Ninety-Two Days Before the Ice

The Number

"It's true…Chris isn't Rhys's son."

There was no point hiding it anymore.

Michael, Britt and Henry had stormed back into the house looking ready to tear someone apart. Lexi gave them the truth in a flat voice. But the moment the words left her mouth, a sharp resentment surged through her.

She had told them not to go over there. Had they listened? Of course not.

If they absolutely had to confront him, they could have pulled him aside. Instead they had screamed it in front of half the neighborhood.

Now everyone in Maple Grove would know. How was she supposed to hold her head up on this street again?

"You... how could you?!" Michael's face reddened with rage. "How could you be so careless? You let that bastard find out!"

He wasn't angry about the affair—he was angry that she hadn't covered her tracks.

This family, birds of a feather.

"Exactly!" Britt piled on. "But why did you have to lose Rhys? One was your lover, the other paid the bills. They never interfered with each other!"

Henry didn't care about the scandal at all. "I don't care whose kid Chris is. You screwed this up, so you fix it. I was going to hit him up again in a few days. Whatever I would've gotten from him? You now owe me."

"Okay, okay! Just listen for once!" Lexi forced down the anger burning in her chest. "I talked to Curry. He recommended a lawyer, a very good one. And the lawyer thinks something is wrong."

Everyone froze for a moment as that got their attention.

"Think about it…Rhys paid twelve million in cash for that house. He didn't even bargain. A man doesn't do that unless twelve million means very little to him."

Michael blinked. "You mean twelve million might only be the beginning?"

"Yes."

That one word burned away whatever anger remained.

"How much more?" Henry blurted, his eyes shining with greed.

"We don't know. That's the point."

Michael resumed pacing. "If he's got fifty million..."

"What if it's a hundred?" Britt whispered.

For a moment, all four of them could practically see the money piling up before their eyes. Lexi warned them to lie low and let the courts deliver their payday, and the trio nodded like obedient children.

She did not tell them about the name. Some things she wanted to understand before anyone else did.

* * *

Across the street, Rhys had moved on to something far more important.

James Svard stood in the middle of the villa's living room, a roll of blueprints spread across the dining table. They had served together years ago. After leaving the army, James had gone into structural reinforcement and security construction, which made him exactly the man Rhys needed.

He pored over the drawings Rhys had made to turn a luxury home into a fortress, pacing the grounds to assess them. Finally he spoke.

"This is a serious job."

"I know." Rhys replied flatly.

"If you want it in two months, the timeline is brutal. Rotating crews around the clock. Labor costs will skyrocket."

Rhys smiled calmly. "Just give me a number."

"Eighty million." James winced. The house itself had cost twelve million, and an eighty-million-dollar renovation sounded insane. But for two months, on this scale, it was fair.

"Deal. In fact, make it ninety. Use the best materials on the market and finish in two months."

James stared at him in shock, his jaw nearly dropping. He had never met a homeowner who not only refused to haggle but raised the price.

A few taps later, five million dollars landed in James's account as a deposit.

"And if you're ever forced to stop because I'm late on a payment, that delay is mine. You still get the full ninety."

James looked at him for several seconds, then laughed helplessly. "You rich people are weird, man."

After he left, Rhys turned to the next problem. While construction ran, he couldn't live here. And the supplies he planned to order needed somewhere to be delivered.

Within two hours he had signed a three-month lease on a large, freshly renovated home inside Maple Grove. Twelve thousand a month was steep, but it solved everything.

Most of his capital was still tied up in the stock market, so his first orders were small: rice, bottled water, antibiotics, batteries. By afternoon, the boxes were stacked in the temporary house's hallway.

He locked the doors, closed the curtains, and checked the clock.

Far more than twenty-four hours had passed since he last used the ring. He pressed a finger to its edge, and the hallway sank into a white light.

Inside, the timer blazed in the air. 30:00. He moved fast, hauling boxes from the real world to the empty apartment and stacking them against the wall. Rice, water, rice, water. His shirt was soaked in ten minutes. At twelve minutes, the doorbell rang.

Rhys froze, a case of water in his arms.

The bell rang again. Then a knock came, followed by a voice, bright and cheerful: "Mr. Darby? It's Mrs. Dawson! I baked something for my favorite neighbor!"

Not now. He thought.

He couldn't answer from inside. And he couldn't leave early without losing the rest of his thirty minutes for the next twenty-four hours.

He gritted his teeth and kept moving. Rice, water…

When the timer hit 4:00, he finally stepped out, opened the door, and found Mrs. Dawson on the step holding a plate of lemon cake and a very hopeful smile.

"Oh, you look flushed!" she said. "Working out? You know, my Jenna loves a man who stays active..."

He was bored and didn’t want to engage in any of it, but he had to remain polite. By the time he got rid of her, it was evening. The hallway was empty and everything was safe.

He sat at a wide desk with a laptop and began drafting a master list of survival supplies. Food, medicine, fuel, generators, insulation and weapons. Every item he had once bled for, every thing he'd wished for at the bottom of a frozen ravine.

He had typed another line when his phone began to ring. He sighed and glanced at the screen.

Wife.

Rhys frowned. I forgot to change her contact name.

He picked up, out of mere curiosity. Whatever Lexi wanted, he had a feeling it was about to get very interesting.

"Hello," he said.