My original dessert, Starry Sky Mousse, turned my boyfriend's café into a local sensation and drew in tons of customers.

However, Gerard Toussaint, my boyfriend and the owner of the place, was far from pleased.

One day, while I was working in the kitchen, and accidentally got some flour on the sleeve of Elise Moreau's limited edition jacket—his so-called first love—Gerard completely lost it.

"You took Elise's role as creative director, and now you think you're all that?

"If it weren't for you, Elise wouldn't have injured her wrist and lost her ability to design desserts! You think you earned this chance fair and square? And now you're smearing flour on her on purpose?"

He lost it and shoved me toward a bucket of scalding hot water.

I dodged it, but the splash still burned my hand.

Still not satisfied, he locked me inside the walk-in freezer that was set to minus 20 degrees Celsius.

The burn on my hand throbbed in the cold which multiplied the pain.

I screamed for help, but Gerard ignored me completely.

Instead, he took Elise to a luxury boutique to "calm her down" with a new coat.

It wasn't until the next morning, when the morning shift staff could not open the freezer, that anyone realized something was wrong.

Gerard finally remembered I existed.

He rushed over in a panic and had someone pry open the door. When he saw the scene in front of him, he fell to his knees and wailed dramatically.

I was curled up in the corner, shivering uncontrollably. The burn on my hand had turned purple from the cold, and I had already lost feeling.

Outside, I heard Gerard's voice cooing at Elise.

"Your skin's so delicate, that must've felt awful getting flour on you.

"Adrienne's dessert made a killing today. I've already deducted her whole month's bonus for what she did to you. I'll use her money to buy you another coat."

Frozen to my bones, I kicked the freezer door desperately.

"Gerard, please let me out... I'm freezing, and my hand really hurts..."

He scoffed.

"Don't be ridiculous, Adrienne. You were in a heated room all day. How could you possibly be cold?

"You thought I don't know? This is just another lie to get sympathy!

"If I don't teach you a lesson now, you'll bully Elise again as soon as you get out like you always do!"

I sobbed desperately. "Gerard, my hand is burned and it's too cold in here. If I stay much longer, I might lose it..."

He hesitated slightly, though he was still angry.

Then, Elise's soft, sweet voice floated in from outside.

"Gerard, I think the backup power for the cold storage isn't working. The temperature inside should be about the same as outside. Elea mentioned it this morning."

She was lying.

I had checked the cooling system this afternoon and it was working just fine.

However, what Elise said made Gerard's face darken again.

"So you're lying to me now, Adrienne? You should really take a moment and reflect!

"Let's see if the cold storage is really as bad as you say!"

After that, he seemed to have someone shut off the main power and even added an extra padlock outside.

The click of the lock echoed through the air just as the cold storage fan came to a halt, leaving behind a dead silence.

Terror gripped me.

I reached out to the metal rack nearby. It was ice-cold, even more biting than before...

I pounded on the cold storage door like a madwoman.

"There's no backup power, and the main supply's cut too! Gerard, please, let me out!"

However, he thought I was still pretending. "Adrienne, when will you stop lying?" he snapped.

"If you hadn't faked being in a bad mood, Elise wouldn't have gone to the warehouse to help you with the ingredients, and the shelf wouldn't have fallen and hurt her wrist!

"Stay in there and reflect on yourself! If you can't change this manipulative behavior, don't even think about getting out!"

With that, he gently shielded Elise and walked away.

He had left me to scream in fear inside the freezing dark.

The cold crept into my skin, and it was bone-deep chilling.

Even though I was numb, the panic pounding in my chest made me feel a strange burning heat.

I curled into a ball, pressing my injured hand against my thigh for warmth.

Looking around the dark and icy space, waves of grief surged in me.

Once, this café was Gerard's gift to me. He poured all his savings into it just so I could have a place to showcase my baking dreams.

Back then, he loved me fiercely, swore I was his one and only, and promised to give me the world.

However, ever since his first love Elise, came back, everything changed.

