Hester's four-inch Jimmy Choo heels hit the snow-dusted pavement of the South Lawn. The Secret Service agents stationed along the colonnade had jolted forward the instant they registered Domenic chasing her, but a single snarled command from the President's son—"Stay out of it!"—froze them just long enough for her to slip through the arched doorway and out onto the grounds. She made her steps look frantic and clumsy, but her core was tight. Every footfall was calculated, perfectly avoiding the hidden patches of black ice.

The winter wind slashed across her cheeks like razor blades. She reached the edge of the decorative pool. It was a secluded spot, just outside the direct line of sight of the Secret Service, sitting right on the blind edge of the security cameras.

She stopped.

Domenic came panting up behind her. His custom suit was rumpled from the sprint. His face was twisted into an ugly, humiliated snarl.

He reached out a massive hand, aiming to grab her shoulder and violently spin her around.

Hester watched his reflection in the dark, rippling water. The moment his hand came down, she dropped her right shoulder.

Domenic's fingers grabbed empty air.

His momentum carried him forward. His leather shoes screeched against the wet, freezing stone at the edge of the pool. He flailed his arms, a jolt of panic hitting his chest as he barely caught his balance.

Hester spun around. She pressed her back against the freezing stone rim of the pool and crossed her arms. She looked him up and down, her eyes filled with the kind of mocking amusement usually reserved for a circus clown.

Domenic's face turned purple.

"I will destroy you!" he screamed, pointing a finger inches from her nose. "I will use the power of the Presidency to crush the Stanton family into dust!"

Hester laughed.

The sound was bright, sharp, and completely devoid of fear. It echoed across the empty, freezing lawn.

She took a half-step forward, invading his space. She lowered her voice to a vicious whisper.

"You are just a pathetic puppet, completely clueless about the sickening price your family paid to put you here."

The words hit Domenic like a physical blow. His pupils contracted into tiny pinpricks. The deepest, darkest insecurity of his life had just been dragged into the light.

The last thread of his sanity snapped.

With a guttural roar, Domenic raised his right hand. The veins in his hand bulged. He swung his palm toward Hester's face with all his strength.

Hester didn't flinch. She didn't step back.

She simply tilted her head a fraction of an inch. The wind from his palm brushed the loose hairs by her ear.

Domenic's entire body weight shifted to his right side as he missed. His balance was completely compromised.

In that split second, Hester's right leg shot up.

In her past life, the constant assassination attempts had forced her to endure months of grueling, brutal self-defense training just to survive. She knew exactly where the human body was most vulnerable, though she never expected to use those lethal lessons so soon. The sharp, stiletto heel of her Jimmy Choo drove with brutal precision straight into the back of Domenic's left knee.

Domenic let out a high-pitched shriek. His left leg buckled instantly, completely dead. His massive frame pitched forward and to the right.

Hester reached out, her face twisting into a mask of fake horror. She looked like she was trying to catch him. Instead, she planted both hands flat against his chest and shoved hard.

Domenic went airborne.

He hit the near-freezing water with a massive, violent splash. The icy water shot two meters into the air.

The freezing temperature shocked his system instantly. His lungs spasmed. He thrashed wildly in the dark water, choking and sputtering, unable to form a coherent word.

Hester stood at the edge of the pool. She looked down at him. Her eyes were completely empty of pity. She watched him drown like he was a bag of garbage that refused to sink.

She needed the scene to be perfect.

Hester reached up and violently ripped the pins out of her hair, letting the blonde strands fall in a tangled mess. She grabbed the neckline of her dress and tore it downward, ripping the delicate fabric to make it look like she had been in a desperate struggle.

She dug her own fingernails into the soft, pale skin of her forearms, dragging them down until angry, red welts appeared.

Tears flooded her eyes. Real tears, forced out by the physical sting of her own scratches.

In the water, Domenic finally found the edge. His hands, turning blue from the cold, slapped onto the marble rim. He tried to pull his heavy, soaked body up, coughing up dirty water and cursing her name.

Hester kept her face blank. She lifted her right foot.

She brought the pointed toe of her shoe down, pressing it directly onto the knuckles of his freezing fingers. She didn't stomp. She just pressed her weight down and ground her heel.

Domenic let out a blood-curdling scream. His fingers opened involuntarily.

He slipped backward, plunging beneath the freezing surface again, swallowing a massive gulp of pool water.

A sharp snap of a twig echoed from the bushes to her left.

Hester's head snapped up. Someone was coming.

She instantly pulled her foot back and stumbled two steps away from the pool. She threw her hands over her face and let out a piercing, hysterical scream of pure terror.

Nora, her personal assistant—and the woman who had poisoned her in her past life—came running out from behind the hedges, holding a winter coat.

Nora stopped dead in her tracks. Her jaw dropped. She stared at the President's son drowning in the pool, and then at Hester, who was torn, bruised, and sobbing uncontrollably.

Hester looked at Nora through her fingers.

