Chapter 2

The sound of hurried footsteps on the staircase broke the stalemate. Meredith Adler rushed down, her face ashen, clutching a manila envelope. She practically threw it at Elianna.

"Here," Meredith gasped out. "Take it."

Elianna caught the envelope. She didn't thank her. She walked over to the side table, ignoring Genevieve's burning glare, and dumped the contents onto the polished wood. A blue passport. A certified copy of a birth certificate.

She picked up the passport first. She flipped it open, running her thumb over the photo, checking the holograms, the dates, the spelling of her name. It was real. It was hers. She hadn't held it in six years.

She picked up the birth certificate. She scrutinized every detail, the seal, the registrar's signature, the hospital name. She checked for smudges, for inconsistencies, for any sign that Genevieve had tampered with it again. It was clean.

Genevieve's voice was hoarse, scraping through the silence. "How did you know about those accounts?"

Elianna gathered the documents, sliding them back into the envelope. She folded the top flap down, sealing it. She looked up at Genevieve, her eyes like chips of ice. "You think I spent the last six years just flying planes?"

The words hung in the air. It wasn't an answer, but it was a threat. Genevieve's chest rose and fell rapidly. She was realizing, too late, that the pawn had become the player.

Elianna tucked the envelope under her arm. She turned on her heel, her back straight, and walked toward the grand double doors of the living room. She didn't look back. Not at the gilded mirrors, not at the silk rugs, not at the woman who had made her life a living hell.

"Elianna," Meredith called out, her voice cracking. "Please. We're still family. We're all we have."

Elianna stopped. Her hand rested on the brass doorknob. She didn't turn around. The coldness in her voice could have frozen the Atlantic. "From the moment you forged that evidence six years ago and threw me to the wolves, we stopped being family."

She turned her head slightly, just enough for her profile to be seen. Her eyes were hard, unyielding. "My father's car accident. My brother's death. That so-called 'commercial espionage' case. I'm going to settle every single account. One by one."

Meredith let out a choked sob. Genevieve took a step back, her hand clutching her throat. The promise in Elianna's voice was absolute. It wasn't a threat. It was a declaration of war.

Elianna pulled the door open and strode out. Her boots clicked rhythmically down the marble hallway. The front door was ahead. Freedom was ahead.

Behind her, in the living room, a scream of frustration ripped through the air. It was followed by a loud crash. The sound of fine porcelain shattering against the hardwood floor echoed through the estate.

Elianna didn't break stride. She pushed through the front door and stepped out into the bright New York afternoon. The sun was blinding after the dim interior of the house.

A silver Uber was waiting at the curb, just as she had requested. The driver, a middle-aged man with a newspaper on the passenger seat, got out to open the trunk.

"Where to?" he asked, loading her small suitcase.

Elianna slid into the back seat. "The city. I'll give you the address in a minute."

She pulled out her phone as the car pulled away from the curb. The Solis estate shrank in the rearview mirror, its stone walls and iron gates looking less like a fortress and more like a prison she had finally escaped.

She opened the secure messaging app. Her contact, Nexus, was online. She typed quickly: "Documents secured. Initiating Plan B."

The reply came instantly. "NYC Marriage Bureau, 3:00 PM. The target will be there. Code name: Baldwin Armstrong."

Elianna stared at the screen. Baldwin Armstrong. The name was familiar only from the sparse dossier Nexus had provided-a decorated military background, a powerful family, currently on medical leave. The photo showed a man with sharp, intelligent eyes. For her plan, he was the perfect shield, a man whose world was far removed from the corporate warfare she was about to wage. But a dossier was just paper. The real man was an unknown variable. A legal identity. Protection. A foundation she could build her revenge upon.

The driver glanced in the rearview mirror. "You a pilot?" he asked, nodding at her uniform.

Elianna didn't look up from her phone. "Yes."

"Long flight?"

"Long enough." She locked the screen and stared out the window. The trees of the Long Island suburbs blurred into the concrete and steel of the approaching city. She needed a legal status. She needed to be untouchable. This contract marriage was the first brick in the wall she was going to build around herself, and then she was going to use it to tear the Solis family down.

She checked the time. It was just past noon. She had a few hours. She couldn't walk into a marriage bureau looking like an airline employee. She needed to blend in. She needed to disappear.

"Drop me at the mall on 34th Street," she said.

The driver nodded and merged into traffic. Elianna closed her eyes. For a second, a flash of fire erupted behind her eyelids. The twisted metal. The smoke. The sirens. She forced her breathing to slow, pushing the memory back down into the dark place where she kept it.

Revenge wasn't a fire. It was ice. And she was just getting started.