Chapter 4
The night before the hearing, I didn’t sleep.
I walked the penthouse floors, holding Liam, watching the city lights blink below. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Daniel’s face. Felt his hands. Heard Olivia’s laugh.
By five a.m., I’d changed my outfit six times.
Too nice. Too plain. Too much like the girl he’d married.
Elias found me in the closet at six, surrounded by discarded dresses, Liam propped on my hip, staring at a simple black suit.
“Wear that,” he said.
I looked at him. “It’s too… much.”
“It’s perfect,” he corrected. “It says you’re powerful. It says you’re not afraid. And most importantly—it says you’re not the woman he killed.”
He was right.
The girl on the mountain had worn flannel and jeans and no makeup. The woman walking into that courtroom would wear a tailored black suit, heels sharp enough to cut glass, and the kind of confidence money can’t buy but can certainly rent.
I put it on.
Elias called in a hair and makeup team. They gave me a sleek bun. A red lip. Covered the scar on my forehead with just enough makeup to make it invisible unless you were looking.
“Leave it,” I said, touching the faint white line above my eyebrow.
The makeup artist hesitated. “Are you sure? It’s easy—”
“I’m sure.”
It was a reminder. To me. To Daniel. To everyone in that room.
I had survived.
The drive to the courthouse took twenty minutes. Elias rode with me, holding Liam in the backseat, telling me stories about his father—the original Liam—who’d once walked into a room full of men who wanted him dead and walked out with all of them working for him.
“Nerves are good,” he said as the car pulled up to the curb. “They keep you sharp. But remember—he’s the one who should be scared. Not you.”
We got out.
The courthouse steps were crowded with reporters. Daniel’s fraud case had made the local news. The Voss name made it national. Cameras flashed. Microphones were shoved in our faces. Elias’s security team formed a wall around us, moving us forward without breaking stride.
“Ms. Voss! Is it true you’re the sole heir to the Voss fortune?”
“Clara! What brings you to court today?”
“Is that your baby? Who’s the father?”
I didn’t answer. I kept my head high. My hand on Elias’s arm. And when we stepped through the doors into the marble hallway, I felt it.
The shift.
Every head turned. Every whisper stopped. Because everyone in that building knew who Elias Voss was. And everyone was wondering what the hell he was doing here with a woman and a baby.
We took a seat in the back of the courtroom.
The bailiff called the case.
State of Oregon vs. Daniel Reed.
My breath caught.
And then he walked in.
Daniel.
Thinner than I remembered. His expensive suit was gone, replaced by a cheap off-the-rack thing that didn’t fit. His hair was a mess. His hands were cuffed in front of him. He looked small. Pathetic. Nothing like the man who’d stood over me on that cliff.
The bailiff led him to the defense table. He didn’t look back. Didn’t see me.
The judge entered. We all stood. Sat.
The prosecution began. They laid out the fraud. The lies. The money stolen from good people. Daniel’s lawyer tried to object, tried to spin it, but the evidence was overwhelming. Marcus had done his job well. Every receipt. Every email. Every lie, laid out like a corpse at an autopsy.
An hour in, the prosecutor called for a recess.
Daniel stood to be led out.
And that’s when he saw me.
He froze.
His mouth fell open. His eyes went wide, then narrowed, then went wide again. He looked at Elias. At Liam in my arms. Back at me.
The color drained from his face.
“No,” he whispered. So quiet only I could hear it. “No. You’re dead.”
I didn’t smile. I didn’t frown. I just looked at him. Steady. Unblinking.
The bailiff tugged his arm. “Come on, Reed. Move.”
Daniel didn’t move. He stared at me like I was a ghost. Like he was seeing the devil herself. And then—fast as a snake—he lunged.
“YOU BITCH!” he screamed, fighting the bailiffs. “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD! I KILLED YOU!”
Four officers tackled him to the floor. He fought like a wild animal, kicking, spitting, screaming my name, screaming that it wasn’t possible, screaming that he’d watched me fall.
