When our private jet made an emergency landing, my billionaire husband carried his injured first love to safety while leaving me, seven months pregnant, inside the smoke-filled aircraft. Three years later, he would face the consequences of that choice in a way he could never have imagined. But what happened after he walked away was not even the most shocking part.

In the high-stakes game of survival, wounded predators are the most dangerous.

Sophia Carter had lost everything in forty-eight hours. The SEC had frozen her family’s domestic accounts. Her father was facing fifteen years in federal prison for aviation fraud and corporate sabotage. And Vincent had kicked her out of the Moretti penthouse with two hours' notice, throwing her designer clothes into the rain-slicked street.

I sat in my corner office at Aegis Global’s new Manhattan headquarters, reviewing the final restructuring plan for Moretti Enterprises.

Daniel walked in, looking troubled. “The Carter family bail hearings were postponed. Robert Carter is in custody at Metropolitan Correctional Center, but Sophia posted bail using an offshore bond company.”

I frowned, looking up from my tablet. “Who financed her bond?”

“A shell company registered in Panama,” Daniel said, leaning over my desk. “We’re trying to trace the ultimate beneficiary, but the accounts were opened two years ago. Anna… she’s desperate. She has no money, no social standing left, and nothing to lose.”

My phone buzzed on the desk.

It was an unknown number.

I tapped the speakerphone button. “Anna Bennett.”

“He will never love you again, you know.”

Sophia’s voice was ragged, erratic, slurred slightly as if she had been drinking heavily.

“Sophia,” I said calmly, gesturing to Daniel to trace the call. “You’re violating the temporary restraining order.”

“You think a piece of paper matters now?” she hissed with venomous spite. “You came back from the dead to take my life! I was going to be Mrs. Moretti! I held him when he cried! I cleaned the vomit off his clothes when he drank himself unconscious over your stupid memory! I earned that throne!”

“You earned a prison cell,” I said evenly.

“Vincent looked at me yesterday,” she sobbed, a hysterical laugh breaking through her voice. “Do you know what he said to me? He told me he wished he had let me burn on that runway instead of you. He said my life wasn't worth the ashes of your coat.”

“He was right,” I answered without hesitation.

“We’ll see about that,” she whispered, her voice dropping into a chilling, singsong cadence. “He chose me once, Anna. Let’s see who he chooses when the fire starts again.”

The line went dead.

Daniel’s face went chalk-white. “The tracer pinged a cell tower in Westchester County.”

*Bedford.*

My heart plummeted into a bottomless void.