"I flew home for Christmas dreaming of four little girls racing into my arms. Instead, I found my five-year-old daughters barefoot,

"All flights out of Teterboro and JFK are grounded due to the nor'easter, Mr. Sterling," the charter coordinator said frantically over the phone in New York. "Nothing can take off for the next six hours!"

Julian didn't answer. He turned to Arthur. "Get me a private twin-engine turboprop out of a private airfield in Pennsylvania. I don't care what it costs."

"Julian, it's a blizzard across four states!" Arthur pleaded. "If you fly into that storm, you might not make it!"

"My daughters are in that house alone!" Julian roared, grabbing Arthur by his lapels, his eyes burning with a terrifying intensity. "Vance cut the comms! He's going after them tonight!"

Twenty minutes later, Julian was in the back of a high-powered SUV tearing through the snow-choked streets toward a small private airfield in rural New Jersey. The pilot, a veteran mountain flier lured by a massive cash incentive, was already spooling up the engines of a rugged Beechcraft King Air.

"Visibility in Aspen is less than a quarter-mile!" the pilot shouted over the roar of the twin propellers as Julian buckled into the co-pilot seat. "We'll have to fly low through the pass!"

"Just get me to Colorado," Julian said, his knuckles white as he gripped the control column.

The twin-engine aircraft took off into the pitch-black, storm-wracked skies. For three agonizing hours, the plane tossed and rolled through severe turbulence, ice caking the wings as they fought their way west across the heartland of America.

Every minute felt like an eternity. Julian kept his eyes fixed on the dim dashboard clock. In his mind, he saw Emma's brave smile, Lily's trusting eyes, Sophie's laughter, and little Grace clutching her puppy. He had failed them once when he let grief consume him. He had let snakes creep into their sanctuary.

Never again.

At 3:15 AM, the turboprop broke through the heavy cloud deck over the roaring white wall of the Elk Mountains. Below, the Aspen valley was a sea of blackness, illuminated only by scattered transformer sparks and swirling snow.

"Runway lights are out at the main airport!" the pilot reported, wrestling with the yokes as crosswinds slammed the fuselage. "I have to land on the emergency strip at the old logging airfield!"

"Do it!" Julian ordered.

The plane touched down violently on the unplowed runway, spraying a towering wall of white snow on either side as the tires screamed against ice. The pilot reversed the engines, bringing the aircraft to a sliding, skidding halt fifty yards from the treeline.

Before the plane had even fully stopped, Julian unlatched his harness, threw open the cabin door, and dropped into the knee-deep snow.

Parked near the airfield hangar was an old, heavy-duty Ford 4x4 truck owned by the airfield mechanic. Julian pulled a crowbar from his belt, smashed the driver's side window, hotwired the ignition column under the dash, and roared out onto the snow-bound mountain road.

The truck's engine screamed as Julian pushed the vehicle through three-foot snowdrifts, rounding treacherous cliffside curves with reckless precision. Tree branches whipped against the windshield; ice rattled against the chassis.

As he reached the base of his estate's mountain road, he saw the fallen pine tree blocking the path, surrounded by tire tracks from snowmobiles.

Julian didn't hit the brakes. He shifted into low-range four-wheel drive, slammed his foot onto the accelerator, and plowed the heavy truck straight through the snowdrifts on the shoulder, smashing through the brush, bouncing wildly over rocks until he cleared the blockage.

He crested the final hill of the estate driveway.