The judge banged his gavel. “Order! ORDER IN THE COURT!”
Elias shifted Liam to one arm and stepped in front of me, his body a shield. But I put my hand on his shoulder and moved around him. I wanted Daniel to see me. I wanted him to see every inch of me. Alive. Breathing. Holding our son.
I walked to the railing.
Daniel was on his stomach, face pressed into the carpet, officers sitting on his back. He lifted his head, his eyes wild.
“How?” he croaked. “How are you alive? I pushed you. A thousand feet. Olivia saw it. We waited—”
He stopped.
Too late.
The entire courtroom had heard him.
The judge went silent. The prosecutors looked at each other. The court reporter’s fingers flew across the keys.
I leaned down, my face inches from his.
“Next time,” I said, my voice carrying to every corner of the room, “make sure I’m dead before you leave.”
I turned and walked back to my seat.
The recess was extended. An hour later, the judge returned. The fraud case was put on hold. Murder charges were being filed. Daniel was denied bail. He was led out in chains, still screaming, still staring at me over his shoulder like I’d risen from the grave.
Which, in a way, I had.
Outside, the reporters were waiting.
Elias stepped to the microphones, Liam still in his arms, and made the statement we’d practiced.
“My daughter Clara Reed was pushed off a cliff on Mount Rainier three months ago by her husband, Daniel. She and her infant son survived. Today, Daniel confessed his crime in open court. We will be pursuing the maximum penalty allowed by law. We will also be filing civil suits to recover every dollar Daniel stole through fraud and attempted murder. Clara and Liam are safe. They are home. And justice will be served.”
The cameras flashed. The questions flew. Elias didn’t answer any more. He handed Liam back to me, and we walked to the car.
Inside, I finally let my hands shake.
“I did good?” I asked.
Elias kissed the top of my head. “You were perfect. He’s done, Clara. The confession in open court? That’s the ballgame. He’ll spend the rest of his life in prison. Maybe longer.”
But something didn’t feel right.
Daniel’s reaction had been too extreme. Too unplanned. And Olivia—where was Olivia? She hadn’t been in the courtroom. Hadn’t been with him at the hearing. Hadn’t posted anything on social media in three days.
“Elias,” I said. “Find Olivia. Now.”
He was already on the phone.
By the time we got back to the penthouse, Cole was waiting in the living room, his face grim.
“Olivia’s gone,” he said. “Packed a bag three days ago. Took her passport. Bought a one-way ticket to Panama. Left a letter for Daniel in their apartment.”
He handed it to me.
I read it aloud.
Daniel,
If you’re reading this, you’re in jail. And I’m somewhere you’ll never find me. I’m sorry it ended like this, but I’m not going down for your mistakes. You were the one who wanted the money. You were the one who pushed her. I was just along for the ride.
Don’t worry about the insurance money. I took what was left. Should be enough to start over. Thanks for everything. Don’t write.
—O
I lowered the letter.
“She ran,” I said. “She left holding the bag.”
Elias swore under his breath. “Panama has no extradition treaty with the US. If she gets there, she’s gone forever.”
“Then we don’t let her get there.”
I looked at Cole. “When does her flight land?”
“Four hours from now. She has a connecting flight in Miami. Two-hour layover.”
I looked at Elias.
“Can you stop her?”
Elias was already dialing. “I can do better than that.”
Two hours later, we were on Elias’s private jet, flying south. Liam slept in his carrier beside me. Elias talked on the phone the entire flight, barking orders in languages I didn’t understand, arranging things that sounded impossible but were apparently routine for a man like him.
“Miami airport is covered,” he said, hanging up. “My people are at every gate. Every exit. Every bathroom. She won’t make it to the connecting flight.”
“And if she does?”
“Then we meet her in Panama.” He smiled. “I have friends there too.”
The plane touched down in Miami. We didn’t go through customs. We taxied straight to a private hangar, where a man in a suit was waiting with a tablet.