He rejected every new dessert I created, kicked me out of the R&D kitchen, and made me work at the front counter.

Just because Elise once said, "My sister's kouglof is too sweet, I don't like it," he dumped the batch I had painstakingly prepared for the competition straight into the trash, right in front of me.

It broke my heart and I got sick.

In the haze of illness, I remember him sitting beside me, and for a moment, I thought I had returned to the tenderness of our past.

He told me back then that I was his princess, and that he would spend his whole life protecting me.

But now...

My chest tightened with heartbreak, so intense it felt like I could not breathe.

When I bent down to curl into myself for warmth, a chunk of ice suddenly fell from the corner and slammed into my shoulder.

The cold storage was icing over even more!

Even the exhaust fan had gone completely still.

Just as I was starting to panic, I heard footsteps from outside.

A faint flicker of hope sparked in me. I crawled to the door with all the strength I had left and threw my body against it, trying to make as much noise as I could.

The footsteps stopped.

A moment later, I saw a familiar face through the tiny window in the door.

I was so overwhelmed with relief that I could not care about anything else. In a hoarse voice, I shouted, "Gustavo! I'm locked in here! Please, let me out! If I stay here any longer, I'm going to freeze to death!"

Yet, to my shock, Gustavo Aguirre—the chef who had always treated me kindly—shook his head. "I cannot do that, Adrienne," he said quietly.

I froze.

He continued slowly, "It was Mr. Toussaint's decision to lock you in. If I go against it, I'll lose my job."

"No!" I cried out, desperate to explain. "Gerard must've just said that out of anger. He wouldn't actually lock me in here! This could kill me! Please, if you don't believe me, call him and ask!"

Gustavo hesitated, but eventually took out his phone and made the call.

The moment he dialed, I rushed to the window and shouted with everything I had left, "Gerard! Please tell Gustavo to unlock the door! The exhaust fan's down, and the temperature's dropping fast. If I stay here, I'll freeze into an ice sculpture!"

On the other end, Gerard scoffed coldly.

"Your lies are getting more ridiculous, Adrienne. Elise is a kind person. Before she left, she even reminded me to leave a crack in the window for ventilation. You can just push it open if you need air. Why pretend to be so pitiful now?

"Or is this another of your tricks to get my attention and interrupt my movie night with Elise? I can't believe you've become so vicious and desperate just to win me back."

No!

Elise never asked anyone to leave a crack for me!

I tried pushing the window open so many times, and it did not even budge!

Worse still...

I remembered something.

The little latch on the window, which used to rattle a bit when the fan was on, had gone completely still right after I called for help.

The horrifying truth hit me like a wave of ice. And then, I heard a soft voice from the window.

"Yes, Mr. Toussaint. Adrienne found a way out a while ago, and she's sipping hot tea in the lounge right now."

Elise said sweetly over the phone.

"Gerard, I know Adrienne cares about you a lot. She probably just made this up to keep you around. Don't worry about me. Cough, cough. I'll be fine. Please don't blame her too harshly..."

"No! That's not true!"

I screamed, slamming my head against the door so hard it echoed with a dull thud.

I shouted through the window, voice cracking, "Gerard! I'm still in here!"

Yet, Gerard did not believe me. His voice roared through the phone furiously, "Enough, Adrienne! You're still trying to lie your way out of this? Competing with Elise for my affection like this—you really are something else.

"In that case, don't bother keeping those dessert recipes of yours. And forget about the dessert competition—you'll hand over your slot to Elise."

"No! Please, no!"

What terrified me even more than freezing to death was losing the career I had poured my heart into.

Every one of those original dessert recipes had taken hours or even days of tireless trial and error.

And for this competition, I had stayed up decorating delicate sugar flowers on a chilled workbench through winter nights.

My fingers had cracked open again and again from the cold.

Yet, Gerard did not just ignore me; he hung up the phone in a fury.

Gustavo had witnessed everything.

I looked at him through the fogged-up window, my voice trembling. "Gustavo, I've helped you so many times before. Please, just let me out... Please...

