Chapter 1

The black coffee burned the back of my throat, but I barely felt it.

I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of our Tribeca penthouse, staring blindly at the Manhattan skyline. My fingers swiped across my phone screen, double-checking the quarterly financial reports for Marks Capital.

Then, a push notification dropped down from the top of the screen.

It was from JPMorgan. A joint trust account alert.

I blinked, my thumb hovering over the glass.

$50,000,000.00 USD has been successfully transferred to: Crista Reid.

The air in my lungs vanished.

A block of ice formed in my stomach, sending a violent, freezing shockwave through my veins. My fingertips instantly went numb.

Fifty million dollars. Cleared. Gone.

I tapped the notification, my hands shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone. The screen loaded the transaction details. It was our joint trust. The emergency fund. The one that legally required both of our digital signatures to move a single cent.

Barrett had forged my signature.

A sickening wave of nausea hit me. I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to throw up the coffee.

I dialed Barrett's private number.

One ring. Two rings. Three rings.

"You have reached the voicemail of-"

He sent me to voicemail.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper. I hung up and dialed the main line for the president's office at Marks Capital.

"Marks Capital, how may I direct your call?" the receptionist answered.

"Put me through to the main boardroom," I said, my voice sounding like it belonged to a stranger. Cold. Hollow.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, Mr. Marks is in a core investment committee meeting. He cannot be disturbed-"

"Override code: Nightingale-Seven-Alpha," I cut her off.

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end. As a co-founder, my internal security clearance was absolute.

The system clicked. The line forced its way directly into the boardroom's speakerphone.

The background noise of a dozen Wall Street executives discussing a merger filled my ear.

"Barrett," I said.

My voice echoed through the massive room on the other end. The chatter instantly died.

"Harlow?" Barrett's voice crackled through the speaker. He sounded furious. "What the hell are you doing? I'm in the middle of a board meeting."

"Where is the fifty million dollars from the joint trust?" I asked.

Dead silence in the boardroom.

"Harlow, this is highly inappropriate," Barrett snapped, his tone dripping with condescension. "It's a temporary reallocation for bridge financing. We will discuss this at home."

"Bridge financing?" I gripped the edge of the marble kitchen island. "Since when is a woman named Crista Reid a bridge loan provider?"

Someone in the boardroom coughed. Another person let out a low, muffled laugh.

"Enough," Barrett barked, his voice turning vicious. "You don't understand how Wall Street works, Harlow. Stop acting like a hysterical housewife."

My fingernails dug into the marble.

"You forged my signature," I pushed out.

"I made a business decision!" he yelled, playing to his audience of executives. "You're living in a penthouse I pay for. You work a job I gave you. Don't embarrass yourself by pretending you understand high-level capital movement. Now get off this line before I cut up your supplementary credit cards."

More quiet snickers from the men in the room.

They thought I was a charity case. Barrett had made sure of it. He had spent five years painting me as the poor girl he rescued from the basement, completely erasing the fact that I had built the financial models that made his company possible.

I didn't scream. I didn't cry.

I just stopped talking.

The silence stretched. It grew heavy, suffocating.

"Harlow?" Barrett's voice faltered slightly. The absolute silence unnerved him. "Look. I'll bring home dinner from Le Coucou tonight. We'll talk. Goodbye."

The line went dead.

I lowered the phone. My heart wasn't breaking; it was hardening. It was turning into a solid, impenetrable stone in my chest.

I turned away from the window and walked down the hallway to Barrett's home office.

The heavy oak door was locked.

I punched in his birthday on the electronic keypad.

Red light. Error.

I stared at the keypad. My mind raced, connecting the dots with a terrifying, clinical precision.

I typed the numbers corresponding to the letters: C-R-I-S-T-A.

Green light. Click.

The door swung open.

The smell hit me first. It wasn't my perfume. It was Tom Ford's Fucking Fabulous. Heavy, sweet, and lingering in the air.

I walked to his mahogany desk and tapped the spacebar on his heavily encrypted laptop. The password prompt appeared.

I didn't bother guessing this one. I pulled a small USB drive from my pocket-a backdoor program I had designed for the company's network years ago. I plugged it in, hit three keys, and the desktop materialized.

A hidden folder sat right in the center of the screen.

C & A.

I double-clicked it.

Hundreds of photos flooded the screen. Barrett and a blonde woman. On a yacht in St. Barts. Kissing on a balcony. Holding a little boy with dirty blonde hair.

The bright sunlight in the photos burned my eyes.

I scrolled to the very bottom. The last file was a scanned PDF.

I opened it.

It was a document from New York-Presbyterian Hospital. A DNA paternity test.

I zoomed in on the results.

Probability of Paternity: 99.99%.

Father: Barrett Marks.

Child: Aiden Reid.

I stared at the black text until the letters blurred.

My lungs finally expanded, pulling in a deep, ragged breath.

I closed the laptop.

Barrett didn't just steal my money. He stole my life.

And now, I was going to destroy his.