Another contraction doubled me over.

I leaned against a metal shelf to keep from falling, my breath ragged and my whole body trembling. Pain gripped me from my back to my stomach, and for a second I thought I was going to faint right there, among boxes of vaccines and frozen vials.

But then I heard it again.

A sharp blow.

It wasn’t coming from the intercom.

He came from outside.

From the hallway.

I jerked my head up, gasping, my heart pounding against my ribs.

“Is anyone there?” I shouted, or at least tried to shout.

My voice came out weak and raspy.

I shuffled up to the door and banged on it with both hands.

—Help! Please! I’m here! I’m locked in!

There was no immediate response.

Only silence.

Then, a few steps.

Steady. Fast. Getting closer.

And then a deep, sharp, male voice sounded from the other end.

—Grace?

I felt a different kind of chill than the one in the freezer.

I knew that voice.

I hadn’t heard her in seven years, but I would recognize her even in the middle of a nightmare.

“Adrian?” I whispered, incredulous.

There was a brutal bang from the other side of the door.

—My God! What on earth is going on? Who locked you up?

My legs almost gave way.

Adrian Hale.

Derek’s enemy.

The man whom my husband had destroyed years ago with a business betrayal so dirty that it ended in lawsuits, media ruin, and a silent war that never quite ended.

The same man Derek spoke of with hatred.

The same one he swore to crush.

The same one I had only seen once in person… and whom I never forgot, because he was the only one that night, at a gala full of hypocrites, who looked at me as if he knew that something in my marriage was not right.

“It was Derek,” I said, my mouth numb. “He locked me in… he wants to kill me… I’m in labor…”

On the other side there was a harsh silence.

Dangerous.

As if the air had turned to steel.

“Stay away from the door,” Adrian ordered. “I’m going to throw you out.”

Another pain pierced me and I screamed.

He was no longer a threat.

It was no longer “it could happen”.

It was happening.

My legs got wet.

My water broke.

I looked down and felt pure terror.

I couldn’t give birth there.

I couldn’t.

He shouldn’t have.

But the body does not negotiate with fear.

It’s due to the urgency.

“Grace, listen to me,” Adrian said, banging on something metal. “Security is coming. I also called an ambulance. Stay conscious. Talk to me.”

I forced myself to answer.

—No… I can’t feel my fingers properly…

—Don’t fall asleep.

—I’m very cold…

—Don’t fall asleep, Grace.

His voice was harsh, almost authoritarian, but underneath there was something else.

Rage.

Not against me.

Against Derek.

I rested my forehead against the door as another contraction ripped me in two. I wanted to stay standing, but the pain overwhelmed me and I ended up on my knees on the icy floor.

“Adrian…” I murmured. “There’s something Derek doesn’t know.”

—Tell me later. First, we’re getting out of here.

—No. Listen to me. If I don’t leave…

—You’re going out.

“Listen to me!” I shouted with the last of my strength.

Silence fell.

I swallowed air like knives.

—Three months ago… I went to see a lawyer.

On the other side, he stopped hitting.

-That?

“I knew Derek was hiding something. I found charges, transfers, deleted calls… I followed his trail. I uncovered the gambling debts. I discovered he forged my signature. I discovered he wanted to put certain properties in my name so I’d go down with him when everything blew up.”

My voice broke.

—And I found something else.

—What did you find?

I closed my eyes as another contraction drew a wild moan from me.

“Your father’s company didn’t go under just because of one bad investment,” I said. “Derek manipulated inventories, leaked data, and sold formulas to a competitor. He did it to get a promotion and to ruin you.”

The silence that followed was thick.

Black.

“I have proof,” I continued. “I put it in a safe deposit box. And I left a letter for my lawyer. If anything happens to me… it will all come out.”

Adrian exhaled slowly.

—That bastard…

“I didn’t tell him because I wanted to get out of it without destroying my children before they were born. I wanted to wait.”

—Grace…

—I didn’t arrive on time.

Then I heard voices beyond the corridor.

Security personnel.

A stronger blow.

Metal against metal.

The door vibrated.

And, at the same time, something inside me descended violently.

I let out a heart-wrenching scream.

“They’re coming!” Adrian said. “Hold on.”

—No… the baby is coming…

I understood it in that instant. With animal clarity. Brutal.

