MY GRANDMOTHER GAVE ME $500 FOR CHRISTMAS. THEN SHE LOOKED AT MY MOTHER AND SAID FIVE WORDS THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING.

Julian checked Evelyn’s pulse at the carotid artery. "She’s unconscious, hypothermic, but her heart is still beating."

"We have to call an ambulance," I urged, reaching for the wall-mounted landline in the hallway.

"No!" Julian snapped, rising swiftly and pushing down the cradle before I could dial. "Look at the window, Nola. Look at the driveway."

I peered through the lace curtains into the storm. At the bottom of the lane, half-obscured by swirling drifts, two pairs of headlights were idling silently on the shoulder of the county road. Black, unmarked utility vehicles, their engines humming low. They hadn't pulled into our drive yet, but they were positioned like wolves guarding the mouth of a den.

"They tracked her," Clara breathed, backing away from the glass. "Blackwood’s men tracked Evelyn here."

"Not to take her back," Julian reasoned grimly, pacing across the hardwood. "To see where she ran. Evelyn knew we were in contact with Ruth. They let her escape so she would lead them to the rest of us."

"Then Ruth is already in danger," I said, a sickening chill spreading through my chest. St. Jude’s Hollow was barely twenty-five miles north, tucked away in an isolated valley surrounded by dense spruce forests and frozen logging roads. Ruth had lived there under an assumed peace, knitting blankets and watching the snow, convinced her past was buried beneath decades of silence. But the five hundred dollars she had handed me on Christmas morning hadn't been an act of grandmotherly charity; it had been an opening move in a deadly game of chess she had kept hidden for half a century.

Julian moved with terrifying precision. He sprinted down the hall to the utility closet, returning with two heavy tactical duffel bags and a locked metal case. He spun the dials of the lock, popped the latches, and pulled out two hunting rifles, a 9mm service pistol, and boxes of heavy-grain ammunition.

"Clara, you know how to shoot Frank's shotgun?" Julian asked without looking up as he chambered a round into the pistol.

Clara swallowed hard, her jaw tightening. "My father taught me before he turned into a coward. Yes."

"Good. You stay on the upper floor with Evelyn. Lock the storm shutters. If anyone steps onto that porch wearing tactical gear, you don't ask questions. You fire through the oak panels."

"Julian, you can't leave us here alone," Clara pleaded, grabbing his coat.

"If Blackwood finds the ledger before we get to Ruth, none of us survive anyway," Julian said fiercely. He looked at me, his gray eyes burning with cold determination. "Nola, grab your heaviest winter parka and the snow chains from the garage. We’re taking the old logging trail out the back. If we try the main road, those SUVs will pin us before we hit the highway."

Within three minutes, we were in the dark concrete garage beneath the house. The temperature here was sub-zero, our breath plume-thick in the shadows. Julian started the engine of his weathered four-wheel-drive truck, keeping the headlights switched off.

I rolled up the rear overhead door just enough for the truck to clear. The storm raged outside, blinding and merciless. As Julian backed out into the white abyss of the forest trail, a single rifle crack echoed from the front of the property, followed by the dull shatter of an upstairs windowpane.