The handle moved less than an inch before the frozen mechanism caught again.
I stumbled backward as another contraction tightened around my stomach.
My legs were shaking so violently that I could barely remain upright.
Outside, metal struck metal.
“Stay with me, Olivia,” the man shouted.
“Move away from the door.”
I knew the voice, though I could not place it through the roar of the compressors and the blood pounding in my ears.
The intercom crackled again.
“Do not open that freezer,” Derek ordered.
“There’s a chemical containment issue.”
The man outside went still.
For one terrible second, I thought he believed him.
Then he answered in a low, controlled voice.
“You always were a bad liar, Derek.”
Derek stopped breathing into the microphone.
So did I.
The man struck the emergency latch again.
A bolt snapped.
The door opened two inches, releasing a ribbon of white vapor into the corridor.
Warm air touched my face.
I reached for the gap, but my fingers would not close around the edge.
The man wedged a steel bar into the opening and pulled.
The warped latch screamed.
The door finally tore free with a violent crack.
Light flooded the freezer.
I saw a tall man in a dark wool coat standing in the doorway.
His sleeves were rolled back, his knuckles bleeding from the broken fire cabinet he had forced open to get the pry bar.
“Ethan Cole,” I whispered.
I had met him once at a charity dinner two years earlier.
Derek had steered me away before we could speak for more than a few seconds.
Later, he had described Ethan as a bitter man obsessed with an old business failure.
Ethan caught me before I hit the floor.
“You’re safe,” he said.
“No.” I gripped his coat.
“The babies.”
His expression changed when he felt the contraction seize my body.
He lowered me carefully onto his coat in the corridor, pulled out his phone, and called emergency services.
He gave the address, the freezer temperature, my stage of pregnancy, and the approximate time I had been trapped.
He did not waste a word.
Derek’s voice returned over the intercom.
“Olivia, listen to me.
This is a misunderstanding.”
I looked toward the speaker.
Minutes earlier, he had told me that my death would solve his debts.
Now that someone had opened the door, he sounded like the husband from our childbirth classes again.
Gentle.
Concerned.
Practiced.
Ethan followed my stare.
“What did he say to you?”
I tried to answer, but my teeth were chattering too hard.
“The policy,” I managed.
“Triple payout.
He owes four hundred thousand.”
Ethan’s face became completely still.
The calmness frightened me more than anger would have.
