Chapter 3

Alexis Lane's POV:

Dark clouds hung over the desert like bruised, cold iron as an unseasonable storm came howling through the Nevada canyon.

Torrential rain hammered against the resort's tall floor-to-ceiling windows, drowning out the jazz drifting from the ceiling speakers.

Dylan stood at the rain-streaked glass, staring out at the blinding white curtain of water.

"God, it's really coming down," Dylan muttered, rubbing his forearms.

"If she's still stuck out on that mountain road, she'll freeze solid."

Hunter lounged on the leather sofa with a yawn, scrolling through his stock portfolio.

"A little freezing will do her good—hone her temper. After this misery, she'll finally learn to appreciate Brad's heated penthouse."

Suddenly, with a bang, the heavy double doors of the VIP lounge burst open.

Mark, the operations director of the skydiving base, came stumbling in.

His yellow safety raincoat was drenched with rain and mud, and his face was bloodlessly pale.

"Mr. Evans!" Mark grabbed the doorframe to steady himself, shouting between ragged breaths.

"Where's the girl? The girl who jumped at four o'clock—where is she?!"

Dylan's brow furrowed. Irritated, he slammed his glass down on the table with a screech.

"Mind the carpet, buddy," Dylan snapped.

"What the hell is wrong with you? She's probably walking back from the drop zone right now, bawling her eyes out like a spoiled child"

"She never walked back!" Mark screamed, nearly hysterical, his voice warped by raw terror.

"After the storm warning, we just did a full inventory of the gear! The packing staff found an empty main container in the back room — canopy pulled, straps cut clean. And the rig she jumped with never came back."

Bradley Evans slowly set down his whiskey glass, his eyes narrowing into two dangerous, icy slits.

"Speak plainly, Mark," Bradley ordered, every word carrying the oppressive weight of a billionaire at the top of the food chain.

"What do you mean, missing?"

"Someone tampered with her rig!" Mark stumbled to the center of the lounge, shouting in a cracked voice.

"Before you boarded, someone pulled the nylon main canopy right out of its container! Someone stuffed three industrial steel barbell plates into her pack! Nearly forty-five pounds of dead weight! And the reserve chute's safety seal had been swapped for a factory-new one!"

The entire room fell dead silent.

Cecily jerked her hands back to her chest, the diamond ring on her finger glinting coldly under the dim ceiling lights.

"That's impossible," Cecily said, her voice trembling slightly.

"She never even opened her own pack. Bradley can tell you that — she wouldn't know a canopy from a sleeping bag."

"I've got two ground search patrols down at the base of the north cliff," Mark choked out, tears streaming freely down his rain-soaked face.

"They found a massive impact crater near the granite ridge! The rocks are covered in blood... human remains scattered across a radius of forty or fifty meters! Her parachute never opened—because there was no parachute inside it!"

The crystal glass slipped from Hunter's hand and shattered on the polished hardwood floor.

Whiskey and crushed ice splashed across Cecily's feet, soaking her designer boots.

Bradley stood frozen for five full seconds.

Then a shrill, mocking laugh erupted from deep in his throat.

"Nice acting, Mark," Bradley said, leaning back against the bar, a cold, contemptuous sneer curling his lips.

"How much did Alexis pay you to come in here and deliver this little script? Ten, twenty thousand?"

Mark stared at Bradley as if looking at an incomprehensible madman.

"Mr. Evans, this isn't a joke! There's a dead woman at the bottom of that canyon!"

"Shut up!" Bradley roared, slamming his fist hard against the cold marble bar.

"No one here knows Alexis better than I do! She's a spineless, hypocritical, scheming woman—what wouldn't she do to get out of a test?"

Bradley jabbed his finger hard into Mark's chest.

"She probably hired a couple of local punks to throw a weighted bag off the cliff to fake her death! She wants me rushing out into the storm, begging on my knees for her forgiveness, so she can have leverage over me!"

"Brad, the patrols have confirmed human remains—"

"I said shut up!" Bradley exploded, his eyes blazing with a defensive fury bordering on madness.

"Alexis doesn't have the guts to die! She needs my money to live! Her mother's room in that Phoenix hospice costs me thirty grand a month. One phone call, and the payments stop."

I stood right in front of Bradley, quietly watching those hollow, arrogant eyes.

Listening to the filth spewing from his mouth about my mother, my heart felt nothing at all—it had long gone numb.

With trembling fingers, Bradley pulled out his phone again, hit speaker, and dialed my private number.

The cold automated voice echoed through the silent room:

"The subscriber you are calling has powered off, or is outside the service area."

Bradley let out a furious growl and hit the voicemail button.

"Alexis, this is your final warning," he roared into the phone, his voice shaking with a fury bordering on derangement.

"If you're hiding out in some maintenance shed in the canyon, waiting to watch me sob my eyes out for you, you've miscalculated! I'm counting to sixty—if you don't walk through that door, I'm calling Phoenix Memorial Hospital right now and cutting off every cent of your mother's chemo! Let's see how long she survives without my black card!"

He slammed the phone down on the glass coffee table, his chest heaving, his breathing ragged and wild.

The room was dead silent, except for the storm outside still battering the panoramic windows.

I looked at Bradley, and a ghostly, ice-cold smile touched my lips.

"Bradley, my mother died six months ago," I said softly to the empty air.

"The day the doctors pulled her off the ventilator, you were in Aspen picking out a diamond necklace for Cecily."