Chapter 2

She got as far as the foyer before her hands started shaking, and stopped behind the fluted marble partition to wait them out. Flats in hand, silent. Phone out. The contact list lit up. [Father] sat at the top — Adalberto Case, whose commercial holdings were two weeks out from default and whose only lifeline was a bridge loan from the Horn Group. She could tell him his daughter was standing shoeless in his business partner's penthouse while the partner showered with a supermodel, and Adalberto would tell her to change into a prettier dress and sit in the living room and not interrupt a man at his leisure. She knew the speech by heart; she'd been hearing variations of it since she was eleven. She scrolled past him. Third favorite down: sunglasses emoji, sunflower emoji. Felicie Mendez — her classmate at Columbia, and the heir to one of the few old-money names in New York that didn't have to explain itself to anybody. She typed: [Hypothetically. You catch your fiancé in his penthouse with the mistress he's had for five years, and you realize you were hired to launder his reputation. What's the protocol?] Three seconds later the screen lit with an incoming FaceTime call. Her heart kicked. She declined and fired back: [Can't talk. Text only.] Felicie replied like gunfire: [WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK] [Tell me this is research for your ethics seminar. Tell me you are NOT talking about that stiff-collared English parasite Edgar Horn.] [I swear to God, if he did something, I will have my uncle's security detail fish him out of the East River by his designer ankles.] Some of the ice gave way. In a city where everyone priced every relationship to the decimal, Felicie's loyalty was the one thing Ellery owned outright. She typed: [It's Edgar. Amber Hayes. Master bedroom. I have 4K with sound and timestamps. They're in the shower right now.] A pause. Then: [You terrifying, brilliant queen. Rule one: DO NOT CRY. Tears are for people who don't have leverage.] [Rule two: get that file onto three servers. Do not confront him alone in his building — his security will take your phone and book you for trespassing.] [Rule three: shoes off, walk out like you own the block, come straight to campus. I'm leaving now. We are going to burn his pedigree to ash.] [Already backed up. I'm walking out.] The reply came before she'd reached the door: [WAIT. You're STILL IN THERE?] [Ellery. GET OUT OF THAT APARTMENT.] She didn't get to answer. Behind her, from the master suite, a brass hinge squeaked, and the bathroom door swung open. Steam rolled out into the hall with the smell of cedar soap. "Amber, where did you put the—" The sentence died. Ellery turned. Edgar stood in the doorway in a white towel knotted at his waist, a smaller towel in his hands, dark hair wet and flat. He saw her and stopped breathing. The small towel hit the floor. "El — Ellery." His voice actually broke. For five seconds the heir to Horn Capital looked like a man standing on a ledge, eyes moving fast, adding up the geometry of the room: the open closet doors, the torn slip on the floor, his mistress humming a pop song in the steam behind him. "You're supposed to be in Morningside Heights," he said. "The studio." "Darling?" Amber's voice floated out through the steam. "Who are you talking to? Did they bring the champagne?" She came out in a matching robe, took one look, and choked on her own breath. Ellery never glanced at her. She kept her eyes on the man she was supposed to marry in June. "Save it, Edgar," she said. "The rehearsal's over." Something reset itself behind his face. He moved toward her with both hands up, placating, the charm sliding back into place like a man resetting a dislocated shoulder. "Ellery. Listen to me. It isn't what it looks like. Amber's contract renewal fell through, she was having a breakdown, I was being a friend to her. You know what that industry does to people—" "'Comforting a friend.'" She felt her mouth curve. "Is that what you'd call pinning her to the closet door by the throat while you explained how you needed me clean for the family gallery?" Even the air in the room stopped.