Chapter 2

The cold, mechanical busy signal droned from the speaker until the call automatically disconnected. Danika's fingers went slack, and the phone slipped from her hand onto the wool rug, its dim screen lighting up her pale ankles.

She walked slowly over to the dining table by the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring down at the Eggs Benedict and steaming milk the man had ordered. Her throat felt too tight to swallow food.

Pulling out a velvet chair, she sat down and wrapped both hands around the warm glass of milk, her mind drifting back to seven o'clock the previous evening.

It had been her twenty-second birthday. Wearing a cheap floral dress bought with wages from her part-time gallery job, she had stood outside an exclusive Manhattan private club in the biting wind for two full hours. Wealthy members walking past had looked at her like street trash, and the Brewer family's black Rolls-Royce never pulled up to the curb.

Every time she had dialed her adoptive mother, Devin Marshall, the woman's personal assistant had answered with the same robotic line: "Mrs. Brewer is attending an important gala. Do not disturb."

Shivering so hard her teeth chattered, Danika had ducked into a budget coffee shop next door and opened Instagram, where Alejandra Lee's newest post sat at the top of her feed.

In the photo, Alejandra wore a diamond-encrusted couture gown in front of a five-tier fondant cake, flanked by Mr. and Mrs. Brewer beaming with pride.

The caption read: "Thank you Mom and Dad for throwing my one-year homecoming anniversary party. Happiest night of my life." Danika had stared at the screen until her tears blurred the text. Her birthday happened to be the exact day their biological daughter had been found, meaning the substitute foster daughter didn't even get a phone call.

That suffocating wave of abandonment had driven her out of the coffee shop. She had used the last of her cash to buy a guest pass into the club, marched straight to the bar, and downed shot after shot of cheap tequila.

When the room started spinning and she stumbled toward the restroom, she had slammed straight into a wall of muscle smelling of cedar and smoke, grabbing the lapels of a stranger's custom suit as he looked down at her with sharp gray-blue eyes.

A loud clink snapped Danika out of the memory as she set the milk glass down hard on the marble tabletop.

She stood up, walked into the walk-in closet, and picked up her crumpled floral dress from the corner, the fabric reeking of stale liquor.

Slipping out of the robe, she pulled the stained dress back over her head and zipped it up, her skin crawling at how pathetic she looked.

She sat at the vanity and dabbed layer after layer of complimentary hotel concealer over the bruises on her neck until her skin looked chalky and pale.

After tying her messy hair into a low ponytail and forcing her lips into a flat line, she walked back to the bed, picked up her phone, and booked an Uber all the way out to the Brewer Estate in the Hamptons, wincing at the fare.

Ten minutes later, she pulled open the heavy suite door, walked down the quiet carpeted hallway, and rode the elevator down to the ground floor lobby.

She pushed through the revolving glass doors into the cold New York morning wind, hugging her arms around her chest as she hurried into the back seat of the waiting black sedan.

"To the Hamptons, please," she told the driver, leaning her temple against the cold window glass.

As the car merged onto the highway leading out of Manhattan and the skyscrapers gave way to Long Island greenery, her pulse began to race.

The phone on her lap buzzed violently with an incoming call from Delmus Oconnell, her adoptive younger brother and the only person in that house who treated her like a human being.

She swiped to answer, and Delmus's frantic voice immediately blasted through the speaker.

"Dani, where the hell are you? Mom and Dad are losing their minds right now, you need to get back here!"

Danika's stomach knotted, her knuckles turning white around the phone case.

"I'm in a car on the highway. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Alejandra told them last night that you blew off the family to go party at some sleazy nightclub," Delmus whispered urgently on the other end. "Brace yourself."

Danika ended the call and stared out the windshield as the Uber slowed down in front of the massive wrought-iron gates of the Brewer Estate.