Chapter 1

The screen of my cheap, cracked phone lit up with the Powerball numbers. I checked them once, then twice. A match. All six numbers.

Fifty million dollars.

My hands didn't shake. My heart didn't race. I just sat on the edge of my lumpy mattress in my tiny Brooklyn apartment, the smell of turpentine and instant noodles thick in the air. For twenty years, I had been a ghost. Now, I had a voice.

My phone buzzed again. The caller ID showed a picture of a smiling, pious woman.

Brenda.

I let it ring, the sound echoing in the quiet room. I knew why she was calling. I had seen her post on Facebook an hour ago.

"Please pray for my dear husband Dale. The doctors say he needs a new liver, a transplant that costs a fortune our insurance won't touch. We have faith, but we need a miracle."

I finally answered the call.

"Ava, honey? Did you hear?"

Her voice was thick with fake tears, the same voice she used when she told the church ladies how much she'd sacrificed for me.

"I heard," I said. My voice was flat.

"It's Dale. He's so sick. The doctors... they said $500,000. Can you imagine? It might as well be a million dollars. We don't have it, baby. We just don't have it."

She paused, waiting for me to offer sympathy, to offer help. I said nothing.

"Ava? Are you there? We need you. Your father needs you."

"He's not my father," I said.

A sharp intake of breath on the other end. "How can you say that? After everything we've done for you? We raised you, we loved you, we saved you."

"Did you," I said. It wasn't a question.

"We need the money, Ava. I know you don't have it, but you're smart. You could start a GoFundMe, ask your friends in the city..."

I cut her off.

"I have the money."

Silence. I could almost hear the gears turning in her head, the greed quickly replacing the manufactured panic.

"What? What do you mean?"

"I won the lottery," I said, my voice as calm as a frozen lake. "Fifty million dollars."

The gasp was real this time. It was sharp and ugly.

"Oh, thank the Lord! A miracle! Ava, a true miracle! You can save him! You can save your daddy's life!"

I stood up and walked to the window, looking down at the bustling street. People hurrying, living their lives, completely unaware of the justice that was about to be served.

"No," I said.

"No? What do you mean, no?"

"I have plans for this money," I told her, and I hung up the phone before she could start screaming.

I booked a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. The plan had begun.