The ceiling tiles were counting down. One, two, three, four.

Isabella opened her eyes.

There was no grogginess. No confusion. Her vision snapped into focus instantly, her pupils contracting against the harsh fluorescent light of the hospital room.

She took a breath. It was deep and controlled. She cataloged her body's sensations. A dull throb in the occipital region. A wave of vertigo that she quelled by pressing two fingers hard against the base of her skull. Slight nausea. Dehydration.

She lifted her left hand. A simple gold band sat on her ring finger.

She stared at it. A wave of revulsion curled in her stomach. It felt like a shackle.

The memories had settled. The two lives-Isabella Oconnor, the poor orphan from Southie, and Isabella Mckee, the heiress and prodigy surgeon-had collided and fused. The fog of the last three years, induced by the trauma of the car accident and suppressed by a subconscious desire to hide, was gone.

The door opened. A nurse walked in, carrying a tray. She didn't look up.

"Mrs. Mckee," the nurse said, her voice dripping with bored condescension. "Mr. Mckee paid the bill, but he said not to expect him. He's busy."

Isabella sat up. The movement was fluid.

She looked at the IV line taped to the back of her hand. With a quick, sharp motion, she ripped the tape and pulled the needle out. She applied pressure to the puncture site immediately with her thumb, preventing a bruise.

"Get out," Isabella said.

The nurse froze. She looked up, startled by the tone. It wasn't the voice of a woman who had been brought in crying. It was ice.

"Excuse me?"

"I said get out," Isabella repeated. She swung her legs over the side of the bed. "And tell the attending physician that this isn't a saline drip. It's a dopamine solution. A pressor is contraindicated for an isolated head injury without hemodynamic instability. This isn't just incompetent-it's reckless."

The nurse gaped at her, then turned and hurried out of the room, the tray rattling in her hands.

Isabella walked to the small mirror over the sink. She looked pale. A bandage was taped to the back of her head. But her eyes... her eyes were amber fire.

The door banged open again.

Hamilton strode in. He looked disheveled. His tie was loosened, and he smelled of hospital antiseptic and stale coffee.

He stopped when he saw her standing.

"Get back in bed," he snapped. "I don't have time for your theatrics, Isabella. The press is already having a field day."

Isabella turned slowly. She didn't flinch. She didn't apologize. She just looked at him.

She looked at him the way a scientist looks at a specimen in a jar.

"You're right," she said. Her voice was calm, devoid of the tremor that used to define her speech. "We don't have time."

She walked to the bedside table. There was a notepad and a pen next to the water pitcher. She picked them up.

She wrote one word on the paper. The letters were sharp, angular, aggressive.

She ripped the page off and held it out to him.

Hamilton frowned. He took the paper.

DIVORCE.

He let out a short, incredulous laugh. "Is this a joke? Are you trying to leverage the accident for a bigger allowance?"

Isabella walked back to the bed and sat down, crossing her legs. Her posture was regal.

"I want the beach house in the Hamptons," she said. "The dilapidated one on the north shore. The one nobody has visited in five years."

Hamilton blinked. "That shack? It's practically a ruin."

"That shack," she confirmed. "And in exchange, I will sign away my rights to the secondary Mckee shares outlined in the pre-nup. I walk away with the house and my personal effects. Nothing else."

Hamilton went still. The businessman in him woke up. The shares were worth millions. The house was worth dirt.

"You're serious," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You'd leave with nothing? You'd go back to waiting tables in Southie?"

Isabella's lips curved slightly. It wasn't a smile. "That is none of your concern. Do we have a deal?"

Hamilton stepped closer. He tried to use his height to intimidate her, a tactic that had worked for three years. "If you sign this, Isabella, you are dead to this world. You will starve."

Isabella didn't blink. She tilted her head back, exposing her throat, daring him.

"Call your lawyer, Hamilton. Before I change my mind."

"You're insane," he muttered. But he was already reaching for his phone.

