Chapter 3

The Vermont cabin had always been my sanctuary. Now it felt like a prison of ice and memories.

I stood at the frost-covered window, watching snowflakes dance in the glow of the porch light. It was my thirty-second birthday, and I was completely alone. The fire crackled behind me, but its warmth couldn't reach the cold that had settled in my chest.

My phone vibrated on the rustic oak table. Another message from James.

"Happy birthday, darling. So sorry about the emergency meeting. I'll make it up to you when I get back."

I didn't bother responding. The "emergency meeting" was a Broadway show in New York with Victoria. My security team had confirmed it an hour ago.

I picked up the remote and turned on the hidden monitor disguised as a landscape painting above the fireplace. The security feed flickered to life, showing James and Victoria entering the Gershwin Theatre, his hand possessively at the small of her back. She wore my birthday gift—a diamond bracelet I'd found in his briefcase last week, still wrapped.

"Smile for the camera," I whispered, zooming in on their faces.

Victoria looked radiant, her red lips curved in triumph as she leaned into James. He whispered something in her ear that made her laugh. I wondered if he'd used the same lines on me once.

I switched to another feed—the rooftop bar where they went after the show. The staff brought out a cake with sparklers. My cake. My sparklers. The ones James had ordered weeks ago for my surprise party.

"Make a wish," I read James's lips as Victoria closed her eyes, her face illuminated by the dancing light.

I shut off the monitor, unable to watch anymore. The cabin suddenly felt too large, too empty. The silence pressed against me like a physical weight.

I wrapped myself in a cashmere throw and curled up on the leather sofa, shivering despite the fire. Outside, the wind howled through the pines, matching the storm brewing inside me.

My phone vibrated again. Unknown number. I almost ignored it, but something—instinct perhaps—made me answer.

No one spoke. Just breathing, steady and deliberate.

"Who is this?" I demanded.

The line went dead.

Seconds later, a voicemail notification appeared. I pressed play, my finger trembling slightly.

"The dead don't always stay buried, Olivia."

The voice was deeper than I remembered, roughened by time or trauma, but I would know it anywhere. Alexander Kane. My first love. My protector. The man who had supposedly died protecting my secrets.

I played the message again, pressing the phone closer to my ear as if I could pull more information from those seven words.

Impossible. Alexander had been tortured to death five years ago. I'd mourned him. I'd moved on. I'd married James partly to escape the ghost of him.

I paced the cabin, my mind racing. If this was some cruel joke...

My phone chimed with a text message. The same unknown number.

One line. One address. "Granite Street Warehouse. Midnight."

The Granite Street Warehouse had been one of our meeting points in the old days. A place where Alexander and I had once hidden from my family's enemies, where he had first kissed me, where he had last promised to always protect me.

I stared at the message until the screen went dark. Alexander alive? After all this time?

Outside, the snow fell harder, blanketing the world in white silence. I should stay here. I should be safe. I should ignore this message that was either a trap or a miracle.

Instead, I found myself reaching for my coat.

As I stepped onto the porch, the cold air stung my face. The night stretched before me, dark and uncertain. But for the first time since discovering James's betrayal, I felt something other than pain.

Hope. Dangerous, foolish hope.

I looked back at the cabin—at the dying fire, at the monitor showing my husband celebrating my birthday with another woman, at the shattered remains of the life I'd tried to build.

"Happy birthday to me," I whispered, and stepped into the storm.