The room laughed before my husband even finished insulting me. And the cruelest sound in that glittering,

Forty-eight hours later, our private jet touched down on a private airstrip nestled deep in the Swiss Alps, surrounded by jagged, snow-capped peaks that pierced the darkening winter sky. The air was razor-sharp, smelling of pine and ancient ice.

Marcus stepped off the ramp first, scanning the perimeter with the cold efficiency of a seasoned operative, while I followed close behind in a heavy cashmere trench coat, my breath pluming into white clouds in the freezing air.

A black Mercedes-Maybach was waiting at the edge of the tarmac, its engine idling smoothly. A driver in a crisp black suit stepped out, holding open the rear door.

"Is everything in place?" I asked Marcus as we slid into the heated leather interior of the vehicle.

"Our digital forensics team traced the IP address of the Swiss wire transfer to a private chalet in St. Moritz," Marcus replied, pulling a ruggedized laptop onto his lap and tapping the keys. "Richard Vance isn't just hiding out. He’s running an entire offshore network of corporate raiders who target independent tech founders, stage their bankruptcies, and absorb their patents."

"And Ethan and Beatrice were just his pawns," I added, looking out the window as the car began winding its way up the treacherous, snow-slicked mountain roads.

"Pawn shop trash," Marcus agreed grimly. "When Beatrice realized her legal bills were piling up, she must have reached out to her old handler—Richard. She didn't know he was the one who pulled the strings behind the scenes all along."

The Maybach slowed to a crawl, turning down a private, gated driveway half-hidden by towering pine trees. At the end of the drive sat a sprawling, ultra-modern glass-and-steel chalet perched precariously over a sheer cliff, glowing softly against the gathering darkness of the alpine night.

"We're here," Marcus murmured, unlatching his holster discreetly.

I didn't flinch. I checked my reflection in the dark window of the car, touching the pearl earrings my father had given me on my eighteenth birthday—the only heirloom I had managed to salvage from my past life.

The car came to a smooth halt. I reached out, pushed the heavy door open, and stepped out into the freezing snow, my heels crunching against the ice with a sharp, echoing snap.

As I walked toward the glowing glass doors of the chalet, ready to confront the final architect of my suffering, my phone buzzed in my pocket once more. I pulled it out, glancing at the screen one last time before entering the lion's den.

It was an alert from the federal prison in New York: *Inmate Ethan Caldwell has just escaped custody during a transport transfer.*