Chapter 1

I held my daughter close, her breathing gone ragged, and knelt in the snow, pounding on the door like a man possessed.

On the video doorbell screen, my wife Susan was raising a glass with her high school sweetheart.

"Susan! Nora can't breathe! Open the door and give me her medication!"

Susan let out a cold laugh, her voice cutting like frostbitten air.

"Ethan, are you seriously pulling this act just for that little bastard of yours?"

"She's your own daughter! She's only five years old!"

Susan's first love chuckled from beside her. "Babe, I heard that little side-piece of his has asthma too. Runs in the family, I guess."

Susan's eyes went cold in an instant. "Ethan, if you love playing the victim so much, then take your little bastard and freeze to death out there!"

The next second, the second-floor window swung open.

A basin of ice water came crashing down, and the moment it hit my daughter, it turned to frost on her skin.

Nora convulsed in my arms. She looked up at the window one last time, and in a voice barely above a breath, she called out, "Mommy..."