The hospital room was dark.

Sloane Adler slipped through the door, followed by a tall man in a tailored gray suit holding a leather briefcase.

The man took off his wire-rimmed glasses. "Mrs. Cline. I'm Julian Cromwell."

Julian opened his briefcase. He pulled out a thick stack of financial disclosures and handed them to Bridget.

"If we file for divorce now, citing infidelity with evidence, we can secure fifty percent of his post-marital assets," Julian said, his voice a calm, clinical monotone.

Bridget flipped through the pages. She tossed the stack back onto the rolling table.

"Fifty percent is a joke," Bridget said, her voice dead. "I want him bankrupt."

Sloane gasped, covering her mouth. "Bridget, if Cline Medical goes public next month, his net worth will hit ten billion."

Bridget looked at Julian. "Cline Medical's core anti-aging algorithm has a fatal patent flaw. I know exactly where it is."

Julian's eyes sharpened. The lawyer in him smelled blood. "If we detonate a commercial fraud scandal on the morning of the IPO, the SEC will halt trading immediately."

"Exactly," Bridget said. "We play the happy couple. We gather the documents. We wait for the bell to ring."

Sloane pulled out her phone. "Speaking of playing the couple... look at this."

She handed the phone to Bridget. It was a Page Six article. A photo showed Jayson at a Sotheby's auction two nights ago, holding up a velvet box containing a massive pink diamond necklace.

"He paid fifteen million for 'Pink Tears,'" Sloane said. "The press thinks it's your anniversary surprise."

Bridget stared at the pink stone. Golda's neck had been bare at the Hamptons.

This was Golda's collar.

Bridget handed the phone back. "Julian, we start the retaliation tonight. With that necklace."

After they left, Bridget pressed the call button. She demanded the nurse use the hospital landline to call Jayson.

Thirty minutes later, the door flew open. Jayson stormed in, smelling of expensive scotch.

"What is it now?" he snapped.

Bridget sat up. She crossed her arms and glared at him with the petulant fury of a spoiled child. "Where is my pink diamond from Sotheby's?"

Jayson froze. His hand twitched toward his cuff. "It's... it's in Switzerland. Getting a final polish."

Bridget grabbed the heavy glass vase full of lilies from the nightstand with her uninjured left hand. She hurled it at the floor.

It shattered into a hundred pieces right at Jayson's feet. Water and flowers splashed onto his leather shoes.

"Don't lie to me!" Bridget screamed, her voice shrill. "If I don't have that necklace in my hands tonight, I will call my father tomorrow morning and tell him to pull his proxy votes from your board!"

Jayson's face drained of color. The board votes were the only thing keeping him in the CEO chair before the IPO.

"You are a psychotic bitch," Jayson hissed through his teeth.

Bridget lifted her chin, daring him to refuse.

Jayson pulled out his phone. He walked out into the hallway. Through the glass, Bridget watched him pacing, speaking frantically into the receiver, clearly begging Golda to give it back.

An hour later, Dex walked into the room, carefully stepping over the mess of shattered glass, water, and crushed lilies a nurse hadn't yet had time to clean. He was sweating through his shirt. He carried a heavy Sotheby's lockbox.

He set it on the bed and punched in the code. The lid popped open. The pink diamond caught the harsh hospital light, glittering violently.

Bridget picked it up by the chain. She dangled it in the air, looking at it with utter disgust.

"The color is tacky," Bridget sneered, looking right at Jayson. "It barely belongs on a dog."

Jayson's hands balled into fists. The veins in his neck bulged, but he swallowed his rage and turned on his heel, slamming the door behind him.

Bridget dropped the fifteen-million-dollar necklace into the plastic bedside drawer and shoved it shut.

A black Lincoln Navigator pulled up to the grand entrance of the Long Island estate.

Irina Kovacs, the head housekeeper, rushed down the steps holding an umbrella. She opened the door, her eyes darting nervously to the ground.

Bridget stepped out. She wore a beige trench coat, a small clear bandage covering the stitches on her forehead.

She walked up the steps and pushed open the heavy double doors.

She stopped dead in her tracks.

The Ming dynasty vase that had sat in the foyer for three years was gone. In its place stood a cheap, twisted metal modern art sculpture.

Bridget walked into the main living room. Her stomach plummeted.

The antique French provincial furniture was gone. The Persian rugs were gone. Everything had been replaced with sterile, beige, minimalist garbage. It looked exactly like Golda's tasteless apartment.

"Irina," Bridget said, her voice dangerously low. "What is this?"

Irina swallowed hard. "Mr. Cline ordered it, ma'am. He said the house needed better feng shui for the new guests."

Bridget's vision swam with red.

Before she could speak, a delicate, tinkling melody drifted down from the second floor. A music box.

Bridget sprinted up the spiral staircase. She ran down the hall and shoved open the door to her locked private collection room.

Pippa was jumping up and down on the silk rug, wearing her dirty sneakers.

Around Pippa's neck hung a heavy, flawless emerald pendant.

It was Dr. Eulalia's necklace. The only physical thing Bridget had left of her dead mother.

Bridget crossed the room in three strides. She grabbed Pippa by the shoulder, her grip like a vice.

"Who told you to come in here?" Bridget yelled.

