The pounding on the door was so violent that the empty liquor bottle on the coffee table rattled.

Charlotte's face hardened. Her jaw clenched tight. She set her glass down and marched toward the entryway.

Jorja grabbed her arm, shaking her head. "Don't open it, Char."

Charlotte shook her head. "I can't hide in here forever."

She reached out and gripped the cold metal doorknob. She turned it and pulled.

Before the door was fully open, a heavy force shoved it inward. The impact pushed Charlotte backward, her heels skidding against the floorboards.

Her father, Vernon, stormed into the living room. His face was red, his chest heaving.

Her mother, Brenda, followed right behind him. The moment she crossed the threshold, she pointed a manicured finger directly at Charlotte's face.

"What is wrong with you?" Brenda shrieked. Spittle flew from her lips. "Bradly just called off the wedding! He pulled the Medina investment out of your father's company! Why did you ruin this?"

Charlotte let out a cold, sharp laugh. "I am not a piece of inventory you can trade for corporate funding."

The words hit Vernon like a physical blow. His face turned purple.

He lunged forward, raising his thick hand high in the air, aiming a vicious slap at Charlotte's cheek.

Jorja moved instantly. She grabbed the back of Charlotte's shirt and yanked her backward.

Vernon's hand sliced through empty air. The momentum threw him off balance, and he stumbled forward, his knee hitting the edge of the coffee table.

Humiliated and enraged, Vernon grabbed the heavy glass ashtray sitting on the table. He raised it above his head, ready to throw it at Charlotte.

Jorja stepped in front of Charlotte, her boots planted firmly. "Throw that and I'll have you arrested for assault!"

Brenda shrieked and lunged at Jorja. She grabbed a handful of Jorja's hair and yanked hard, trying to drag her out of the way.

Seeing her best friend attacked, a surge of pure adrenaline flooded Charlotte's veins.

She stepped around Jorja, grabbed Brenda's wrist with both hands, and twisted it sharply downward.

Brenda screamed in pain and let go of Jorja's hair. Charlotte shoved her mother backward. Brenda stumbled and crashed into Vernon's chest.

Charlotte backed away, putting distance between them. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone.

She dialed 911 and hit the speaker button. She held the phone up high.

"911, what is your emergency?" the dispatcher's calm voice echoed through the chaotic living room.

The room went dead silent.

Vernon froze. His arm, still holding the ashtray, hovered in the air. The rage in his eyes flickered, replaced by a sudden, cowardly panic.

"I need police at my apartment," Charlotte said, her voice devoid of any emotion. She recited her address clearly. "I have two trespassers who broke in and are attempting physical assault."

"Understood, ma'am. Units are five minutes away," the dispatcher replied.

Charlotte tapped the red button and ended the call.

She stared at the two people who had given her life. Her eyes were like ice. "Get out. If you ever come near me again, I will press charges. We are done."

Brenda's eyes widened in disbelief. "You ungrateful little bitch! We raised you!"

Charlotte walked over to the front door and pulled it wide open. She pointed a rigid finger toward the hallway. "Out."

Vernon knew the police in this neighborhood did not mess around. He weighed his options, his jaw working furiously.

He threw the glass ashtray onto the rug with a muffled thud.

He pointed a thick finger at Charlotte. "You are going to regret this. I will make sure you have nothing."

He grabbed Brenda's arm and dragged her out into the hallway.

The heavy thud of their footsteps faded down the corridor.

Charlotte pushed the door shut. The moment the latch clicked, her knees buckled. She slid down the wooden door, her back scraping against the paint, until she hit the floor.

Jorja dropped to her knees beside her. She pulled Charlotte into a tight hug, checking her arms and face. "Are you hurt? Did they hit you?"

Charlotte shook her head slowly. "I'm fine. It's just... pathetic."

Before she could catch her breath, her phone lit up on the floor.

The caller ID read: St. Jude Hospice Care.

Charlotte's heart stopped. She snatched the phone and pressed it to her ear.

"Charlotte Guthrie?" a nurse's frantic voice came through the speaker. "You need to come right now. Eleanor's vitals just crashed. We are issuing a critical condition alert."

Charlotte shot up from the floor. The blood drained completely from her face.

She grabbed her coat off the back of the sofa and bolted out the door. Outside the window, the sky had suddenly darkened to an unnatural, bruised purple. A jagged flash of lightning tore across the horizon, followed instantly by a deafening crack of thunder, signaling the arrival of a violent storm.

Charlotte burst through the heavy glass doors of her apartment building.

