Chapter 1 1

The heavy thud of the ink stamp hitting the paper echoed like a gunshot in the small, concrete room.

Warden Thompson didn't look up. He just slid the file across the metal desk.

"You're done, Haynes. Get out."

Camille Haynes stood still. Her heart rate didn't spike. Her palms didn't sweat. Five years ago, she would have been trembling, tears streaming down her face, begging for someone to tell her this was a mistake.

Now, she just reached for the plastic bag Officer Grant held out.

It was light. Pathetically light. A tube of chapstick that had expired three years ago and a medical textbook with the spine broken in three places.

"Sign here," Grant said, bored.

Camille signed. Her handwriting had changed. It used to be loopy, girlish. Now it was sharp, jagged lines that looked like they could cut skin.

She walked toward the heavy steel door. The buzzer sounded, a long, angry drone that vibrated in her teeth. The door slid open.

Camille stepped out.

The sun hit her like a physical blow. She flinched, her arm coming up to shield her eyes. The air didn't smell like bleach and stale cabbage anymore. It smelled of dust and exhaust and something terrifyingly open.

She lowered her arm. She expected cameras. She expected the flash of bulbs that had blinded her five years ago when she was dragged away in handcuffs.

There was nothing.

Just an empty road and a single black stretch limousine idling on the shoulder.

The windows were tinted so dark they looked like oil slicks. The car sat there, ominous and silent. It looked like a hearse.

Camille adjusted the collar of her trench coat. It was the same one she had worn the day she was arrested. The hem was frayed, and the fabric was tight across her shoulders. She had been a waif then. Prison had stripped the fat and built muscle in its place.

She walked to the car.

The driver got out. He wore white gloves. He didn't look at her face. He opened the rear door and stared at the horizon, as if looking at her would contaminate him.

Camille ducked inside.

The air conditioning hit her instantly, freezing the sweat on her neck. The door thudded shut, sealing her in a leather-scented vacuum.

Across from her sat her mother, Victoria, and her sister, Mia.

Victoria held a crystal flute of champagne. She didn't offer one to Camille. She looked at Camille's worn coat with a curl of her lip that suggested she smelled something rotting.

Mia pressed herself into the corner of the leather seat. She looked terrified.

"Close the curtains," Victoria said. It was the first thing she had said to her daughter in five years. "I won't have the paparazzi getting a shot of your face."

Camille reached out and slid the velvet curtain shut. Her movements were fluid, controlled. She sat back, her spine not touching the seat.

"You look like a ghost," Mia said. Her voice was high, brittle. "The food in there must have been garbage. You're skeletal."

Camille looked at her sister. She didn't blink. She just watched Mia's pulse flutter in her throat.

Mia shivered and looked away.

Victoria opened her crocodile skin purse. She pulled out a thick document and tossed it onto the small walnut table between them.

It landed with a heavy slap.

"Sign it," Victoria said. "The family has arranged a stipend. You take the money, you go to Europe, and you never come back to New York. You are dead to this city."

Camille looked down. Trust Fund Divestiture Agreement. Non-Disclosure Agreement.

"And if I don't?" Camille asked. Her voice was raspy from disuse.

"Gavin and I are getting engaged next month," Mia blurted out, a cruel smile touching her lips. "He doesn't need his ex-fiancée convict hanging around." She reached into her own purse, pulled out a black credit card, and flicked it onto the table. It skittered across the polished wood and came to rest next to the documents. "Here. For a bus ticket out of town. Don't say we never gave you anything."

Camille's finger twitched. Just once.

"You have no leverage," Victoria snapped, taking a sip of her champagne. "You are a stain on this family. You sign, or you starve."

Camille leaned forward. The air in the car shifted. It became heavy, suffocating. A faint wave of nausea rolled through her, a familiar companion these last few weeks. She pushed it down, turning the weakness into ice.

"You sent me there," Camille said softly. "You and Gavin. We have a lot of accounting to do."

Victoria's face flushed red. She opened her mouth to scream.

The car slammed sideways.

Metal screeched against metal. The impact threw Camille against the side panel. Victoria's champagne glass shattered, spraying liquid and shards everywhere.

"Madam!" the driver's voice crackled over the intercom, panicked. "We're being rammed! Three SUVs! No plates!"