Just then, his phone rang. The ringtone was distinctive.

He looked at the screen. His face softened into that sickening worry again.

"Cuba," he answered. "I'm here. What? You're dizzy?"

He looked at Isabella with pure annoyance. "I have to go. My lawyer will be here in an hour. Don't think you can back out."

"I won't," Isabella said.

Hamilton turned and stormed out, slamming the door so hard the frame rattled.

Isabella stared at the closed door.

"You have no idea," she whispered to the empty room. "The only person who is going to regret this is you."

The lawyer, a man named Sterling with a sheen of sweat on his upper lip, placed the document on the hospital tray table.

Isabella sat on the edge of the bed. She had found a tablet at the nurses' station and "borrowed" it. Her fingers were currently tapping a rhythmic, complex beat on the screen-Morse code. S-O-S-G-O-N-E.

Hamilton stood by the window, his arms crossed. He looked impatient.

"Mrs. Mckee," Sterling said, clicking his pen. "I must advise you that this settlement is highly unusual. You are waiving rights to assets valued at-"

"I can read, Mr. Sterling," Isabella interrupted. She didn't look at him. She flipped the document to the last page.

Hamilton scoffed. "Maybe you should read it. It's the most money you've ever turned down. You're going to be begging on the street in a week."

Isabella uncapped the pen. The sound was a sharp click in the quiet room.

"My time is worth more than your money, Hamilton," she said.

She signed her name. The signature was different. It wasn't the rounded, hesitant script of Isabella Oconnor. It was sharp, jagged, and confident.

Hamilton watched the pen move. A strange feeling curled in his gut. Unease.

Before he could analyze it, the door burst open.

Preston, Hamilton's personal assistant, rushed in. His face was pale.

"Sir! It's Cuba. She... she took pills."

Hamilton froze. The color drained from his face. "What?"

"The housekeeper found her," Preston stammered. "There was a note. She said she couldn't bear being the reason for your unhappiness."

Silence filled the room.

Then, a laugh cut through it.

It was Isabella. She was chuckling. A dry, cold sound.

"Classic Histrionic Personality Disorder," she said, capping the pen. "I assume she calculated the dosage perfectly? Enough to cause lethargy, not enough to cause organ failure?"

Hamilton spun around, his eyes blazing with fury. A flicker of confusion crossed his face. Where did she even learn a term like that? Had she been watching medical dramas? "How dare you? She could be dying! You heartless-"

"Sign the paper, Hamilton," Isabella said, pointing to the document. "Sign it, and you can go play hero to your damsel."

Hamilton grabbed the pen. He was shaking with rage. He scrawled his signature next to hers, tearing the paper slightly with the force of it.

"Get this processed," he barked at the lawyer. "I want the divorce decree sent to her. I never want to see her face again."

He threw the pen down and ran out of the room, Preston on his heels.

The lawyer gathered his papers, looking uncomfortable, and scurried after them.

The room was quiet again.

Isabella stood up. She walked to the door and locked it.

She reached under her pillow and pulled out a disposable burner phone she had swiped from a distracted orderly's cart earlier.

She dialed a number. It was a number that hadn't existed for three years.

It rang once.

"Who is this?" A male voice answered. Guarded. Dangerous.

Isabella leaned against the wall. "Code Black. Location: MGH, Room 304. I need extraction, Luke."

There was a pause. Then, the sound of a chair crashing to the floor.

"Boss?" The voice cracked. "Is that you? We thought... we thought you were dead."

"I'm not," Isabella said. "Bring the kit. The full kit. I have work to do."

"Five minutes," Luke said. "Meet me on the roof. I'm jamming their security feeds now."

Isabella hung up. She ripped the sticky electrodes off her chest. The monitor flatlined with a high-pitched whine, but she silenced it with a punch to the power button.

She walked to the window. Down below, she saw Hamilton's convoy speeding away toward another hospital.

She reached down and tore the hem of her hospital gown, tying her hair back tightly.

