Sarah's fingers were slipping.

She could feel it — the rope burning through her palms, the edge of the cliff crumbling beneath her feet, nothing below her but silence and a long, terrible drop.

"Somebody help!" she screamed.

"Please — I can't hold on much longer!"

Elena was already on her knees at the edge, both hands locked around the rope, arms shaking.

"I have you, Sarah.

I have you.

Don't let go.

Do not let go of that rope."

Sarah looked up at her sister-in-law's face — the only face that held any warmth — and held on.

Then she heard Victoria's voice.

Calm.

Cold.

Almost bored.

"Let her fall."

Sarah's breath stopped.

"Let her go right now, Elena."

Elena's jaw tightened.

She didn't move.

Her grip didn't loosen by a single inch.

"Never." Her voice was steady, even as her arms trembled.

"She is carrying your grandchild.

How can you even say that?"

A pause.

Then Daniel stepped forward.

Sarah had not heard him approach.

She hadn't even known he was there.

She looked up at her husband — the man she had married eight months ago, the man who had held her hand at the altar, the man whose child was growing inside her right now — and she searched his face for something.

Anything.

She found nothing.

"I never wanted this baby anyway," he said.

The words struck her harder than the fall would have.

"Daniel—" Elena's voice cracked.

"No.

Stop.

Think about what you are doing right now."

He didn't even glance at his sister.

"This marriage was over before it ever started."

"Daniel, please!" Sarah's voice broke.

Her arms were giving out.

"Think about our family!

Think about what we built together!"

He looked down at her then.

Really looked at her.

And he smiled.

Not the smile she remembered from their wedding day.

Not the smile from their first morning together, or the night they found out she was pregnant, or any of the thousand small moments she had kept inside her chest like something precious.

This smile was different.

This smile was a door closing.

"I am thinking," he said quietly.

"I'm thinking about my inheritance."

"Cut the rope, Daniel." Victoria's voice again — sharp, final, like a verdict being read aloud.

"Cut it right now."

"Stop!" Elena screamed.

"Someone help us up here!

Someone—"

"Goodbye, Sarah."

---

That was all he said.