At 11:47 p.m., Vincent Sterling handed me a pair of white figure skates.

They were old.

The leather had yellowed slightly.

One lace was missing.

But I recognized them immediately.

My championship skates.

The same pair I’d worn on the night my career ended.

I stared at him.

“Where did you get these?”

“From my brother’s private storage facility.”

My fingers traced the silver blades.

There was a tiny scratch near the right heel.

I remembered making it during a training session when I was seventeen.

“These were supposed to have been destroyed.”

Vincent nodded.

“Someone wanted them preserved.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Outside, black SUVs waited beneath the mansion’s entrance.

Vincent had assembled a security team.

But the kidnappers had made their instructions clear.

No police.

No visible guards.

Only Vincent and me.

I looked toward the empty staircase.

“Lily is only three.”

Vincent’s expression hardened.

“I know.”

For the first time, I understood something about the feared Mafia boss.

His power meant nothing when his daughter was in danger.

He could command hundreds of men.

Control entire businesses.

Make dangerous people disappear from his world.

But he couldn’t guarantee that his little girl would come home.

I touched his arm.

“We’ll bring her back.”

He looked at my hand.

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Then at me.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “I do.”

Twenty minutes later, we reached the abandoned Olympic training center outside the city.

Snow covered the parking lot.

The enormous building stood dark against the winter sky.

Inside, a single spotlight illuminated the center of the ice rink.

A child’s laughter echoed through the speakers.

Lily’s laughter.

My heart stopped.

“Daddy!” her recorded voice called.

Vincent rushed forward.

“LILY!”

A distorted male voice answered through the speakers.

“Welcome home, little brother.”

Adrian Sterling.

Vincent froze.

“You wanted me. I’m here.”

“Not quite.”

The spotlight shifted.

At the far end of the rink stood a wheelchair.

A young woman sat inside it.

Her head was bowed.

Her hands rested motionless in her lap.

I recognized her before she lifted her face.

“Sophie?”

She looked up.

And smiled through tears.

“Evie.”

I couldn’t breathe.

Nobody had called me Evie in five years.

I ran toward her.

But a mechanical click stopped me.

A red light appeared above the ice.

Adrian’s voice returned.

“One more step, and the door behind your sister locks permanently.”

Vincent grabbed my wrist.

“Emily, wait.”

I looked around.

Small black devices were mounted along the walls.

Cameras.

Motion sensors.

And something beneath the ice.

A network of dark lines.

“What is this?” I whispered.

“A performance,” Adrian replied.

A large screen descended from the ceiling.

A masked man appeared.

He wore a charcoal suit.

On his right hand was a silver ring.

“Five years ago, Evelyn Rose refused to follow instructions,” he said. “Tonight, she gets another chance.”

I felt sick.

“Where’s Lily?”

Adrian laughed.

“Safe. For now.”

Vincent stepped forward.

“If you’ve hurt her—”

“You always did have a temper, Vincent.”

The screen changed.

A video began playing.

It showed a hospital corridor.

Five years earlier.

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A woman in a white coat hurried toward an elevator carrying a baby.

Behind her, two men argued.

One was Adrian.

The other was a woman with long blonde hair.

Vanessa Whitmore.

Then the camera turned.

And I saw the woman carrying the baby.

She looked straight into the lens.

Her face was unmistakable.

She was Vincent’s supposedly murdered wife.

Isabella Sterling.

Alive.

I turned toward Vincent.

He looked as shocked as I felt.

“That’s impossible,” he whispered.

Adrian laughed again.

“Is it?”

The video continued.

Isabella entered an elevator.

Vanessa followed.

Then the footage ended.

Adrian’s voice filled the rink.

“Your wife didn’t die, Vincent. She escaped.”

Vincent shook his head.

“I saw her body.”

“No,” Adrian replied. “You saw what I wanted you to see.”

I looked at Sophie.

She was crying silently.

“Evie,” she whispered. “Don’t listen to him.”

Adrian’s voice sharpened.

“Quiet, Sophie.”

I took another step.

“Let my sister go.”

“Then skate.”

A spotlight illuminated a narrow path across the ice.

At its end stood a locked glass room.

Inside was a small pink coat.

Lily’s coat.

“Complete the routine you were supposed to perform five years ago,” Adrian ordered. “Reach the other side before the music ends, and I’ll release the child.”

Vincent grabbed my shoulder.

“It’s a trap.”

“I know.”

“Then don’t.”

I looked at Lily’s coat.

Then at Sophie.

Then at the skates in my hands.

For five years, I’d been running from the ice.

Now the ice was the only path toward the people I loved.

I sat on a bench and began tightening the laces.

Vincent knelt beside me.

“Emily.”

I looked at him.

“If something happens—”

“Nothing is happening to you.”

His voice cracked.

“Not tonight.”

I touched his cheek.

“Then trust me.”

I stepped onto the rink.

The music began.

It was the same composition I’d rehearsed five years earlier.

Every note brought back memories.

Every movement awakened pain.

But I kept skating.

One turn.

Two.

A perfect combination spin.

Then I noticed something strange.

The red sensors along the wall weren’t tracking my body.

They were tracking my blades.

More precisely, the metal beneath my right heel.

My heart raced.

The blades.

Adrian hadn’t preserved my skates out of sentiment.

He needed something hidden inside them.

I remembered the night of my accident.

Sophie had visited me before practice.

She’d hugged me tightly.

And whispered:

“If anything happens, remember that the truth is always beneath your feet.”

At the time, I thought she was joking.

Now I understood.

I stopped skating.

Adrian shouted through the speakers.

“KEEP MOVING!”

I knelt.

Pulled a hairpin from my curls.

And pressed it into the tiny opening beneath my right heel.

A small metal compartment clicked open.

Inside was a silver data chip.

Sophie began sobbing.

“You found it.”

Adrian’s voice exploded.

“GIVE THAT TO ME!”

Suddenly, the lights turned red.

Heavy doors slammed shut.

And the ice beneath me began to crack.

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Vincent rushed toward the rink.

“EMILY!”

A section of ice collapsed into freezing water.

I jumped backward.

Vincent caught me just before I fell.

But before we could reach the exit, every screen in the arena flickered.

A new face appeared.

A woman.

Beautiful.

Pale.

With dark hair and familiar blue eyes.

Isabella Sterling.

Vincent stopped breathing.

She looked directly into the camera.

Then she spoke.

“Vincent, if you’re watching this, Adrian has finally made his move.”

Her voice trembled.

“But before you believe anything he tells you, there’s something you need to know.”

She paused.

“Lily is not the child you think she is.”

The screen went black.