The memory of the poison burning down her throat flared in Hester's mind. A new, beautiful plan formed instantly.

Nora rushed toward the edge of the pool. Her eyes were wide with panic as she recognized the man thrashing in the water.

"Oh my god! Mr. Harrison!" Nora shrieked. She dropped the coat and reached her hands out, leaning over the water to pull him up.

Hester's eyes went dead.

She lunged forward. Her hand clamped around Nora's wrist like a steel vice. She squeezed so hard that Nora's manicured fingertips turned instantly white.

Nora gasped in pain. She whipped her head around, staring in shock at her usually meek and soft-spoken employer. She tried to yank her arm back, but Hester's grip was immovable.

"Do not touch him," Hester ordered. Her voice was a low, freezing rasp. "He tried to attack me. He's a monster."

Nora looked back at the water. Domenic's lips were purple. He was barely keeping his head above the surface. The allure of saving the President's son and securing a favor was too strong for the greedy assistant.

"Are you crazy? !" Nora snapped, actually raising her voice at Hester. "He's going to die!"

The disrespect hit Hester's ears. It was the exact same tone Nora had used right before she forced the poison down Hester's throat in her past life.

The murderous rage inside Hester boiled over.

Hester didn't argue. She raised her free hand and swung.

Smack.

The slap was deafening. It echoed louder than the splashing water. Hester's palm connected with Nora's cheek with so much force that Nora's head snapped violently to the side.

Nora's cheek instantly swelled, turning an angry, mottled red. A thin line of blood broke at the corner of her mouth. She stood completely paralyzed, her brain short-circuiting from the shock of the strike.

Hester let go of her wrist. She pulled a silk handkerchief from her pocket with her left hand and wiped her right palm, as if she had just touched raw sewage. She let the wind carry the silk square away.

In the pool, Domenic finally found the submerged stone steps. He dragged himself up until the water was at his chest. He was shaking violently, his teeth chattering so hard they sounded like castanets.

He pointed a shaking, blue finger at the two women on the bank.

"I'll... I'll put you both in federal prison!" Domenic roared, his voice cracking from the cold.

Hester ignored him completely. She looked down at her own chest, her hands suddenly flying to her torn collar. She patted her chest frantically, her eyes widening in perfectly acted panic.

She snapped her head up and glared at Nora.

"My brooch," Hester gasped. "The antique sapphire brooch the First Lady gave me. It's gone."

Nora, still holding her bleeding cheek, took a step back. Her eyes darted around nervously. "M-maybe you dropped it in the sitting room?" she stuttered, desperate for an excuse to run away from this nightmare.

Hester stepped forward. Her heels clicked sharply against the stone.

"No," Hester said, her voice hard and absolute. "It fell off when he was attacking me. It fell in the water."

She pointed a rigid finger at the dark, freezing pool.

"Get in there and find it. Now."

Nora stared at the black water. She looked at Domenic, who looked like he was ready to murder someone. The physical terror of the freezing water outweighed her fear of Hester.

"No!" Nora screamed, backing away. "I won't do it! I'm going to tell the First Lady you tried to kill him! You're insane!"

Hester smiled. It was a cold, terrifying stretching of her lips.

That was the excuse she needed.

Hester closed the distance between them in one explosive step. Her hands shot out, grabbing the thick lapels of Nora's winter coat.

Using Nora's own backward momentum, Hester twisted her hips and hurled the assistant forward with all her strength.

Nora let out a blood-curdling shriek as her feet left the ground.

She flew over the edge of the marble rim and slammed into the deep end of the pool, right next to Domenic.

A massive wave of water splashed directly into Domenic's face. He wiped his eyes just in time to see Nora surface, thrashing wildly.

Nora didn't know how to swim. Her heavy winter coat absorbed the water instantly, turning into a lead weight that dragged her down. Blind with panic, she reached out and grabbed the only solid thing near her.

She locked her arms around Domenic's neck.

Domenic, already exhausted and freezing, was suddenly pulled under by the dead weight of a panicking adult.

The two of them erupted into a violent, desperate struggle. They clawed at each other's faces, kicking and shoving, each trying to push the other down to keep their own head above water. It was a brutal fight for survival.

Hester stood on the edge, looking down at the chaos. Her eyes glittered with dark, vengeful satisfaction.

Then, a faint rustle of fabric caught her attention.

Hester's head snapped to the right. She looked past the bare trees, toward the shadowed alcove of the White House colonnade, thirty meters away.

A tall man in a black trench coat stood perfectly still in the shadows. He was watching her.

Hester couldn't see his face, but the heavy, oppressive weight of his stare made her heart skip a beat.

Her brain calculated the risk in a fraction of a second. She didn't panic. She didn't try to silence him.

She sucked in a sharp breath, forcing a fresh wave of tears to spill over her eyelashes. She grabbed the hem of her ruined skirt, turned on her heel, and ran.

She sprinted toward the First Lady's quarters, leaving the two people drowning in the pool behind her.

