He thought the mountain had buried his darkest secret.

He thought his pregnant wife was dead.

And when he stood at her funeral beside his secret mistress, Michael Carter believed he had successfully carried out the perfect crime—one that would leave him $50 million richer.

But he was wrong.

Emma survived the fall.

Badly injured and nearly frozen beneath a brutal Colorado blizzard, she clung to life for one reason: her unborn son was still alive.

Then, just as rescue finally arrived, a stranger looked into her eyes and called her by a name she had never heard from him before.

“Emma… I finally found you.”

What followed would expose a hidden family history, a missing child, secret financial records, and a conspiracy that had been buried for decades.

And the most shocking discovery was still waiting for her.

Left to Die on the Mountain

I learned what happened at my funeral only later.

While everyone else mourned what they believed was my tragic death, my husband, Michael Carter, showed almost no emotion.

According to the people who were there, he stood among the mourners with an expression that was disturbingly calm.

Then he said something that would stay with me forever.

“They both froze to death. That useless woman finally got what she deserved.”

He was talking about me.

And about the baby growing inside me.

Only a few hours earlier, Michael and I had been arguing near the edge of a frozen cliff in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

I had begged him to stop.

I begged him to take me home.

Instead, he pushed me.

There was no warning.

One moment I was standing on solid ground.

The next, I was falling.

I reached desperately for anything that could stop me, but there was nothing to grab. The icy rock slipped beneath my fingers as the cliff disappeared above me.

Then I looked up.

Michael was standing at the edge.

And he was smiling.

“Don’t worry,” he called down. “Neither you nor the baby will suffer for long.”

Then I fell out of sight.

I slammed onto a narrow ledge halfway down the mountain.

Pain exploded through my body.

My ribs felt as though they had shattered. My wrist was twisted at an unnatural angle, and blood slowly spread across the snow beneath me.

But none of that mattered.

My hands immediately went to my swollen stomach.

I was still alive.

More importantly, my baby was still alive.

“Please stay with me,” I whispered. “Please don’t leave me.”

A violent blizzard swept across the mountain.

Snow began covering my body.

The cold became unbearable.

I could barely move, but I refused to close my eyes.

I wasn’t going to die.

Not while my son was still fighting to survive.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, I heard voices above me.

Michael hadn’t left.

He had come back.

But he wasn’t alone.

Ashley was with him—the woman everyone believed was merely his executive assistant.

I heard her voice cutting through the wind.

“Is she dead?”

Michael laughed quietly.

“For fifty million dollars,” he replied, “she better be.”

Those words changed everything.

Suddenly, every strange detail made sense.

The isolated hiking trip.

The enormous life insurance policy.

The arguments.

The way Michael had insisted we come to the mountains.

None of it had been accidental.

My death had been planned.

And apparently, the insurance policy would pay even more if both my baby and I died.

Ashley shivered.

“Let’s go back. I’m freezing.”

Michael didn’t argue.

They simply walked away.

They left me on the mountainside as if I were already dead.

For nearly two hours, I fought to remain conscious.

The cold drained my strength.

My vision blurred.

Every breath became more difficult.

But whenever I felt myself slipping away, I felt the faintest movement beneath my hands.

My baby was still alive.

So I stayed alive for him.

Then I heard something above the storm.

A helicopter.

The sound of the blades grew louder.

A powerful searchlight suddenly broke through the darkness.

A black helicopter hovered above the cliff.

A rescuer descended toward me on a cable.

When he finally reached the ledge, he removed his goggles.

I stared at him through my fading vision.

There was something strangely familiar about his face.

Silver hair.

Blue eyes.

Then he touched my frozen cheek.

His voice trembled.

“Emma…”

I stared at him.

“I finally found you.”

Part Two: The Missing Page at Vale Harbor

Richard stood in the doorway for several seconds, staring at the torn letter in my hand.

His face had gone pale.

I raised the letter toward him.

“Who removed the last page?”

He looked from the paper to me.

But he didn’t answer.

That silence told me everything.

The disappointment came first.

Then the anger.

“You promised me,” I said quietly. “No more secrets.”

Richard stepped closer.

“Emma—”

“No.”

I stopped him.

“Don’t say my name as if that can fix what you did.”

My voice shook, but I forced myself to remain calm.

“Ashley called me. She said the letter wasn’t complete. She told me to ask you about the baby at Vale Harbor.”

Richard closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the controlled expression I had become accustomed to seeing was gone.

I lowered the letter.

“What baby?”

He sat carefully on the edge of my hospital bed and clasped his hands together.

“Your mother wasn’t the only pregnant woman at Vale Harbor,” he said.

My hand instinctively moved toward my stomach.

Lucas had already been born, but the mention of another baby sent a strange chill through me.....