Chapter 3

Crockett stood frozen outside the bedroom door, the cold wood a barrier against his rage. He wanted to break it down. He wanted to drag her out and shake her until the old, compliant Erin returned.

But he didn't. The humiliation of being locked out of his own bedroom, in his own home, was a paralyzing blow to his pride.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out. A text from Delila.

Crockett, are you okay? I have a bad feeling. Like something terrible is about to happen.

Her timing was, as always, impeccable. The message was a lifeline, pulling him from the whirlpool of his anger and frustration. Delila was fragile. Delila needed him. Erin was... this new, unrecognizable thing.

He compared Delila's manufactured vulnerability to Erin's cold, hard defiance. The choice was easy.

He gave the bedroom door one last, hateful glare, then turned and strode towards the foyer. He snatched his keys from the bowl on the console table and left. He would go to Delila. He would let Erin stew in her own ridiculous drama.

Inside the bedroom, Erin heard the faint chime of the private elevator descending. A small, cold smile touched her lips.

The fish had taken the bait.

She didn't waste a second. She moved to the small, elegant study adjoined to the bedroom and sat down at her laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, typing in a long, complex password.

An encrypted banking portal bloomed to life on the screen. It showed the details of an American Express Centurion Card. His card. Her supplementary card. The one with no preset spending limit.

In her past life, she'd used this card for shopping sprees at Bergdorf's and Chanel, buying things she thought would make him happy, make him look at her.

In this life, it would be her seed money. Her weapon.

She opened another window. The incorporation documents for a company named Phoenix Holdings LLC. She'd had her lawyer begin the filing process the day she woke up, and the final confirmation had arrived this morning. The company was a shell, registered in Delaware, with a distant, trusted cousin listed as the sole director.

Next, a trading platform. Her eyes scanned the screen, ignoring the blue-chip stocks and market darlings. Her target was a handful of small, obscure tech companies, all currently trading at a loss.

She remembered them all. One was three months away from announcing a revolutionary processing chip that would send its stock value into the stratosphere. Another held the patent for a data compression algorithm that a tech giant would acquire for a staggering sum in a year's time.

Through the Phoenix Holdings account, she began to buy.

She moved with a speed and ferocity that would have given any seasoned trader a heart attack. Millions of dollars flowed from the Centurion card's credit line into the market, converted into shares of companies the rest of the world considered worthless.

The numbers on the screen blurred. Ten million. Twenty. Thirty.

She felt nothing. No thrill, no fear. It was like performing surgery. Precise. Impersonal. Necessary.

When the initial stock purchases were complete, she picked up her phone and dialed a number from memory.

"Arthur Sloane," a crisp voice answered.

Arthur was a commercial real estate broker she'd met at a charity event in her past life. A shark, but an effective one. She had reached out to him two days ago.

"Arthur, it's Erin. We're moving forward with Plan B."

Plan B was the acquisition of an entire city block in Brooklyn, on the border of Dumbo and Williamsburg. To the Manhattan elite, it was a wasteland of dilapidated warehouses and artist squats, a place you drove through, not to.

But Erin knew that in five years, this "wasteland" would be rebranded as the "Silicon Slip," home to tech startups and luxury condos. The land value would increase fifty-fold.

She instructed Arthur to approach the owner, a man named Gideon Holt, immediately.

"Offer him twenty percent above market value. All cash. Close as soon as possible."

There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. "Mrs. Winters, that's a significant premium for a property with that zoning..."

"The money isn't an issue, Arthur," Erin said, her voice like ice. "It's Crockett Winters' money. I'm not sentimental about it."

She hung up the phone. With her financial and real estate plans in motion, she walked over to her closet. She pushed past the pale, conservative gowns Crockett preferred and pulled out a backless sheath dress in a vibrant, defiant crimson. Tonight, Sotheby's was hosting a private auction. There was still one more move to make, and this one needed an audience.

Outside, the first pale light of dawn was beginning to stain the eastern sky.

Phase one, capital accumulation, had begun. She knew the bank's fraud alerts would be screaming by now. The family office would be in a panic.

A much bigger storm was coming. And she was ready for it.