“She’s in the Admiral’s Club,” he said. “Drinking champagne. Trying to pay cash for an earlier flight to Panama. We slowed the ticket counter down. She’s stuck for another hour.”
Elias stood. “Let’s go say hello.”
I handed Liam to the nanny who’d traveled with us. “I’m coming.”
Elias hesitated. “Clara, she’s dangerous—”
“She helped throw me off a cliff. She gets to see my face too.”
We walked through the terminal, security trailing behind us like shadows. The Admiral’s Club was quiet, half-empty. Olivia was in the back, by the window, her back to us, a suitcase at her feet, a champagne flute in her hand.
She looked smaller than I remembered. Younger. Almost innocent.
Until she turned.
Her reaction was different from Daniel’s.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t lunge. She just froze. Her champagne flute slipped from her fingers and shattered on the carpet. Her face went from tan to paper white in two seconds flat.
And then she did the only thing she could think of.
She ran.
Straight for the exit.
She didn’t make it ten feet. Two of Elias’s men stepped out from behind a pillar and caught her, holding her arms behind her back. She fought. She kicked. She screamed that she was being kidnapped, that we had no right, that she was an innocent tourist.
Elias nodded to the men. They dragged her to a private conference room at the back of the lounge and shut the door.
Olivia sat in a chair, breathing hard, her hair wild, her eyes darting between me and Elias.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want? I haven’t done anything.”
I sat across from her.
“Liar,” I said.
She flinched. “You’re supposed to be dead. Daniel said—”
“Daniel’s in jail. He confessed. He told the whole courtroom how you both waited at the top of the cliff, how you asked if I was finally dead, how he laughed about the fifty million dollars.”
That got her.
“He what?” She leaned forward, her voice rising. “That son of a bitch. He told me if we got caught he’d take the blame! He said I’d be safe!”
“Funny how men lie when there’s a life sentence on the line.”
I leaned back, crossing my legs. “You have two choices, Olivia. Option one: you fight extradition. You spend the next ten years in a Panamanian prison while we fight to bring you back. Then you come here and get life plus fifty for conspiracy to commit murder. Option two: you cooperate. You testify against Daniel. You tell the police everything. Every plan. Every conversation. Every text. And in exchange, we recommend a plea deal. Twenty years. You get out in twelve with good behavior. You’re still young. You can have a life.”
She stared at me.
“You’d do that? After what I did?”
“I’m not a monster, Olivia. Unlike you and my husband, I don’t throw pregnant women off cliffs. But I also don’t let people who try to kill me and my son walk free. So make your choice. Twenty years in a US prison, or the rest of your life in a Panamanian hellhole.”
She didn’t even hesitate.
“I’ll talk,” she said. “I’ll tell you everything. Just get me out of here before Daniel finds out I rolled on him.”
I stood.
“Deal.”
As Elias’s men led her out, Olivia paused at the door. She looked back at me, her expression unreadable.
“You know,” she said quietly. “He never loved me. Not really. He used to say I was just the backup plan. That you were the real prize—the one with the clean record, the nice house, the perfect life he could steal. He said you were too stupid to ever see it coming.”
She smiled, bitter and broken.
“He was wrong about that too.”
I watched her go.
Outside, the sun was setting over the tarmac. Somewhere, Daniel was in a cell, realizing his mistress had left him holding the bag. Somewhere, the insurance company was already freezing his accounts. And somewhere, the wheels of justice were turning.
But as we walked back to the jet, Elias’s phone rang.
He answered. Listened. His face went from satisfied to stone cold in three seconds.
He hung up.
“Daniel made bail,” he said.
I stopped walking. “What? How? He confessed to murder in open court!”
“Somebody paid. A lot. Cash. No name. No trail. He’s out. And he’s not heading back to his apartment.”
Elias looked at me, his eyes dark.
“Cole tracked his car. He’s driving north. Toward the mountain.”
My blood ran cold.
Mount Rainier.
Where it all started.
Where he’d tried to bury me.
May you like
And now he was going back.
But this time, he wasn’t planning to leave any loose ends.