Vice President Kyle Harrison stepped slowly out of the shadows.

The dim glow of the colonnade wall sconces illuminated the sharp, unforgiving angles of his jaw and his deep, stormy gray eyes.

He looked toward the pool. The splashing was getting weaker. Domenic had managed to pry Nora off his neck and was now simply holding her head under the water to keep himself afloat. It was pathetic.

Kyle's earpiece crackled. His lead Secret Service agent's voice came through. "Sir, we have a disturbance at the South Pool. Should we initiate a rescue?"

Kyle raised his right hand, tapping his earpiece.

"Maintain radio silence," Kyle ordered, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. "Do not intervene."

He turned his gaze back to the path where Hester had disappeared. The image of her fluid, brutal kick and the dead, cold look in her eyes replayed in his mind. The corner of his mouth twitched upward into a dark smirk.

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a heavy, glittering object.

It was the antique sapphire brooch. He had picked it up off the carpet outside the East Wing sitting room ten minutes ago.

Kyle slipped the brooch into his breast pocket, right over his heart. He turned and walked casually toward the West Wing, leaving no trace that he had ever been there.

Meanwhile, Hester was running for her life.

She had kicked off her heels and was sprinting barefoot across the thick wool carpets of the interior hallways.

She needed her injuries to look worse.

As she rounded a corner, she intentionally threw her body weight to the side, dragging her bare shoulder hard against the rough edge of a marble Roman pillar.

The expensive silk of her blouse ripped completely. The skin on her shoulder tore, leaving a bright, angry red scrape that stung fiercely.

She rubbed her knuckles into her eyes until the blood vessels popped, making them look bloodshot and swollen. Tears streamed down her face, fueled by the physical pain of her scraped shoulder.

As she approached the security checkpoint outside the First Lady's Quarters, Hester deliberately broke her rhythm. She let her breathing become ragged, loud, and hyperventilating.

The two armed Secret Service agents stationed at the heavy oak doors saw the usually poised Stanton heiress stumbling toward them, barefoot, bleeding, and half-undressed.

Both agents instantly dropped their hands to their holstered weapons.

Hester threw herself at the nearest agent, grabbing his suit jacket with trembling, desperate hands.

"Help me!" she screamed, her voice cracking into a hysterical sob. "Take me to my aunt! He's crazy! He's going to kill me!"

The agent didn't hesitate. He tapped his radio, barking an emergency code directly to Alex Stone, the First Lady's Chief of Staff.

The heavy double doors burst open. Alex, a sharp-featured woman in a tailored suit, rushed out. The color drained from her face the second she saw Hester.

Alex immediately stripped off her own suit jacket and wrapped it tightly around Hester's shivering shoulders, shielding her from the agents' eyes.

Hester collapsed against Alex's chest. She gripped the woman's shirt, burying her face in her neck, playing the role of a completely shattered victim to absolute perfection.

"It's okay, you're safe," Alex whispered fiercely, half-carrying Hester through the doors. She shot a lethal glare at the agents. "Lock down this corridor. No one gets near these doors."

Inside the private quarters, First Lady Elba Stanton was sitting on a French sofa, reviewing a guest list. She frowned at the sudden commotion.

Elba looked up.

When she saw her beloved niece-the pride of the Stanton family-dragged into the room looking like a broken doll, the gold pen slipped from Elba's fingers.

It hit the floor. Elba stood up so fast her knee clipped the coffee table. The hot tea spilled across the Persian rug, but she didn't even blink.

She crossed the room in three massive strides. She grabbed Hester's face, her eyes locking onto the swollen, red eyes, the torn clothes, and the bleeding scrape on her shoulder.

The blood rushed to Elba's head.

"Hester," Elba said. Her voice was shaking, high-pitched with pure, unadulterated rage. "Who did this? Who dared to touch you in this house? !"

Hearing her aunt's fiercely protective voice triggered a real memory for Hester. She remembered how Elba had died trying to protect her in the past life. The tears that fell now were genuine.

Hester threw her arms around Elba's neck and broke down. The raw, gut-wrenching sound of her sobbing echoed in the quiet room, making Alex's stomach twist.

Elba held her niece tight. The First Lady's eyes hardened. The ruthless, military blood of the Stanton family flared in her pupils. She looked at Alex.

"Lock down the East Wing," Elba commanded.

Hester cried against Elba's shoulder for two full minutes, letting the tension build until it was unbearable. Then, she slowly pulled back. She looked at her aunt with wide, terrified eyes.

"It... it was Domenic," Hester choked out, her whole body violently flinching at the name. "He tried to kill me, Aunt Elba."

Elba's breath hitched. Her pupils contracted. She stared at Hester, her brain refusing to process the name of her own son.

Hester grabbed Elba's wrists. Her nails dug into her aunt's skin. She delivered the kill shot with absolute, desperate certainty.

"He wanted to drown me in the pool," Hester sobbed. "He said he was doing it for Tricia, that manipulative intern from his office."