Chapter 1 1

The bottle of Evian sat on the coaster, sweating condensation onto the polished mahogany. Isidora Tate watched a single droplet slide down the glass, her face reflected in the dark screen of her iPad. It was a mask of professional detachment, the same expression she wore when auditing a company on the brink of bankruptcy.

It was quiet in the Tribeca penthouse. The kind of silence that cost fifteen million dollars.

Her phone buzzed on the table. An automated reply from her husband, Cash Ferguson.

Currently in a closed-door roadshow in San Francisco. Signal spotty. Will update when possible.

Isidora didn't sigh. She didn't roll her eyes. She simply tapped the iPad screen, waking it up. She switched apps, moving from her email to the CNBC live stream. She needed to check the volatility of Ferguson Tech's pre-market valuation.

The financial ticker scrolled by, red and green numbers blurring together. Then, the anchor cut away to a segment on lifestyle and culture.

Live from Park City, Utah. The Sundance Film Festival is in full swing.

The screen filled with blinding white snow and the flashing bulbs of paparazzi. Isidora's finger hovered over the volume button, ready to mute it. She hated celebrity gossip.

Then the camera panned.

Her breath hitched. It wasn't a gasp; it was a mechanical failure of her diaphragm.

There, in the corner of the high-definition frame, was Cash. He wasn't in San Francisco. He was standing in the snow, wearing the Loro Piana cashmere coat she had steamed for him two days ago. He was leaning down, his hands adjusting the scarf of a woman with blonde hair and a smile that was too wide, too practiced.

Isidora took a screenshot. She pinched the screen, zooming in until the pixels blurred.

Chante Duran. The socialite. The girl who was everywhere on Instagram lately, tagging herself at the places Isidora used to go before she became "Cash Ferguson's wife."

The movement on the screen caught her eye again. A child, a boy no older than two, bundled in a navy Moncler snowsuit, waddled into the frame. He ran straight for Cash's legs, wrapping his small arms around the expensive denim.

Isidora waited for Cash to step back. She waited for the annoyance, the fastidious brushing off of lint or snow. Cash hated sticky hands. He hated disorder.

Instead, Cash scooped the boy up.

He hoisted the child onto his hip with a fluid, practiced motion. He kissed the boy's beanie. The look on his face wasn't the shark-like grin he saved for investors. It was soft. It was familiar.

Isidora felt a hollow void open in her gut, a data point of betrayal registering with digital precision. Her pulse registered a sharp uptick, an autonomic response she noted with detached curiosity, but her eyes remained dry.

She closed the CNBC app. She opened her laptop.

This was a crime scene. And she was the investigator.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard. She bypassed the joint family accounts-the ones Cash knew she managed-and logged into the shadow system she had built years ago. It was a failsafe. A habit from her life before, when survival meant knowing where every penny was buried.

She entered the code for Cash's private holding company.

Data cascaded down the screen. Numbers. Dates. Locations. She filtered for recurring outflows over ten thousand dollars.

There it was. A monthly transfer labeled "Consulting Fees," starting twenty-six months ago.

She traced the routing number. It bounced through two intermediaries before landing in a trust based in Delaware. A shell entity. She drilled deeper, pulling the beneficial owner data she accessed through her firm's subscription.

Beneficiary: Leo Duran.

She pulled up the birth certificate attached to the trust's formation documents. The father's name was blank. But the hospital bills from Mount Sinai had been paid by a credit card linked to Gavin, Cash's personal assistant.

Leo Duran. Two years old.

The timeline was a mathematical proof of betrayal. Cash had been sleeping with Chante within the first year of their marriage.

Isidora closed the laptop. The click sounded like a gunshot in the empty room.

She stood up and walked to the walk-in closet. Rows of monochromatic suits hung there. Black, grey, white, navy. Clothes for a serious woman. Clothes for a woman who wouldn't embarrass a tech CEO during an IPO.

She realized then that she wasn't a wife. She was an asset class. A low-risk bond held to offset the volatility of his real life.

She picked up her phone. She didn't call Cash. She dialed Harper.

"Isi?" Harper's voice was groggy. "It's six a.m."

"Cash has a two-year-old son," Isidora said. Her voice was steady, devoid of inflection. "I am initiating the liquidation protocol."

Harper screamed something unintelligible on the other end. A string of curses that would have made a sailor blush.

Isidora felt a strange, cold sensation washing over her skin. It wasn't numbness. It was clarity.

"I have to go," Isidora said.

She hung up and walked to the wall safe hidden behind a generic abstract painting. She spun the dial. Inside, beneath her passport and some heirloom jewelry, was a manila folder.

The divorce agreement. Drafted six months ago, when she first suspected, but never confirmed.

She uncapped her fountain pen. She signed "Isidora Tate" on the bottom line. The nib scratched the paper, tearing through the fiber.

Ding.

The elevator indicator in the foyer chimed. Someone was coming up.

Panic flared, hot and sudden. Cash couldn't be back. He was in Utah.

Isidora shoved the papers back into the folder and slid it into a stack of magazines on the console table. She smoothed her hair. She forced her facial muscles to relax, erasing the forensic accountant and reinstating the wife.

The elevator doors slid open.

It wasn't Cash. It was Gavin.

Cash's assistant looked harried, carrying three bright orange Hermès bags. He froze when he saw Isidora standing there.

"Mrs. Ferguson," Gavin stammered. "I... I didn't think you were up."

"Early riser," Isidora said. She walked toward him. "Cash is still in San Francisco?"

Gavin's eyes darted to the left. A tell. "Yes. Yes, absolutely. The signal is terrible there. He sent these back with me. For you."

He held out the bags.

Isidora took them. She glanced at the white tag on the side of the box inside. The store code started with PC. Park City.

"That's sweet of him," Isidora said softly. She looked Gavin in the eye. "Thank him for me. And tell him I hope the snow in San Francisco isn't too heavy this time of year."

Gavin blinked, confusion clouding his face. "Uh. Right. I will."

He retreated into the elevator, desperate to escape her gaze.

As the doors closed, Isidora dropped the orange bags onto the floor. She didn't open them. She kicked them into the corner with the toe of her slipper.

She stared at the closed elevator doors. The verdict was in. The sentence was death.