December 31, 1944
Frost Industries Headquarters, Boston, Massachusetts.
The snow fell without sound. It blanketed the windows in soft layers of white, but inside the conference room of Frost Tower, the atmosphere was anything but calm.
A month of shadow work had brought us here.
For the past month, Emma and I had worked like surgeons and saboteurs both—unraveling his empire thread by thread. Hidden accounts. Bribed officials. Secret experiments buried beneath real estate records and trust funds.
We found it all.
The final move came quietly.
With a simple flick of a pen, I became the second-largest shareholder in Frost Industries. And more importantly—the only one not drowning in blood money.
Thirty-one days of silent acquisition, pressure applied with a bit of blackmail. We'd peeled Frost Industries apart from the inside—contracts voided, secret assets acquired, dirty money traced and exposed, shell companies gutted and replaced. Blackmail threads pulled. Espionage run by proxies. False leads planted. Compromised executives quietly replaced or bought off.
By the time the 30th arrived, Winston Frost's empire was a tower of ice with fire rising at the base.(You see what I did there? Forst -> Ice)
Emma was beside me—composed, pristine, and terrifying. Dressed in white like the snow outside, every line of her posture screamed silent fury. Not the loud kind. The colder kind—the kind that kills a man with silence before he even realizes he's dead.
The board meeting was already tense before we even entered. The directors whispered among themselves, uneasy at the sudden summoning. The war had made them jittery already, and rumors of instability within Frost Industries had only worsened it.
I took my seat at the long obsidian table, the city stretching behind me in the wide windows. Emma stood behind me. She didn't sit.
Winston arrived two minutes late.
Perfect.
He walked in like he was still in control—tailored suit, silver cufflinks, a smirk stitched into his face. But his eyes twitched when he saw Emma. Just for a second.
"Well, well. If it isn't the prodigal daughter. And her... companion," he said, voice smooth but hollow.
"Good morning, Winston," Emma said. No warmth. No venom. Just a scalpel in her tone.
I rose and addressed the room.
"As of last night, I now control 24.69% of Frost Industries stock. That places me in a position to call for internal audit and governance reassessment, effective immediately. In short—your empire, Winston, is over."
Winston scoffed. "Is this a joke? Do you think some backdoor shares and lawyer tricks will move this company?"
"No," I said, stepping forward. "But evidence will."
I dropped the folder onto the table. Thick. Heavy. Laced with years of documentation, wire transfers, off-shore accounts, classified payments, and accounts tied to war profiteering, human experimentation, and collaboration with known enemies of the Allied war effort.
Winston froze.
Winston looked around, but no help came.
The board stirred, some already aware of what was coming. Most had been quietly briefed by our allies. A few still looked stunned.
Winston tried to wave it off.
"Is this some personal vendetta? Emma? Did you get your heart broken, dear, and now you want to ruin the family business?"
That was the moment she spoke.
Her voice didn't shake.
"You murdered my brother and his boyfriend."
The room went still.
Winston laughed—too fast, too loud. "Emma, please—"
"You had Dante killed," she said, eyes gleaming with psychic fire. "You thought Christian was slipping away from your ideals. That Dante was leading him astray. So you made sure he died. And my brother died from grief."
"That's absurd—"
"Your men did everything. You paid off the coroner. I found the evidence. It's all in here." She dropped a smaller file next to the thicker one on the table.
The directors stared in horror. I watched their minds fill with shock and disbelief.
Emma stepped forward, her voice sharper now. Louder. Each word another nail in his coffin.
"You broke Christian when he didn't live up to your expectations. You locked him in institutions, tried to 'fix' him. You gaslit Adrienne until she broke completely. And me? You tried to make me your weapon. Your investment. Not your daughter."
"You're spiraling, Emma—"
"Spiraling? No, Father. I'm free-falling. And this time, I'm not alone."
I stepped up beside her.
"The evidence includes financial records linking you to Human experimentation. Weaponized mutation studies. Slave labor from the camps in Eastern Europe. You called it corporate diversification."
Winston looked around for support.
None came.
And then the doors opened.
Two officers in brown military overcoats stepped in, flanked by three Boston police officers. The taller one—a special agent with the OSS—held a warrant in one hand, his badge in the other.
"Winston Frost, you are under arrest for conspiracy, war crimes, corporate treason, war profiteering, illegal human experimentation, treason under wartime code 514 and murder of Dante Morales and countless others."
Winston stood. He tried to speak.
Emma stepped between him and the door.
"Don't."
Her eyes flashed silver for a second. Just a second. Enough to still his voice in his throat.
"You don't get to speak anymore," she said.
The officers cuffed him. Dragged him out. The room stayed silent, the only sound the soft fall of snow beyond the glass.
***
Later that night
The firelight danced on the glass as snow kept falling outside.
Emma stared into the flames, glass in hand.
"It doesn't fix it," she said. "What he did. To us."
"No," I replied. "But it ends it."
A long silence.
Then she whispered, "He killed Christian. He loved Dante. And he just... snuffed that light out of him like it was nothing."
She swallowed hard. Didn't cry.
"I always knew. Somewhere deep down, I knew. But now I know."
"And now he pays," I said. "The world knows too."
Her fingers tightened around the glass.
"It's done. Now you can relax." I said.
"Not yet," she replied. "His trial will take months. And you promised me Adrienne and Cordelia."
I just gave her a small no.
She looked at the flames, her profile sharp in the light.
"I don't feel happy," she said.
"You're not supposed to. Victory like this doesn't come clean."
She took a slow sip of her drink.
"Then why does it feel like breathing for the first time in years?"
I raised my glass.
"To the first breath."
She clinked her glass against mine.
Then slowly, she let out a breath. One that had waited years to be exhaled.
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