The sky had broken open. A torrential downpour was hammering the Brooklyn pavement. Fat, icy drops of rain slapped against her face and instantly soaked her hair.

She ran to the curb, waving her arm frantically at the street.

Yellow taxis sped past her, their tires kicking up waves of dirty water. Every single one had its 'Off Duty' light glowing.

She checked her watch. Every second felt like an hour. Her grandmother was dying.

She looked down at her feet. Her high heels were slipping on the wet concrete. She kicked them off, grabbed them by the straps, and stepped onto the freezing, flooded asphalt in her bare feet.

She started running toward the subway station two blocks away.

The cold wind sliced through her thin clothes. Her lungs burned with every breath.

As she sprinted across a dimly lit intersection, a dark shape caught the corner of her eye.

She almost kept running. But her instinct forced her legs to stop. Her bare feet skidded on the wet pavement.

She turned and ran toward the curb.

An elderly man was lying on his side in a puddle of water. He was wearing a bespoke wool suit, now ruined by the mud. His face was a terrifying shade of purple.

He was clutching his chest, his mouth open, gasping for air that wouldn't come.

Charlotte dropped to her knees in the filthy water. "Sir! Sir, can you hear me?"

The old man's eyes rolled back. His trembling fingers weakly clawed at the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

Years of caring for Eleanor's severe heart condition kicked in automatically. She recognized the symptoms instantly. She knew exactly what to look for. She reached into his wet jacket and pulled out a small white plastic bottle.

She popped the cap off and shook two tiny nitroglycerin pills into her palm.

She lifted his head, prying his jaw open, and slipped the pills under his tongue. "Swallow. Please, swallow."

Before the medicine could take effect, the man's body suddenly convulsed. His limbs jerked violently, and then he went completely limp. His chest stopped moving.

Panic seized Charlotte's throat.

She placed the heel of her right hand on the center of his chest, locked her fingers over it, and pushed down hard.

She started chest compressions. One, two, three, four.

The rain poured down her face, blinding her. She gritted her teeth, pushing her body weight into his sternum.

Suddenly, the blinding glare of headlights washed over her.

A massive black Maybach slammed on its brakes next to the curb. The heavy tires sent a wave of freezing water crashing over Charlotte's back.

The rear door was kicked open.

A towering man stepped out into the storm. Daxton Gomez.

Through the heavy sheet of rain, Daxton only saw a disheveled, barefoot woman pressing her weight onto his grandfather's chest in the middle of a flooded, dimly lit intersection.

Protective rage exploded in his chest.

Daxton closed the distance in two massive strides. He reached down, grabbed the collar of Charlotte's coat, and yanked her backward with terrifying force.

Charlotte was lifted off the ground. She flew backward and slammed hard onto the rough asphalt.

Her elbow scraped violently against the pavement. The skin tore open. A sharp, burning pain shot up her arm.

Daxton dropped to his knees beside his grandfather. He pressed two fingers to the old man's neck, yelling over his shoulder at his driver. "Call an ambulance! Now!"

Charlotte pushed herself up from the puddle. She clutched her bleeding elbow.

"I was doing CPR!" she screamed over the sound of the rain, her voice cracking with fury. "He had a heart attack!"

Daxton snapped his head toward her. His eyes were like black ice. They were sharp, predatory, and filled with absolute distrust. He didn't say a word, but his glare pinned her to the ground.

Before Charlotte could yell again, the old man on the ground took a sudden, massive gasp of air.

He started coughing violently, water and saliva spilling from his lips. The purple hue in his face slowly began to fade into a sickly pale.

The medicine had worked. The compressions had kept his blood moving.

The wailing siren of an ambulance pierced the storm. Red and blue lights flashed against the surrounding brick walls.

Paramedics jumped out of the rig. They pushed Daxton aside and loaded the old man onto a stretcher.

Daxton stood up to follow them into the back of the ambulance.

He paused with his hand on the metal door. He turned his head and looked back at Charlotte.

She was sitting in the mud, soaked to the bone, bleeding, holding her high heels in one hand.

Charlotte didn't look at him. She pushed herself off the ground, turned her back to the ambulance, and limped toward the subway station.

Charlotte walked through the sliding glass doors of St. Jude Hospice Care.

She was shivering violently. Puddles of rainwater dripped from her clothes onto the pristine linoleum floor. Her bare feet left wet, muddy prints. Blood trickled down her forearm from her torn elbow.

The nurses at the front desk stared at her in shock, but Charlotte ignored them.

