It's past midnight. The air in Manhattan is thick and damp. Jeannette steps out onto the pavement, pulling the brim of her black baseball cap down low over her eyes. She pays in cash, turns her back to the main entrance of the ultra-luxury residential building, and walks briskly toward the side alley.

Her heart hammers against her ribs, a frantic, heavy rhythm that makes it hard to breathe. She finds the discreet, resident-only side door. Her fingers are ice-cold as she pulls Devyn's black keycard from her pocket.

She presses it against the scanner.

A tiny light flashes green. The heavy magnetic lock clicks open.

Jeannette pushes the door and slips inside. The hallway is dimly lit, smelling of expensive floor wax. She takes two steps forward and freezes.

A night-shift security guard in a tailored suit is walking around the corner, holding a flashlight.

Panic seizes Jeannette's throat. Her leg muscles lock up. She immediately drops her head, digging her hands frantically into her backpack as if searching for something.

"Excuse me, miss?" The guard's voice is sharp, suspicious.

Jeannette forces her lungs to expand. She pinches her own thigh hard to snap out of the freeze response. When she looks up, she tilts her chin at an arrogant angle and drops her voice into a perfect, drawling Upper East Side accent.

"It's about time," she snaps, rolling her eyes. "I've been looking for my lip gloss for ten minutes. Tell the front desk the lighting in this corridor is atrocious. I'm bringing it up at the next board meeting."

The guard blinks, thrown off by the sheer entitlement radiating from her. He lowers the flashlight. "My apologies, ma'am. I'll note it in the log."

He nods and walks past her.

Jeannette doesn't exhale until he turns the corner. She practically runs to the private elevator bank and hits the button for the penthouse. The doors slide shut. The elevator shoots upward with a sickening speed that makes her stomach cramp violently. She presses her hand against her abdomen, forcing herself to breathe through her nose.

The doors open directly into a sprawling, dark foyer. She swipes the card one more time on the heavy mahogany door. It unlocks.

She steps inside.

The air in the apartment hits her like a physical blow. It reeks of Bvlgari perfume. Zara's signature scent. Acid burns the back of Jeannette's throat. She swallows down the bile.

She pulls a pair of tight medical rubber gloves from her pocket and snaps them onto her hands. She turns on her phone's flashlight, keeping the beam pointed at the floor. The living room is massive. She sweeps the light over the expensive white Persian rug and the custom Italian sofa.

There, draped carelessly over the armrest, is a piece of black lace lingerie.

A sharp pain twists in Jeannette's chest. Her fingers curl into fists so tight her nails dig into her palms through the gloves. She wants to scream. She wants to take a baseball bat and smash every piece of glass in this room.

Instead, she climbs onto the sofa. She reaches up toward the base of the massive crystal chandelier hanging in the center of the room. She pulls the first pinhole camera from her bag.

The metal gap between the base and the ceiling is incredibly tight. She forces the tiny device inside. The sharp edge of the metal fixture slices into her index finger through the thin rubber glove.

A drop of blood wells up, heavy and dark. It hovers, about to fall straight onto the pristine white rug below.

Jeannette gasps. She drops the camera, grabs a tissue from her pocket with her other hand, and catches the blood drop mid-air. She wraps the tissue tightly around her bleeding finger, ignoring the throbbing pain. She forces the camera into the gap, angling the lens perfectly.

She jumps down, pulls out her receiver, and checks the feed. A crystal-clear, wide-angle view of the living room fills her screen.

She moves to the master bedroom. Pushing the door open feels like stepping onto a battlefield. The king-sized bed is a tangled mess of sheets. Used condoms sit openly on the nightstand. It's a brutal, visual confirmation of every lie.

Her hands shake as she installs the second camera-the one with the audio bug-behind the eye of a modern art portrait hanging directly over the bed.

She's just testing the audio feed when a sharp ding echoes from the hallway outside.

The private elevator has arrived.

Jeannette's blood runs entirely cold. Her heart rate spikes so fast she feels dizzy. She kills her phone flashlight instantly. She darts across the room and shoves herself into the massive walk-in closet, pulling the louvered doors shut just as the front door of the apartment opens.

"I swear to God, the mess they leave," a woman's voice complains loudly. The clack of high heels echoes on the hardwood floor. It's the building's exclusive night-shift housekeeping.

The living room lights flick on. Bright, harsh light slices through the slats of the closet door, striking Jeannette's face. She presses her back against the back wall of the closet, burying her face in a row of Devyn's expensive suits to muffle her breathing. She grips the small canister of pepper spray in her pocket.

The housekeeper walks into the master bedroom. Her footsteps are heavy. She starts stripping the bed, muttering under her breath. She is less than six feet away from the closet door.

Jeannette's calves begin to cramp from crouching. The pain is excruciating, a sharp tearing sensation in her muscles. She bites down on her inner lip so hard she tastes copper, refusing to make a sound.

The housekeeper finishes the bed. She turns and walks straight toward the closet. Her hand reaches out. Her fingers wrap around the brass handle of the louvered door.

Jeannette stops breathing. Her thumb hovers over the trigger of the pepper spray.

Suddenly, Jeannette remembers the secondary phone Devyn keeps for his 'consulting' work. Her thumb flies across her own screen, quickly dialing his secret number. A second later, a loud, obnoxious ringtone blares from the pocket of a blazer tossed carelessly over a nearby armchair.

The housekeeper groans, releasing the closet handle. "These rich kids and their alarms," she mutters, turning away to find the source of the noise. She locates the blazer, turns off the ringing phone, and shakes her head.

She turns off the bedroom light and hurries out. The heavy front door slams shut. The lock engages.

Jeannette collapses onto the floor of the closet. Cold sweat soaks through her black hoodie, sticking to her spine. She gasps for air, her chest heaving violently as she waits for her heart to slow down.

She forces herself to stand. She wipes down the door handle, checks the camera feeds one last time, and slips out of the apartment.

When she walks out of the building and onto Fifth Avenue, the first light of dawn is bleeding into the New York sky. The freezing morning wind dries the sweat on her face. She gets into a cab heading back to JFK airport.

She looks back at the towering luxury building, pulls out her phone, and presses the activation button on the surveillance app. The trap is set.

Chapter 2

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