Chapter 5

Idella slammed her brakes, leaving the Toyota illegally parked on the curb outside the 24-hour veterinary clinic in downtown Chicago. She threw the door open and sprinted inside, carrying Buddy's heavy, bleeding body in her arms.

"Help him! Please!" she yelled, rushing the front desk.

A vet tech immediately grabbed a gurney, hauling the gasping dog away into the trauma room.

Idella stood at the reception desk, water dripping from her clothes onto the linoleum.

The receptionist clicked her mouse a few times and slid a long, itemized clipboard across the counter. "We need to drain the fluid from his lungs and stitch the lacerations. It requires a three-thousand-five-hundred-dollar emergency deposit upfront."

Idella's hands shook as she fumbled with her soaked leather wallet. She pulled out her Chase Sapphire credit card and handed it over.

The receptionist swiped the card. The machine let out a sharp, angry beep.

DECLINED.

"Try it again," Idella pleaded, panic rising in her chest. "The chip might be wet."

The receptionist typed the numbers in manually. Another beep.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. Insufficient funds."

Idella snatched her phone from her pocket and opened her banking app. A red banner flashed across the top of the screen. Every single joint credit card, every savings account, every checking account she had access to was marked with a bold FROZEN status.

Fount. He was cutting off her oxygen. He wanted her crawling back on her hands and knees.

From the back room, Buddy let out a weak, agonizing whimper.

Idella's breath hitched. She had no choice.

She reached over to her left wrist and unclasped the heavy, diamond-encrusted Patek Philippe watch. Fount had tossed it to her in a jewelry box two years ago, telling her to wear it so she wouldn't look cheap at a gala.

She slammed the twenty-thousand-dollar watch onto the counter.

"Start the surgery," Idella ordered, her voice trembling but fierce. "I am going to the pawnshop down the street. I will be back in twenty minutes with cash."

The receptionist looked at the watch, then at Idella's desperate eyes, and nodded.

Half an hour later, Idella ran back into the clinic, slamming four thousand dollars in crumpled bills onto the desk-a fraction of the watch's worth, but enough to save her dog.

Once the vet assured her Buddy was stable, Idella went to the clinic bathroom. She stripped off her freezing, wet clothes and pulled on a cheap, gray sweatpants set she kept in her car trunk for emergencies.

She had to go back to the Fitzgerald headquarters. She needed her personal research notebooks. The early patent drafts she had written before the marriage were her only leverage to find a new job.

Because her badge was dead, Idella had to endure the humiliating gaze of the lobby security guards as they escorted her to the freight elevator, treating her like a criminal.

The elevator groaned to a halt on the twelfth floor. Idella pushed open the glass doors to the Seattle branch's Chicago liaison office.

The moment she stepped inside, the hum of office chatter died instantly. Every eye turned to her.

By the water cooler, three of her former colleagues-people who had kissed up to her just yesterday-were openly laughing, pointing at her cheap sweatpants.

Idella ignored them. She marched straight to her cubicle.

Her stomach dropped. The lock on her desk drawer had been violently pried open. The metal was bent and scratched. Inside, her files were thrown everywhere.

She frantically dug through the mess. The blue leather-bound notebook containing her core molecular data had been brutally rifled through. The cover was bent, and several pages were carelessly crumpled, but it was left behind, tossed aside like garbage. They hadn't even bothered to take it, clearly believing her early, handwritten formulas were entirely worthless without the company's patented digital models.

"Who touched my desk?" Idella demanded, glaring at the floor supervisor.

The supervisor smirked, leaning back in his chair. "Compliance department did a routine sweep. Company property stays with the company."

Fount had anticipated her move. He was stripping her down to the bone.

Idella grabbed an empty cardboard box. She swept her remaining personal photos and a few useless pens into it, her chest tight with suppressed rage.

She held the heavy cardboard box in her arms. Blood slowly seeped from the wounds on the palms of her hands as she walked toward the elevator lobby.

Just as she pressed the down button, the private executive elevator next to her let out a soft ding.

The solid brass doors slid open.

Angelita stepped out, flanked by three senior executives. She wore a pristine, tailored white Chanel suit, looking every inch the untouchable goddess of high society.

Angelita's eyes drifted from Idella's messy hair down to her cheap gray sweatpants, and finally to the pathetic cardboard box in her arms. A slow, cruel smile spread across Angelita's perfect lips.

Angelita stopped walking. She looked at Idella with wide, overly sympathetic eyes.

"Idella," Angelita said, her voice dripping with fake pity. "If things are truly this desperate for you, the Fitzgerald Charity Foundation runs a soup kitchen on the South Side. I can make sure you get a hot meal."

The executives behind her let out a chorus of low, mocking chuckles.

Idella's grip on the cardboard box tightened until her knuckles ached. She didn't say a word. She just stared dead into Angelita's eyes, burning the image of that smug, fake face into her memory.