agents stepped forward. Their broad shoulders effectively sealed off the hospital exit.

Erica's eyes went dead.

The ORACLE System instantly mapped out three viable escape routes. It highlighted the weakest joints on the agents' bodies-knees, throats, groins. Her muscles coiled, ready to snap their bones.

But she forced herself to stand still. If she assaulted hospital staff and security, she would trigger a city-wide manhunt. Her revenge plan against Colten would be ruined.

She took a sharp, deep breath. She instantly relaxed her combat posture and contorted her face into a mask of unhinged panic.

She lunged forward, stopping an inch from Alistair's nose.

"It's the adrenaline!" Erica screamed, her voice tearing out of her throat in a raspy, hysterical shriek. "It's a miracle! God saved me from that car crash!"

She threw her arms up, making sure her voice echoed across the crowded lobby.

"You want to cut me open!" she yelled, pointing a trembling finger at the Director. "You want to lock up a traumatized car crash victim and slice me into pieces just so you can write a damn medical paper!"

The lobby went dead silent. Then, the whispers started.

Americans were hyper-sensitive to medical human rights violations. Several patients and family members in the waiting area pulled out their smartphones. Red recording lights blinked on, aimed right at Alistair.

Alistair's face drained of color. He turned a sickly shade of pale green. He was obsessed with science, but a viral video of him illegally detaining a patient would destroy his career.

He held his hands up, forcing a stiff, calming smile.

"Erica, please calm down," Alistair whispered, sweating under the glare of the phone cameras. "We will provide you with the best VIP suite. Millions in nutritional compensation. Just stay."

Erica sneered. She reached into her pocket. She pulled out the Swiss bank receipt for the twenty million dollars. She shoved the paper right into Alistair's face.

"I have more money than this entire pathetic hospital," Erica spat arrogantly. "I don't need your charity. Process my discharge papers. Now."

Crushed by the weight of the cameras and the undeniable proof of her wealth, Alistair gritted his teeth. He waved his hand. The security agents stepped aside.

Half an hour later, Erica walked out of the hospital. She was wearing a tight black tracksuit and a baseball cap she had bought off a nurse.

Down Fifth Avenue, the wail of ambulance sirens pierced the air, rushing toward the wreckage of Colten's Maybach.

Erica pulled the cap down over her eyes. She hailed a yellow cab. She gave the driver the address of Manhattan's most exclusive real estate agency on the Upper East Side.

She leaned back against the cracked leather seat. She closed her eyes. The ORACLE System connected to the dark web.

While the cab navigated traffic, Erica went on a shopping spree. She ordered three military-grade encrypted servers, a localized signal jammer, and several untraceable Glock 19 handguns.

The cab pulled up to the agency. Erica walked in, slapped the bank draft on the mahogany desk, and demanded a move-in ready, maximum-security penthouse in Tribeca with a private helipad.

The broker initially sneered at her cheap tracksuit. Then he saw the zeros on the bank draft. His attitude instantly shifted to sickeningly sweet submission.

By late afternoon, Erica was standing in her new fortress.

The Tribeca penthouse featured bulletproof floor-to-ceiling windows and a private elevator. It was tactically perfect. She paid an extra million dollars in cash to bypass standard escrow, using a billionaire-tier expedited clearing channel. She threw another five hundred thousand at the dark web couriers for a guaranteed three-hour priority drop, having the broker's people move her military-grade deliveries into the living room just as the sun began to set.

The doorbell rang. A private security team hauled heavy black Pelican cases into the apartment.

Erica locked the heavy steel door behind them. She activated the penthouse's biometric security system and set up invisible infrared tripwires across the windows.

She popped the latches on the largest case. She pulled out the high-performance workstation and physically hardwired it into a port she rigged to interface with her neural system.

The massive monitors flickered to life.

Erica pulled up the dashcam video. Beside it, she opened the corporate structure file of the Fischer Group. She stared at Colten Fischer's name. She tapped her finger rhythmically against the desk.

Tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM, the Fischer Group was holding its annual shareholder meeting.

It was time to build a coffin for her ex-husband.