Chapter 1

1: 1

The day after I won three million in the lottery, Wade Bishop and his whole family were pounding on my door hard enough to shake the walls.

"Alma Fox, please, I'm begging you. Buy this old apartment of ours for a million!"

"If you won't, we've got no money for a good school district for Aiden Abbott. Are you really going to stand by and watch your little nephew go without an education?"

I glanced at the address on the deed.

The Fairview complex. A thirty-year-old dump.

Paint peeling off the walls in patches, the stairwell reeking of mold year-round, water pipes leaking with nobody to fix them, wiring so old you couldn't even run a decent A/C without worrying.

Forget a million. You couldn't give the place away.

They saw a lottery winner and figured they'd bleed me dry.

I opened my mouth to turn them down, and a row of floating messages drifted across my vision.

【Don't refuse, whatever you do! This is free money!】

【Place looks like a wreck, but it's in the very last batch of demolition-and-relocation properties in the whole city! The notice drops in a month. Buy in at a million and it jumps sixfold, a clean five-million profit!】

My hand, already reaching to shove the contract back at them, froze in midair.

A million turning into six.

Money walking right up to my door. You'd have to be an idiot not to take it.

I pulled my fingers back and looked up at him.

"All right. I'll buy it."

"But you're all going to record a video, saying in your own words that you're selling me this place of your own free will. Whatever happens later—demolition, redevelopment, prices going through the roof—it has nothing to do with any of you."

"…"

Wade's eyes went wide.

"Alma, you mean it? Just a video, and you'll really put down a million?"

"Really."

I nodded.

Rhonda Bishop lit up on the spot and dug out her phone, opening the camera.

"No problem! We'll do it right now!"

But the second she hit record, Lucas Fox—her son, who hadn't said a word this whole time—snatched the phone out of her hand.

"Mom, hold off on recording. I've got something to say."

He pulled Wade by the arm, and the two of them huddled by the door, muttering, eyes flicking over at me every few seconds, faces full of scheming.

I frowned.

Lucas was a shameless freeloader living off his parents, buried in debt. If he was stalling now, he was probably cooking up some new angle to jack the price up.

Right as I was thinking it, more messages scrolled past.

【Blew it, you agreed too fast. This guy's too greedy! You said yes so easily he thinks he lowballed himself. He's got four hundred grand in online loans about to blow up, and he wants to rope you into paying it off!】

【This man has no shame. Last month he lied to your mom, said he was sick and your grandmother had broken her leg, and sweet-talked her out of the gold bracelet and gold necklace she'd worn for twenty years.】

The heat shot straight up to the top of my head.

No wonder—last time I went home, Mom's neck and wrist were bare, and when I asked she said she'd put the jewelry away. It was these people who'd conned her out of it!

That gold bracelet was the twentieth-anniversary gift my dad bought her, right before the accident that killed him.

Old wounds and new fury piled up all at once, and just like that, I changed my mind.

By the time the three of them dragged themselves back over, I got there first and pushed the contract off to the side.

"Sorry, Wade. I've been thinking it over, and I'm not buying this place for a million after all."

Wade's face changed instantly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I held up three fingers, my tone flat.

"A million's more than I can stomach."

"Three hundred grand. Sign if you want it. If not, get out."

Wade blew up on the spot, slapping his palm down on the coffee table.

"Alma! Have you lost your mind? A million down to three hundred grand—why don't you just rob me?"

Rhonda panicked too, waving her phone at me.

"I recorded it just now! You said a million with your own mouth! A verbal agreement still counts! You can't back out!"

I laughed out loud.

"What's a recording worth? No contract in black and white, and you can talk till you're blue in the face. Doesn't mean a thing."

"I'll put down three hundred grand right now. Not a cent more."

Lucas's face darkened and he jabbed a finger at my nose.

"You've got the nerve to jerk us around?"

"A million, not a cent less, or tomorrow I go make a scene at your company. I'll let everyone there know you've got money and won't help your own family. I'll get you fired!"

I spread my hands, unbothered.

"Go ahead and make your scene. I've got three million in the bank right now, and I'm done with working anyway. Thanks for the excuse to take a break."

Lucas choked. He hadn't expected the threat to bounce right off me.

But three hundred grand wouldn't even cover his gambling debts.

He gritted his teeth, his face going red with the effort.

"No! Six hundred grand, minimum! Not a cent less!"

I sneered inwardly. Six hundred grand was already more than they deserved. Dream on.

I was about to just open the door and throw them out when more messages popped up.

【Don't throw them out, don't! This shameless guy's cornered by his debts—he'll do anything!】

【Take this chance and grab that old house of theirs on Fairmile Road too! There's five bags of cash and three crates of gold buried in the ceiling gap—twenty, thirty million all together! Way more than the demolition payout!】

My pupils shrank.

Twenty, thirty million?

These people were sitting on a fortune that big?