Chapter 1 ONE

Chapter One

The email arrived at 3:47 PM on a Tuesday, which felt appropriate somehow. Bad news never came during normal hours, never gave you the courtesy of ruining your day early so you could at least process it. No, it waited until you were already thinking about dinner, about whether you had enough energy to stop at the grocery store or if cereal counted as a real meal again.

Lennox Rivers stared at her computer screen, reading the same three lines over and over like maybe the words would rearrange themselves into something that didn't make her stomach drop.

Effective immediately, your employment with Hartley & Associates has been terminated. You are required to return all company property and vacate the premises within the hour. A formal investigation is underway regarding financial discrepancies in your accounts.

Financial discrepancies.

The words sat there, cold and straight to the point, like they weren't talking about her entire life falling apart.

Her hands were shaking. When had they started shaking?

"Lennox."

She looked up. Martin Hartley stood in the doorway of her cubicle, and he wouldn't meet her eyes. Martin, who'd hired her two years ago, who brought donuts on Fridays and asked about her weekend. Now he looked at her like she was something unpleasant he'd found on his shoe.

"I need your keycard," he said quietly. "And your laptop."

"Martin, I didn't…" Her voice cracked. She hated that it cracked. "I don't know what this is about, but I swear I didn't steal anything."

"The missing fifty thousand dollars says otherwise." His tone was careful, practiced. Like he'd rehearsed this conversation. "There are transfers from the client escrow account to your personal banking information, Lennox. Your login credentials. Your access codes."

Fifty thousand dollars. The number felt obscene. She made forty-two thousand a year before taxes. Her rent was two thousand a month for a studio in Queens where she could hear her neighbors' entire lives through walls thin as paper. She had seventeen hundred dollars in her checking account and student loans that would probably outlive her.

"That's not possible," she whispered. "I never…"

"Security will escort you out." Martin held out his hand. "Keycard. Now."

The walk through the office was the longest of her life. Everyone stared. Some pretended not to, suddenly very interested in their monitors or their coffee mugs, but she felt their eyes anyway. Jessie from accounting whispered something to Tom from operations. Rachel, who she'd had lunch with yesterday, looked away entirely.

The security guard, Paul, who always smiled at her in the mornings, kept his expression blank as he walked her to the elevator. Professional. Distant. Like she was already a stranger.

"I didn't do it," Lennox said, and hated how desperate she sounded. "Paul, you know me. I wouldn't…"

"Not my call, miss." He pressed the button for the ground floor. "Just doing my job."

The doors closed, and Lennox caught her reflection in the polished metal. Twenty-six years old, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail that was never quite neat enough, dark circles under her eyes from too many late nights. She looked exactly like what she was: someone barely holding on, someone who couldn't afford a lawyer, someone who'd just been framed for a crime she didn't commit.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Ryan.

I don’t think I can do this anymore, we should end this.

Ryan. Her boyfriend of eight months. Ryan with his charming smile and expensive taste and the gambling problem he swore he had under control. Ryan who had access to her laptop sometimes when he stayed over. Ryan who knew all her passwords because she'd been stupid enough to trust him.

The elevator hit the ground floor, and Lennox's knees almost gave out.

Oh god.

Oh god, what had he done?

She made it three blocks before she had to stop, leaning against a building while her heart tried to hammer its way out of her chest. People flowed around her on the sidewalk, everyone in a hurry, everyone with places to be and lives that weren't actively imploding. Manhattan at rush hour was chaos, taxis honking, someone shouting into their phone, the smell of hot dogs from a street vendor mixing with car exhaust and expensive perfume.

Her phone rang. Unknown number.

"Hello?" Her voice sounded hollow.

"Miss Rivers? This is Detective Chen with the Manhattan District Attorney's office. We need you to come in for questioning regarding..."

Lennox ended the call. Her hands were shaking so badly she almost dropped the phone.

This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.

She called Ryan. It went straight to voicemail. She called again. Voicemail. Again. Voicemail.

"Pick up," she whispered. "Ryan, please pick up."

He didn't.

She stood there on the corner of Lexington and 43rd, watching her reflection in a store window. Behind her, the city kept moving, kept living, completely indifferent to the fact that her entire world had just shattered. A woman in a designer coat brushed past, talking about restaurant reservations. A couple laughed about something on one of their phones. A businessman checked his watch, annoyed at the wait for the crosswalk signal.

Lennox pulled up her banking app with trembling fingers. Her checking account showed the usual depressing number. But her savings, her savings that had taken her three years to build up to eight thousand dollars, was gone. Completely empty. And there, in the transaction history, transfers she'd never made. Fifty thousand dollars in, split across multiple deposits to make it look less suspicious. Then fifty thousand out, moved to accounts she didn't recognize.

Her vision blurred. She was going to throw up. Right here on the sidewalk, she was going to-

"You look lost."

Lennox spun around. A man stood behind her, mid-fifties maybe, expensive suit, kind eyes that didn't match the predatory way he'd appeared out of nowhere.

"I'm fine," she managed.

"Are you Lennox Rivers?" He already knew. The question was just courtesy. "My name is Gerald Morris. I'm an attorney, and I'd like to discuss your current situation."

"I can't afford a lawyer."

"I'm not here to charge you." He pulled out a business card, held it out. "I'm here to offer you a way out."

Lennox stared at the card. Her phone buzzed again, probably Detective Chen calling back. Probably her landlord, because bad news always traveled in packs. Probably her mother, somehow sensing disaster the way mothers did.

"A way out," she repeated numbly.

"Walk with me," Gerald Morris said. "And let me tell you about a very unusual opportunity."

She should have said no. Should have walked away, tried to figure this out the right way. But the right way required money she didn't have and time she didn't have and options that had just evaporated like steam.

So Lennox followed the stranger in the expensive suit into a coffee shop on the corner, and let him buy her a latte she was too nauseous to drink, and listened as he explained how her life was about to get infinitely more complicated.

"My client needs a wife," Gerald Morris said, and smiled like he hadn't just said something insane. "And you need three hundred thousand dollars."