Haleigh's taxi pulled up to a rundown rowhouse in Brooklyn. She needed to get her mother, Maureen, out of there before she disappeared.
Before Haleigh even reached the front porch, she heard the shrill, nasty screaming coming through the cracked front door.
"You are pathetic!" Aunt Patty yelled. "Your daughter sells her body to a billionaire, and she's still getting thrown out on the street!"
Haleigh pushed the door open.
Patty was standing in the cramped living room, pointing a finger in Maureen's face. Maureen was crying, begging her sister to stop. Patty kicked Maureen's cheap suitcase. It popped open, spilling faded sweaters all over the dirty floor.
"Take your whore of a daughter and go sleep in the gutter!" Patty spat.
The blood rushed to Haleigh's head. Pure, blinding anger took over.
She slammed the front door against the wall. The loud bang made both women jump.
Haleigh marched into the room and pulled her mother behind her. She glared at Patty with eyes that could cut glass.
Patty flinched, then crossed her arms. "What? Did the rich boy finally kick you out?"
Haleigh didn't say a word. She unzipped her purse, pulled out a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills—the miserable "relocation allowance" Berneice had wired into an account under Haleigh's name when she signed the marriage contract, money she had been too afraid to touch because it felt like a leash—and now she had no choice but to use it. She threw the stack directly at Patty's face.
The heavy stack smacked Patty in the nose before bursting apart. Hundreds of bills rained down around her feet.
"That is rent for this disgusting doghouse," Haleigh said, her voice dripping with venom. "Do not ever speak to my mother again."
Patty's eyes went wide with greed. She dropped to her knees and started frantically gathering the cash, completely forgetting her insults.
Haleigh grabbed her mother's hand and walked out.
An hour later, Haleigh settled Maureen into a cheap but secure apartment on the edge of Manhattan. Maureen looked worried. "Haleigh, are you in trouble?"
"I'm fine, Mom," Haleigh lied, forcing a bright smile. "Fabian treats me well." She couldn't let her mother, who had high blood pressure, know she was pregnant and running for her life.
As soon as Maureen fell asleep, Haleigh stared at the door of the small apartment. She could run. Right now. Grab her mother and disappear into a bus station. But her passport was in the guest room safe at the Blackburn estate. Her mother's medical records were still registered under the family's insurance. Running without documents would get them caught within forty-eight hours, and Fabian had made it clear what happened to people who tried to leave him.
She took a cab back to the oppressive Blackburn estate. She had to retrieve her documents and erase her digital trail before she could disappear for good.
She locked herself in her guest room and pulled out her battered, second-hand laptop.
Before her father's illness had forced her into medical school to understand his condition, she had been on a completely different path. She stared at the worn keys, remembering the nights she spent building firewalls and cracking codes instead of studying anatomy. She had buried her computer science talents to play the devoted daughter, and later, the obedient bride, but right now, those old skills were her only lifeline. Her skills were more than ordinary—she had been good once, before years away from the keyboard had left her rusty and unsure— and she booted up the encrypted browser and logged into a dark web freelance forum.
She found a bounty: $100,000 to fix a corrupted database for a European tech firm. It was enough cash to disappear.
She opened the coding terminal.
Suddenly, a violent wave of nausea hit her. Haleigh clamped a hand over her mouth, sprinted into the small bathroom, and dropped to her knees. She dry-heaved into the toilet until her ribs ached.
Cold sweat soaked her shirt. The morning sickness was brutal.
She washed her face with cold water and stared at her pale reflection. Time was running out. She needed that money tonight.
She walked back to her desk. Just as she touched the keyboard, the laptop emitted a high-pitched, screeching beep. The screen flickered violently, then went completely black. A faint smell of burning plastic rose from the keyboard.
The motherboard was fried.
Haleigh stared at the dead screen in absolute horror. The deadline for the job was in three hours. If she defaulted, her anonymous account would be permanently banned. She would have nothing.