"When your mom was in the hospital, I helped cover her bills. Can't you return the favor this once? Please save me..."

His expression changed when I brought up his mother.

He froze for a moment, clearly torn. Then, as if steeling himself, he gave a heavy nod.

"Okay, Adrienne. Hang in there. I'll go look for the spare key right now!"

I heard him rummaging around in the office, and for a second, hope bloomed in my chest.

But then, a strange smell drifted in. It was burning paper.

Panic rose in me again. So, I pounded on the door, shouting, "Gustavo! Gustavo!"

However, the silence that followed crushed whatever hope I had left.

Then came his voice—calm, distant, on the phone.

"Ms. Moreau, I've done what you asked. As for the rest of my mother's medical expenses..."

My heart completely sank.

So that was what this was. Gustavo had been Elise's pawn all along.

No wonder Elise claimed the cold storage's backup power was down and the temperature inside was no different from outside—yet the moment I stepped in, it just kept getting colder and colder.

No wonder the latch on the window, which used to move freely, ended up jammed shut...

With all this betrayal crashing down on me, my hands slipped weakly from the icy shelves.

Just as I was about to collapse and resign myself to fate, a sudden thought sparked in my mind.

I remembered that back when I helped design this café's kitchen, I had worried about emergencies—like someone accidentally getting locked in—so I installed an emergency call button in a hidden spot inside the cold storage near the exhaust fan.

That button would trigger an alarm directly connected to a building's security and send a message to a designated contact.

The catch? It was installed at the highest point inside the cold room.

Getting there now would mean draining every last bit of strength I had left.

Right then, I heard the frost crackling with a sharp "crack."

The needle on the cold storage thermometer dipped another mark lower.

If I stayed here any longer, I would not make it out alive.

So I clenched my jaw and dragged myself toward that corner with everything I had.

My bones felt like they were shattering from the cold, each movement stabbing like a hundred needles. Yet, I forced myself forward, racing against death itself.

Just as I finally reached the emergency button and was about to press it, a noise came from the window.

A cup of steaming liquid was poured through it. Most of it hit the floor and froze in seconds, but a few burning drops splashed onto my face.

The sudden contrast in temperature made my skin sting like fire.

Then came a deeper, biting cold—like a cruel reminder of how little strength I had left.

Suddenly...

A loud bang echoed from the outside as if something heavy had slammed into the door.

"Where's Adrienne?"

I knew that voice right away. Remy Allemand. He was my close friend back in school, who is now a firefighter.

He was the one who helped me choose the location and settings for the emergency button.

And he was the one person who knew it existed.

Then, I heard Gustavo's voice.

"Captain Allemand, Ms. Renaud isn't here! She already clocked out and went home..."

"Don't lie to me! I just received an emergency signal from her directly from the cold storage. That code was something only she and I knew!

"Call Gerard right now. Tell him to bring the key here immediately!"

They dialed him up.

Gerard answered with an irritated tone.

"Oh, let me guess, Adrienne ran crying to you again? What, you two got something going on? You're always this jumpy when it's about her!

"Forget it. I'm in a good mood today, so I won't fight with you. This is all because I've spoiled her too much. That's why she thinks she can do whatever she wants! She already left, so stop poking your nose in and get out of my café before I call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing!"

"Gerard, are you out of your mind? That distress signal came straight from the cold storage! Do you know how cold it gets in there? She could literally freeze to death!"

"Why do you care so much about my girlfriend, huh? If I say she's not there, she's not there! You've been into her for ages, haven't you? That's why you can't let it go!"

Remy was fuming. Without another word, he hurled his phone aside and charged toward the cold storage, swinging a fire axe to break the lock.

However, what he did not know was that by the time he got the door open, I had already collapsed under the emergency button, and every ounce of strength was drained from my body.

I wanted to call out, to let him know I was still conscious. However, a wave of freezing air swept in through the crack he had just made.

My vision went dark, and everything went silent.