The first baby wasn’t going to wait for them to open the door.

I was going to be born there.

Inside the freezer.

Alone.

“Grace, look at me. Listen to my voice,” Adrian said, though he couldn’t see me. “You’re going to do exactly what I tell you.”

I almost laughed.

Or I cried.

I didn’t know anymore.

—Since when have you known how to assist in childbirth?

—Ever since my sister gave birth in the backseat of a car during a snowstorm. I was there. Breathe.

A second later, the door was hit again. The frame creaked.

“When the contraction comes, don’t fight it,” Adrian continued. “Use the shelf. Lean on it. Conserve your energy.”

I did what I could.

I grabbed onto the metal.

I pushed with my body trembling.

I felt like I was being torn apart inside.

I wanted to scream my mother’s name. I wanted to scream at God. I wanted to die.

But then I heard a sound.

Little.

Weak.

Real.

A cry.

My son.

My first child.

I picked it up with clumsy, trembling hands, barely feeling my fingers. It was tiny. Slippery. Fragile. Alive.

A sob escaped my chest as if something sacred were being torn away.

“He’s alive,” I whispered. “Adrian… he’s alive.”

On the other side I heard him exhale for the first time.

—Good. Good. Cover him with your cardigan. Skin to skin. Keep him close to you.

I did it as best I could. I clumsily took off my cardigan and wrapped my son against my icy chest.

I didn’t even have time to cry.

The second contraction came as an execution.

Stronger.

Deeper.

More cruel.

—No… no, please… not so fast…

But the second twin was already on the way.

The door received another brutal blow.

“Stand back!” someone shouted outside.

“One more time!” Adrian roared.

Push.

I felt blood.

I felt my body break.

And then the second baby was born… but didn’t cry.

The world stopped.

I looked at her bluish little face and terror left me breathless.

—No… no… no…

“Grace? What’s wrong?” Adrian asked, his voice trembling.

—She doesn’t cry…

—Rub his back. Clean his nose. Come on, Grace, look at me with your voice. Do it now.

My hands weren’t responding well. The cold was swallowing me whole. Even so, I did it. I rubbed him. I gently blew on his face. I brought him close to my mouth. I begged him.

—Come on, baby… please… please…

One second.

Two.

Three.

And then she let out a weak, broken squeal, but enough to bring my soul back to my body.

I cried silently.

Stuck to the floor.

With a newborn in each arm.

And right at that moment, the door exploded inwards.

The light in the hallway blinded me.

I saw silhouettes.

Men.

Dark jackets.

And behind them, Adrian Hale.

Taller than I remembered.

Harder.

More dangerous.

He took off his coat without thinking and fell to his knees next to me on the frozen floor.

Her eyes went down to the babies, then to me.

And something in her face changed.

Rage.

Yeah.

But also a kind of intimate, human horror.

“Take them out now,” he ordered in a voice that brooked no delay. “Now!”

They wrapped me in thermal blankets. They carefully took my children. I tried to hold on to them, but Adrian held my face with both hands.

—Grace, look at me.

I did it.

—Your children are alive.

-Both?

-Both.

—Derek…

Her expression turned to stone.

—You will never again pronounce that name with fear.

Outside, everything was lights, footsteps, radios, chaos.

They were carrying me on a stretcher when I saw Derek handcuffed against the wall at the end of the corridor.

His face was white.

Don’t blame me.

Scary.

When he saw me, he opened his eyes as if he were seeing a ghost.

—Grace… I…

I didn’t let him finish.

Because something inside me had already died inside that freezer.

And what came out of there was not the woman he had locked up.

It was someone else.

Colder than the steel he had wanted to use to kill me.

More dangerous than all their calculations.

I looked him straight in the eyes as I hugged my twins to my chest and said, my voice breaking but firm:

—I didn’t just survive.

Derek swallowed.

And then he saw Adrian approaching from behind my stretcher.

He recognized it instantly.

I saw true terror cross his face for the first time all night.

Because at that moment Derek understood two things at the same time:

that I was still alive…

and that the only man I had destroyed years ago had just found me when I was most defenseless.

Adrian leaned slightly towards him, without taking his eyes off him.

And with devastating calm, he said:

—This time you’re not going to lose money, Bennett.

He paused.

Then he looked at my children.

And he concluded:

—This time you’re going to lose everything.