Semua Bab When the Frost Gives Way: Bab 1 - Bab 10

The actor swiped his badge to open the hidden door, and the light outside made me squint."Don't look back." He patted my shoulder.I nodded my thanks, pushed open the door, and saw the three of them in the lobby lounge.The game had been over for twenty minutes. Not one of them had come looking for me.Derek was standing at the counter buying coffee. He popped in a straw with practiced ease and held it up to Vivian's lips.My younger brother, Kyle Carter, lounged on the couch, reading jokes off his phone to them.Vivian was giggling so hard she could barely sit straight, and Derek watched her with that indulgent smile of his.What a perfect little picture.I took a deep breath, walked straight over, pulled out the chair across from Kyle, and sat down. "What's so funny?"The laughter died instantly.The smile on Derek's face froze for a split second before irritation took its place. "Fiona, what took you so long in there?""Seriously, what were you doing?" Kyle rolled his eyes and toss

The next day, I pushed open the glass door to the office. My desk was buried under Vivian's belongings.The monstera plant I had tended for three years had been tossed into the trash, and the air was thick with her cloying perfume."Derek, how do I adjust the chair height?" Vivian cooed.Derek pressed in behind her, an arm around her waist as he leaned over.At the sound of the door, Vivian turned.Her collar was slightly open. The diamond necklace glinted at her throat, and on her collarbone sat a fresh red mark.Derek straightened up without a trace of guilt. He frowned at me. "So you finally decided to show up. Vivian's handling the big clients now, so this office goes to her."I ignored him. My gaze had fallen to the wastebasket by the corner of the desk.The cameo pendant my grandmother, Evelyn Carter, had left me lay broken in two.When the company was just getting started, the funding dried up.I drank until my stomach bled while courting investors. Even in the hospital, with an

"Who are you?"The figure curled up in the corner was not Fiona. It was Frank, his face beaten red and swollen.He was huddled on the ground, shaking violently, wailing through his tears. "Stop hitting me... Please stop! Please!"Derek's heart plummeted. He lunged forward and grabbed Frank by the collar, his eyes red. "Where is she?! Where is Fiona?!"Kyle rushed over and kicked Frank hard in the ribs. "Where is my sister? If you laid a hand on her, I will make sure you rot behind bars for the rest of your life!""I didn't touch her... I never touched her!" Frank was sobbing, blood and tears and snot streaming down his face. "Some man in a suit carried her out!"Derek's fingers began to tremble.A man in a suit?"Wait... he said to give you this!" Frank fumbled in his pocket with shaking hands and pulled out a bloodstained note. "He told me to give this to you. He said if you wanted to see her, go to this address!"Derek snatched the note. The handwriting was stark and hard-edged, and

Three days later, I finished signing the last notarized property documents I needed before leaving the country.The moment I stepped out of the attorney's office, Derek and Kyle blocked my path.Derek's eyes were ringed with dark circles. Stubble covered his jaw, and his shirt was badly wrinkled. He looked disheveled and exhausted.He grabbed my wrist, his voice raw. "Fiona, where have you been these past few days? What did Julian mean by what he said?"Before I could shake him off, he rushed to explain himself, with a note of self-deception even he did not seem to hear. "I asked Vivian when I got back. She swore to me in tears that she had nothing to do with it."He looked at me, and somehow his tone still carried a note of blame. "Fiona, Vivian is so timid she won't even step on a bug. How could she possibly do something like that? You two have been best friends for years. You know her. Don't let some outsider like Julian poison you against her."I watched him rush to Vivian's defens

My departure was like pulling the last load-bearing wall out of Derek's company.I did not take a cent, but I took the core project's entire source code and every authorship right attached to it.I had built it through countless sleepless nights that had pushed me past exhaustion. They could not even understand the code, let alone reproduce it.When the major clients discovered that the project Vivian had put her name on was nothing but an empty shell, they pulled their funding one by one.And in the business world, Julian was more ruthless and decisive than I could have imagined.In less than two weeks, he severed every supply chain lifeline Derek had, trapping him in a dead end with no way out.Derek was hit with massive breach-of-contract penalties. His entire cash flow collapsed.That office Vivian had claimed, the one reeking of cheap perfume, was shut behind a stark white court-ordered closure notice.Derek went bankrupt, saddled with debts he would not be able to repay for the r