She ripped the emerald necklace off Pippa's neck, clutching the cold stone against her racing heart.

Pippa screamed. She threw herself on the floor and started wailing at the top of her lungs.

Footsteps pounded down the hall. Golda rushed into the room, wearing a pair of Bridget's silk slippers.

Golda dropped to her knees and pulled Pippa into her chest, looking up at Bridget with wide, terrified eyes.

"She's just a baby!" Golda cried out. "Jayson said she could look at anything in the house!"

Jayson strode into the room, fresh from the office. He took one look at the crying child and the cowering woman, and his face twisted in absolute fury.

He marched up to Bridget. "Have you lost your damn mind? She doesn't have a father, and you're attacking her over a piece of jewelry?"

Bridget held up the emerald. Her hand shook with rage. "This is my mother's. It's not a toy for a thief."

"Thief?" Jayson barked. He stepped into Bridget's personal space, towering over her. "You're delusional. The crash scrambled your brain. You're acting like a maniac."

"She broke into my locked room!" Bridget shouted.

"The door was open!" Jayson lied, his voice booming. "Golda apologized. You're just a hysterical, jealous mess."

Bridget stared at him. The gaslighting was so blatant, so suffocating, it made her physically sick.

"You disgust me," Bridget whispered.

Jayson's eyes flashed. He reached out and grabbed Bridget's arm, trying to yank her forward to face Golda. "Apologize to them."

Bridget ripped her arm out of his grasp with violent force.

Jayson lost his temper. He shoved her hard in the chest.

Bridget's heels slipped on the silk rug. She fell backward.

Her right hand slammed down onto the floor to break her fall. It landed directly on the shattered glass of a picture frame Pippa had knocked over.

The jagged glass sliced deep into her palm—the exact same hand that still bore the bruised puncture mark from her hospital IV.

Blood immediately pooled on the floor, soaking into the rug.

Bridget sat on the floor. She stared at the blood pouring from her hand, the crimson stark against her pale skin. Her eyes were completely dead.

Golda gasped. She took a step forward, pulling a lace handkerchief from her pocket. "Oh my god, Bridget, let me help-"

Bridget raised her uninjured left hand and slapped Golda's hand away with a sharp, echoing smack.

"Get away from me," Bridget said, her voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm register.

Jayson pointed a finger at her face. "You are out of control. You're a violent lunatic."

Bridget didn't look at him. She pushed herself off the floor, ignoring the burning agony in her right hand. She walked straight past them, out of the room, and down the stairs to the living room.

She walked to the security console hidden behind a wood panel in the wall.

"What are you doing?" Jayson demanded, following her down the stairs. "Stop touching that."

Bridget ignored him. She typed a twelve-digit override code into the keypad using the clean fingers of her left hand. It was a master root access code installed by the private security firm she had secretly hired months ago when she first suspected him of cheating-a backdoor Jayson didn't even know existed.

She pulled up the camera feed for the second-floor hallway from ten minutes ago. She hit a button, casting the video directly onto the hundred-inch media screen on the living room wall.

The screen flickered to life.

The video showed Golda holding Pippa's hand. They walked up to the locked door of the collection room. Golda reached into her pocket and pulled out a brass master key.

She unlocked the door. She pointed directly at the glass case holding the emerald necklace and whispered something into Pippa's ear.

Pippa dragged a heavy wooden chair over, climbed up, and popped the latch on the case.

Golda stood in the hallway, leaning against the doorframe, a smug, calculated smile plastered on her face.

The living room fell dead silent.

Golda's face turned the color of ash. She stumbled backward, hiding behind Jayson's broad shoulders.

"The... the video doesn't have sound," Golda stammered, her voice cracking. "Pippa ran in there, I was trying to stop her."

Bridget hit pause. The screen froze on Golda's malicious smile.

Bridget turned to Jayson. She tilted her head. "Is this the fatherless victim you're protecting?"

Jayson stared at the screen. His jaw worked furiously. He knew he had been played. He knew Bridget was right.

But his ego refused to let him admit it.

Jayson turned his glare onto Bridget. "You have hidden cameras inside the house? You're spying on us? That's a violation of privacy."

Bridget blinked.

"Even if she made a mistake," Jayson gritted his teeth, doubling down, "you didn't have to throw yourself on the floor and cut your own hand just to frame her for assault."

Bridget let out a laugh. It started low in her chest and bubbled up into a loud, echoing sound of pure, unadulterated contempt.

She laughed until her ribs ached. She looked at Jayson as if he were a rotting carcass on the side of the road.

She grabbed a handful of paper towels from the bar and wrapped them tightly around her bleeding hand.

She pointed her bloody finger directly at the front door.

"Take your whore and her thief daughter, and get out of my house," Bridget commanded.

Jayson's face flushed purple. "Half of this house is mine!"

"Check the prenup, Jayson," Bridget sneered. "The estate is a Powell family asset. You have ten seconds before I call the police and have you trespassed."

Jayson had no leverage. He grabbed Golda's arm, yanked Pippa by the hand, and stormed out the front door, slamming it so hard the windows rattled.

Bridget leaned against the wall, her knees shaking. The marriage was dead. Now, it was time for the autopsy.