Ashes in the Snow

For three years, Vivian knelt in the frozen snow of Mount Denali—nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine penance steps—while Wall Street heirs placed million-dollar bets on how far she would fall. Killian Vance, the coldest heir in New York's elite circle, was convinced she cut the safety rope that left his first love paralyzed. So he made her pay. Publicly. Humiliatingly. Step by bleeding step. On the day of her final bow, Vivian threw his black diamond rosary off the cliff. Her brother—a starving boy who sold his blood plasma on the black market month after month to cover her debts, who kept the one piece of evidence that could clear her name, who jumped from a hospital rooftop so his sister would never have to kneel again—had died the night before.

For three years, Vivian knelt in the frozen snow of Mount Denali—nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine penance steps—while Wall Street heirs placed million-dollar bets on how far she would fall. Killian Vance, the coldest heir in New York's elite circle, was convinced she cut the safety rope that left his first love paralyzed. So he made her pay. Publicly. Humiliatingly. Step by bleeding step. On the day of her final bow, Vivian threw his black diamond rosary off the cliff. Her brother—a starving boy who sold his blood plasma on the black market month after month to cover her debts, who kept the one piece of evidence that could clear her name, who jumped from a hospital rooftop so his sister would never have to kneel again—had died the night before.