d28.Rose heard the scream before she saw the woman fall.

One second, she was balancing a silver tray of vintage Dom Pérignon through a high-society rooftop wedding eighty-two floors above the glittering Manhattan skyline. The autumn breeze tasted of spun sugar, expensive perfume, and crisp autumn champagne.

The next second, seventy-year-old Eleanor Callaway was tipping backward over the polished glass railing.

Rose dropped the tray. Crystal shattered across the imported Italian marble, sending foaming gold liquid splashing over designer heels and silk hems.

Rose didn't think. She sprinted.

Across the sprawling penthouse terrace, billionaire Nathaniel Callaway whipped his head toward his mother’s shriek—and went rigid.

Standing by the railing, framed against the twilight sky, was Victoria Sterling. His bride of barely two hours.

Victoria’s manicured hands, adorned with a five-carat diamond band, were still outstretched in mid-air.

Rose didn’t have the luxury of parsing the horror. Eleanor was already gone, her fragile frame tumbling into the eighty-two-story abyss. Rose threw herself forward, her knees slamming violently into the wet, glass-littered floor. She lunged over the barrier, her fingers clawing frantically through the empty air until she caught a fistful of heavy, navy blue velvet at the back of Eleanor’s gown.

The downward momentum yanked Rose forward. Her ribs cracked against the cold edge of the glass barrier with a sickening thud. The breath exploded from her lungs. Below her, yellow taxicabs looked like crawling ants against asphalt veins.

"I've got you!" Rose choked out, her voice ragged. "Don't let go!"

Eleanor’s terrified blue eyes stared up at her from the void, her weathered hands desperately clutching Rose’s forearms. But the seventy-year-old matriarch was dead weight, and the fabric was beginning to tear. The seams screamed under the tension.

Rose hooked her left combat boot against the steel base of the railing post, her muscles tearing with white-hot agony.

"HELP ME!" Rose screamed into the wind.

For three agonizing heartbeats, the terrace was frozen. Two hundred elite guests stood paralyzed, their champagne flutes hovering near their lips, their minds unable to process the nightmare unfolding before them.

Rose’s fingers began to burn. Blood welled beneath her broken fingernails. Her grip was failing. Another millimeter, and Eleanor would plummet into the evening fog.

Then heavy, frantic footsteps shook the deck.

Nathaniel arrived like a thunderclap. His tuxedo jacket was already torn off as he dove over the railing beside Rose. His massive, calloused hands locked around his mother’s wrists with unbreakable force. Two Callaway private security guards slammed down beside him, grabbing Eleanor’s shoulders.

With a collective roar of exertion, they hauled Eleanor back over the threshold.

The matriarch hit the marble floor, gasping like a stranded fish, trembling violently. Nathaniel collapsed beside her, wrapping his trembling arms around her shivering frame. "Mom. Mom, look at me. I have you. You're safe. Look at me."

Rose slumped against the glass barrier, her head spinning. Her white uniform shirt was torn and soaked in champagne, her palms shredded and dripping dark crimson onto the white stone. She pulled her knees to her chest, trying to steady the wild hammer of her heart.

Nathaniel slowly lifted his head.

He didn't look at the crowd. He didn't look at the security team securing the perimeter.

He looked straight at Victoria.

The bride hadn't moved an inch from the spot by the railing. Her diamond-encrusted veil fluttered softly in the wind. Her flawless porcelain face had drained of every drop of color, leaving her as pale as marble. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, panicked bursts.

Around them, the silence broke. High-society guests began pulling out their smartphones, the soft clicks and low murmurs spreading like wildfire.

Victoria swallowed hard. She took one small, trembling step toward Nathaniel, her diamond earrings catching the city lights.

"Nathaniel…" she whispered, her voice trembling with theatrical fragility. "It… it was an accident. The heel of my shoe caught on her train. I reached out to steady her, but—"

Nathaniel didn't let her finish.

He rose from the floor with the slow, terrifying stillness of a predator. His dark eyes, usually cold and calculating in boardrooms, were burned hollow by a lethal fury.

"An accident?" Nathaniel’s voice was quiet, but it sliced through the eighty-second floor like a guillotine.

He didn't step toward his new wife. Instead, he took off his platinum wedding band, held it between two fingers, and let it drop onto the glass-covered marble. It rolled to a stop against Victoria's white satin stiletto.