Chapter 2

2: 2

The security door had barely clicked shut.

I grabbed my coat, pulled on a mask and a ball cap, and went straight down to the twenty-four-hour ATM lobby on the ground floor.

Card in, PIN entered.

The transaction slip came spooling out in one long strip.

I ran my eyes down it, line by line.

3:40 a.m. Two million deposited.

3:45 a.m. One-point-nine million transferred into an account under the name "Carolyn Henson."

The captions floated by right on cue:

【Confirmed. That's the woman. The ex. The one getting the house.】

【Screenshot this. The name on the purchase contract will be Carolyn Henson.】

The remaining hundred thousand was the "hush money" Maxwell had wired me this afternoon.

The transfer memo actually read: home down payment.

A cold laugh slipped out of me.

The two of them were brazen past all limits. They hadn't even bothered to cover their tracks.

Just as I was about to pull the card, my phone buzzed.

A text from an unknown number.

【Miss Harding, the two-million principal has been disbursed. Please have the first installment of interest, two hundred thousand, ready before midnight tomorrow.】

【If you default, we've got some brothers who make house calls to have a nice long chat with you.】

【We hear you've got beautiful legs. We'd hate for that to change.】

The captions surfaced again:

【Legs about to be a lost cause? No. You've still got one move: freeze it all now.】

The captions were right. If I didn't cut off this money fast, by tomorrow night my legs really would be a lost cause.

I called the bank's service line at once.

When I hung up, I looked out through the glass door at the pitch-black night, and a cold curve pulled at the corner of my mouth.

Maxwell, you think moving the money out means you're home free?

Tomorrow, when you go to hand over that down payment, I'll show you what a real surprise looks like.

I ordered an Uber, and instead of going home, I went straight to the high-end development Carolyn had posted about on her social media.

"Skyline Residences."

Eighty thousand a square foot, on average.

For this woman, Maxwell really had spared no expense.

I wanted to see, tomorrow, exactly what look those two would wear when the card wouldn't go through.