CHAPTER 4: SHOWDOWN ON THE ICY SLOPE

The message had been sent three minutes ago. And the man beside me—the very one who had just embraced me and sworn to sacrifice himself—was actually driving me straight toward a death sentence.

The icy cold steel of the handcuffs in Julian’s hand let out a dry, sharp click, rending the suffocating air inside the cabin.

The flashing red and blue lights reflected off his phone onto his marble-carved face, enhancing the victorious smirk of a predator whose trap had just sprung. Outside the window, the blizzard raged violently, as if attempting to tear through the Aspen night. The Range Rover SUV hurtled down the incline at terrifying speed, its tires screeching against patches of slippery black ice.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t beg.

A true manipulator never wastes calories on useless emotions when a trap tightens. My dark survival instincts and psychopathic alter-ego—the very things Julian assumed he had controlled through IV drips and psychological conditioning—surged back stronger than ever. The blood boiled beneath my skin, yet externally, I completely relaxed my entire body like a doll with cut strings.

My eyes closed sluggishly. The phone slipped from my grasp, thudding onto the floor mat. I let my head slump against the passenger headrest, letting out short, ragged breaths as if experiencing anaphylactic shock from the side effects of a drug.

“Accept reality quietly, Emily,” Julian spoke coldly. His tone was flat, stripped of any lingering fake gentleness. With one hand firm on the steering wheel, he slowly brought the steel cuffs toward my wrist. “You’ve lost. I’ve read every single corner of your mind.”

I didn’t answer. Hidden beneath my heavy puffer coat, my left hand quietly slipped into my pocket. My fingers wrapped around a solid cast-metal spare car key fob I had covertly swiped off the vanity table before heading down to the basement. Its sharp, perforated top was forged as razor-sharp as a gouging blade.

I gripped the key fob tightly in my palm, channeling every ounce of strength and razor-sharp focus.

Ahead, through the snow-blurred windshield, the red and blue emergency strobes of the police barricade began to emerge, flashing continuously through the thick fog. The combined blockade of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office had laid its iron net right at the crest of Icy Slope No. 9.

“Game over, Emily,” Julian turned with a smile, his eyes flashing with wild, resentful malice. “Pay for my brother’s death!”

Right at the exact split-second Julian slowed down and leaned over to grab my wrist to snap the steel cuff—

I snapped my eyes open.

There was no weakness. No drug-induced lethargy. My eyes were crystal clear, razor-sharp, and dripping with the cold cruelty of a lucid lunatic.

“The game isn’t over until I say it is!” I hissed.

Fast as a viper, I lunged forward. My left hand, wielding the metal key fob, struck with brutal force, driving the sharp tip deep into the right side of Julian’s throat!

SCHLICK!

Fresh blood spattered out, painting his black overcoat and the windshield crimson. Julian screamed in agony. Dropping the handcuffs, his hands reflexively clutched his hemorrhaging throat. The Range Rover instantly swerved out of control, fishtailing violently across the ice.

Using every ounce of strength I possessed, I threw myself over the center console, grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, and yanked it violently to the right—straight toward the steep snowbank overhanging the abyss!

CRASH!

The three-ton SUV slammed into the snowbank at 80 kilometers per hour. The violent impact launched the vehicle into the air. The deforming metal frame shrieked deafeningly. The SUV flipped three times down the 45-degree slope, smashing hard against ancient pine trees before plunging into a freefall down the icy ravine of Slope No. 9.

SHATTER! BANG! CRACK!

Glass shattered into dust. Metal tore apart. Airbags deployed with a loud pop, filling the air with the acrid stench of gunpowder.

The world around me inverted into a chaotic matrix of dirt, rock, white snow, and blood. A weightless sensation lasted for a few life-or-death seconds before the car struck ground with a chest-crushing impact. The bent iron frame crushed inward, pinning everything inside.

A suffocating silence descended over the space. The Range Rover lay upside down, its four wheels still spinning aimlessly in the air. Gray smoke billowed from the engine, swirling into the -22°C chill of the Pitkin pine forest.

I spat out a mouthful of bitter blood. The crushed frame pressed tightly against my left leg, shooting pain like thousands of burning needles. But a torn airbag had kept my neck from snapping. Using a shard of broken glass, I sliced open the airbag, struggled against the mangled door, and dragged my leg free.

Beside me, Julian’s head hung over the steering wheel. The metal key fob remained buried deep in his neck. Blood oozed from the wound, freezing into stiff, dark red streaks down his chest. He was still drawing faint, wheezing breaths, his eyes staring blankly at me through the gap in the deflated airbag. He was critically injured, his entire lower body crushed beneath the collapsed steering column.

“Cough… Emily…” Julian wheezed, raising a trembling, bloodied hand toward me in sheer disbelief.

I looked at him without a shred of pity. Leaning down, I coldly brushed his hand aside and crawled out through the shattered window frame, escaping the wreckage.

Outside, the snow fell heavier by the second. The wild blizzard blasted straight into my face, sobering every numbed nerve cell. I wiped the snow from my eyes, preparing to vanish into the depths of the pine forest to make my escape.

But right at that moment, a cold, bone-chilling sound echoed from inside the overturned chassis.

CLICK!

The distinct sound of a handgun slide racking.

My entire body froze solid. The howling wind of the blizzard seemed to instantly halt.