She limped straight to the elevator bank and slammed her hand against the button for the top floor-the critical care unit.

At the exact same moment, three miles away in the emergency room of Manhattan General, Daxton Gomez stood in a brightly lit hallway.

An ER doctor holding a tablet walked up to him.

"Mr. Gomez," the doctor said, his voice serious. "Your grandfather is stable. But I need to be clear. If someone hadn't administered his pills and performed textbook CPR out there, he would have been dead before the ambulance arrived."

Daxton's jaw tightened.

An image flashed in his mind. The barefoot woman in the rain, pressing her hands into his grandfather's chest. The way he had grabbed her by the collar and thrown her onto the asphalt.

Daxton looked down at his right hand. Smeared across his knuckles was a streak of dried blood. It wasn't his. It was hers, from when she scraped her elbow on the street.

A heavy, unfamiliar weight of guilt settled in his stomach.

He turned to the massive bodyguard standing behind him. "Pull the street cameras from that intersection. Find out who that woman is. Now." The bodyguard nodded, tapping his earpiece. A moment later, he looked up. "Sir, we ran her facial recognition through the city grid. Her name is Charlotte Guthrie. And sir... she just entered St. Jude Hospice Care. The hospital just issued a critical condition alert for her grandmother." Daxton's jaw tightened as the pieces clicked into place. "Get the car ready. We're going to St. Jude. Now."

Charlotte stepped out of the elevator onto the quiet, sterile floor of the hospice.

She hurried down the hallway, her wet clothes slapping against her skin.

When she reached Room 412, she stopped. The heavy wooden door was cracked open.

Loud, aggressive voices spilled out into the hallway.

Charlotte pressed her back against the wall and peeked through the gap in the door. Her stomach dropped.

Inside the room, her father Vernon, her mother Brenda, and her younger brother Ricky were surrounding the hospital bed. The only one missing was her younger sister, Harper, who never bothered to show up for anything that didn't benefit her directly.

Eleanor lay on the mattress, a clear oxygen mask strapped over her pale face. She looked incredibly fragile, her chest barely rising.

Ricky had his hands under Eleanor's armpits, roughly pulling the dying woman up into a sitting position.

Vernon was shoving a thick stack of papers and a black pen toward Eleanor's trembling hand.

"Sign the paper, Mom," Vernon demanded, his voice harsh. "Just sign it and we'll let you rest."

Brenda leaned over the bed. "If you don't sign this, Eleanor, I swear to God I will find the plug to these machines and pull it myself."

The sheer evil of the threat snapped the last thread of Charlotte's sanity.

She raised her bare foot and kicked the wooden door with all her strength.

The door slammed open, crashing against the wall with a deafening bang.

The three of them jumped, spinning around to face the doorway.

Charlotte charged into the room like a wild animal. She shoved Ricky hard in the chest, knocking him backward into a medical cart.

She stood in front of the bed, shielding Eleanor with her body. Her hands shook as she gently laid her grandmother back onto the pillows and adjusted the oxygen tube.

Vernon recovered from his shock. His face twisted into an ugly snarl.

"You little bitch," Vernon spat. He raised his heavy fist, stepping forward to strike her in the back of the head.

Heavy, measured footsteps echoed in the hallway.

Daxton had tracked her down. He appeared in the doorway just as Vernon swung his arm.

Daxton's eyes locked onto the scene. He moved with terrifying speed.

He stepped into the room, reached out, and caught Vernon's wrist in mid-air. His large hand wrapped around Vernon's arm like a steel vice.

Daxton twisted his wrist sharply.

A loud, sickening crack echoed in the small room.

Vernon dropped to his knees, letting out a high-pitched scream of agony.

Daxton shoved Vernon away in disgust. He stepped forward, his broad shoulders completely blocking Charlotte from the rest of her family.

Charlotte turned around, her eyes wide. She stared at the man from the rainstorm.

Daxton looked down at her bleeding elbow. He adjusted his pristine cuffs, his face unreadable.

"I apologize for my actions on the street," Daxton said. His voice was deep, calm, and completely out of place in the chaotic room.

Charlotte blinked, stunned into silence.

Ricky pointed a shaking finger at Daxton. "Who the hell are you? Get out of our family business!"

Daxton didn't even look at him. He simply raised two fingers in the air.

Two massive men in black suits stepped into the doorway, crossing their arms. They blocked the exit completely.

The temperature in the room plummeted. Daxton looked at the Guthrie family as if he were looking at trash on the bottom of his shoe.