"Game on, Hamilton," she whispered.

The wind on the roof was brutal. It whipped Isabella's thin gown against her legs, but she didn't shiver.

She kicked open the maintenance door.

A black helicopter, unmarked and sleek, hovered just inches above the helipad. The rotors sliced through the night air with a deafening roar.

The side door slid open.

Luke O'Malley jumped out. He was a mountain of a man, dressed in tactical black gear. He ran toward her, his face a mixture of disbelief and relief.

He dropped to one knee in front of her. "Boss."

Isabella reached down and grabbed his tactical vest, pulling him up. "Stand up, Luke. We don't have time for reunions."

"I thought I lost you," he said, his voice thick.

"Almost," she said. "Let's go."

They sprinted to the chopper. Isabella leaped inside, buckling herself into the leather seat. Luke jumped in beside her and signaled the pilot.

The helicopter surged upward, banking sharply away from the hospital. The lights of Boston spread out below them like a grid of gold and diamonds.

Luke handed her a heavy-duty, ruggedized laptop. "It's connected. Aegis protocol is active."

Isabella opened the laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. It was like breathing.

"Coffee," she said, not looking up.

Luke handed her a thermos. Black, no sugar. Just the way she used to drink it.

"I'm scrubbing the hospital records," she said. "Isabella Oconnor was never admitted. The security footage is looping."

She hit Enter. A progress bar flashed green and reached 100%.

"Now for the house," she murmured.

She accessed the smart home system of the Beacon Hill mansion. The system she had installed secretly two years ago under the guise of a 'software update.'

Command: Delete User "Isabella".

Command: Erase Voice Logs.

Command: Reset Master Bedroom Lock. Randomize Code.

"You're locking him out?" Luke asked, watching the code cascade down the screen.

"No," Isabella said. Her eyes reflected the blue light of the screen. "I'm erasing myself. When he comes home, there will be no trace that I ever lived there."

Across the city, in the waiting room of another hospital, Hamilton's phone buzzed.

System Alert: User Deleted. Smart Home Resetting.

He frowned, swiping the notification away. "Stupid glitch," he muttered, turning back to the doctor who was explaining that Cuba needed 'rest and emotional support.'

Back in the helicopter, Isabella opened a new window. It was a trading terminal.

"Mckee Capital is acquiring that tech startup, OmniCorp, tomorrow," she said. "I read the due diligence report on his desk last week. It's flawed. The IP is stolen."

"He doesn't know?" Luke asked.

"He didn't look," Isabella said. "He was too busy buying jewelry for Cuba."

She typed in a series of commands.

Entity: Aegis Ventures.

Action: Short Sell.

Target: Mckee Capital.

Volume: Maximum Leverage.

"Execute," she whispered. She hit the key. "Now," she said, opening a secure messaging app. "Luke, send the OmniCorp IP theft file to our contact at the Wall Street Journal. Anonymous tip. Let's give the market a reason to panic."

"That's going to bleed him dry by morning," Luke said, a grin spreading across his face.

Isabella closed the laptop. She leaned back, closing her eyes for a second.

"Good."

She opened her eyes and looked at the bag Luke had brought. She pulled out a trench coat-Burberry, tailored, expensive. She pulled it on over her hospital gown.

"How is Cuba really?" she asked.

"Vitamins," Luke scoffed. "She bribed an intern in the ER to fake the stomach pump report. We have the audio."

"Keep it," Isabella said. "We don't use it yet. Let her climb higher."

The helicopter began to descend. Below them, the dark ocean crashed against the shore. A large, solitary house sat on a cliff, dark and imposing. From the air, it looked exactly as Hamilton had described it: a ruin. But Isabella knew the decaying facade was a shell. Inside was a fortress.

The Hamptons safe house.

"We're home, Boss," Luke said.

Isabella looked at the house. It was where Isabella Mckee had planned her future. It was where Isabella Oconnor would bury her past.

"Yes," she said. "We are."