From beneath the blue-gray canvas tarp in the back seat—where Ethan’s “corpse” had been stabbed and wrapped by Julian in Chapter 3—a blood-soaked hand suddenly reached out, clawing tightly at the edge of the door frame.

The tarp was yanked violently aside. Ethan crawled out from the wreckage.

He wasn’t dead! Julian’s knife blow in the art gallery had only struck muscle tissue in his back, missing his lungs and heart completely! And even more horrifying: Ethan had never been injured badly enough to lose consciousness. He had lain deathly still beneath that tarp for the entire drive, waiting patiently for this exact moment of chaos!

Ethan stepped out of the mangled steel. His face was disfigured by blood and snow, but his eyes burned with an intensely greedy, ruthless, and toxic light. His right hand tightly held a matte-black steel Glock 19.

He didn’t aim at Julian, who was squirming inside the vehicle. He limped forward through the snow, pointing the pitch-black barrel straight at my head!

“Stay right there, Emily,” Ethan chuckled—a raspy, unhinged laugh that cut through the howling wind. “This game has been fun… but I’m the one taking all the winnings!”

I took a step back, my boots sinking deep into the heavy snow layer. Blood from the wound on my forehead dripped into my eyes, burning hot. “Ethan… when did you hide a gun?”

“Three weeks before the crash!” Ethan growled, his bloodshot eyes twitching to the beat of his pulse. “Did you think you were smart, Emily? Did you think you could secretly buy a $10 million insurance policy without me knowing?”

He stepped closer, closing the distance between us to a mere five paces. The barrel remained locked onto my forehead without the slightest tremor.

“I knew about your plot months ago! I secretly contacted Julian and teamed up with him to trap you! But… that idiot Julian thought I did it to put you in prison to get justice for his brother!” Ethan let out a contemptuous laugh, glancing back at the overturned wreck. “Who needs justice when there’s $10 million on the line?”

The truth shattered completely amid the blizzard.

Ethan had played Julian too! He was drowning in Las Vegas gambling debts. Knowing Emily wanted to murder him for the insurance money, he feigned falling into her trap and partnered with Julian to expose her. But Ethan’s true scheme was a hundred times more ruthless: He had secretly signed a rider on the life insurance policy—the payout would double if both husband and wife died in a catastrophic accident!

Ethan’s master plan was to use Julian to unmask Emily, then eliminate both Julian and Emily at the crash site on Slope No. 9, staging a murder-suicide scene to walk away with the entire fortune alone!

All three of us… none of us were victims. We were three wild beasts leaping headfirst into the same bloody trap!

“Julian thought he was an obsessed lover, you thought you were the ultimate manipulator…” Ethan raised the gun high, his finger tightening around the trigger. “But in the end, only the survivor gets to be the winner!”

BANG!

The first shot tore through the night!

Driven by pure survival instinct, I didn’t retreat. I threw my body to the right, using my entire weight to hurl a heavy spare tire that had been ejected from the Range Rover.

The bullet slammed deep into the thick rubber, sparking brightly in the snowy night.

The impact of the tire sent Ethan stumbling. He lost his balance, slipping on the black ice. I gave him no chance to fire a second shot.

I charged. Like a cornered beast, I launched myself straight at Ethan. We wrestled frantically on the steep snowbank right at the precipice of the abyss. He slammed the butt of the gun hard against my head, making sparks fly before my eyes as blood stung my forehead. But I locked my hands around his neck, my fingers digging deep into his old back wound.

“Die!” Ethan roared, trying to twist the barrel back toward my chest.

I gritted my teeth, channeling every ounce of hatred and survival instinct. I drove my knee violently into his groin while yanking both his hands toward the edge of the cliff!

Ethan lost his balance. The snowbank beneath his feet cracked and crumbled violently away.

“NO!” Ethan shrieked in horror.

He dropped the gun, both hands clawing at my puffer coat. But I was faster. With a surge of desperate strength, I ripped open the coat’s zipper, slipped out of the garment, and delivered a powerful kick straight into his chest!

THUD!

Ethan was hurled off the edge of the cliff.

His body fell into the pitch-black abyss of Icy Slope No. 9, swallowed whole by the snow fog and the jagged pine tops far below. His screaming cries were completely consumed by the howling gale.

I collapsed onto my knees on the snowbank, gasping for air. Blood dripped from my head wound, staining the pristine white snow beneath my feet crimson.

Above the pass, police sirens wailed dangerously close. Streams of red and blue headlights swept through the pine forest, illuminating the blizzard. FBI agents were already descending the slope along the wreck’s rollover path.

I turned back to look at the overturned SUV. Julian still lay trapped in the pile of mangled metal. His blood stained the white snow crimson beneath my feet. He opened his eyes to look at me—an expression stripped of hatred, leaving only shock and helplessness at the absolute ruthlessness of the woman he had tried to cage.

I didn’t save him. Nor did I kill him. I left him for the law and the freezing chill of the Aspen night.

I picked up Julian’s expensive overcoat that had fallen nearby and threw it over my shoulders. Pulling out the SIM-less phone, I stood at the edge of the cliff, looking back at the closing headlight beams behind me.

A polite, razor-sharp smile returned to my lips.

I whispered into the howling blizzard: “The game isn’t over until I say it is.”

I turned my back and took firm, decisive steps, vanishing into the pitch-black pine forest before the police could breach the scene.