The summons came three days later.
Seraphina was staying in a motel in Queens that charged by the hour. The walls were paper thin, and the neon sign outside buzzed with a headache-inducing rhythm. She had spent the last seventy-two hours staring at her laptop, watching her life being dismantled on social media.
UngratefulWife was trending. Susanna had been busy. There were photos of Seraphina looking disheveled, juxtaposed with photos of Susanna looking radiant and charitable. The narrative was set: Seraphina was the uneducated, greedy hillbilly who had tried to blackmail the noble Ethan Vance.
Her phone rang. It was the landline in the motel room. Nobody knew she was here.
She picked it up. "Hello?"
"The car is outside," a deep, gravelly voice said. It was the Vance family butler, Higgins. He sounded apologetic. "Mr. Harold Vance requests your presence at the Hamptons estate. Immediately."
"Tell him I'm busy," Seraphina said.
"He says it concerns a... settlement offer. And if you refuse, he will involve the police regarding the 'theft' of company property."
Seraphina gripped the phone. They were going to frame her. For the journals.
"I'll be down in five minutes."
The drive to the Hamptons took two hours. The silence in the back of the Rolls Royce was oppressive. Seraphina watched the city give way to manicured lawns and high hedges. This was the world she had tried to fit into for three years. A world of quiet cruelty.
The gates of the Vance Estate opened slowly, like the jaws of a beast.
She was ushered into the drawing room. A fire was crackling in the hearth, despite the warm weather. Sitting in a high-backed leather wingchair was Harold Vance, the patriarch. He was eighty years old, shriveled like a dried apple, but his eyes were sharp and black.
Ethan and Susanna were there, sitting on the sofa. Susanna looked demure, dabbing at dry eyes with a tissue. Ethan looked smug.
"Sit," Harold commanded, tapping his cane on the Persian rug.
Seraphina remained standing. "I prefer to stand. What do you want?"
"Divorce is messy, Seraphina," Harold said, his voice like dry leaves scraping together. "Bad for stock prices. Investors get nervous when the CEO is involved in a scandal."
"Infidelity is worse for public relations," Seraphina countered.
Susanna let out a small, theatrical sob. "We couldn't help falling in love. It was destiny. But Seraphina... she's been so cruel about it."
"Love is irrelevant," Harold snapped. He looked at Seraphina with cold calculation. "We want silence. You will sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement. You will admit to... emotional instability. In exchange, we will not prosecute you for stealing proprietary research."
"My journals?" Seraphina asked, incredulous. "Those are my personal notes."
"They were written on company time, in a company building," Ethan said, leaning forward. "Technically, they belong to Vance Innovations."
"You want to own my thoughts?"
"We want to ensure you don't sell any 'stories' to the tabloids," Harold said. "Sign the NDA. We will give you a generous severance. Five thousand dollars. Enough to get you back to whatever hole you crawled out of."
"Five thousand," Seraphina repeated. It was an insult. It wouldn't even cover a month's rent in the city.
"Take it," Ethan sneered. "Or we release the footage of you assaulting me in the office. Susanna filmed it."
"Assault?" Seraphina looked at him. "I stepped on your foot to get away from you."
"It looks very aggressive on camera," Susanna said softly, her eyes glinting. "Without audio... it looks like you attacked him."
Seraphina felt the blood drain from her face. They had edited the narrative perfectly.
"I won't sign," Seraphina whispered.
Harold struck the floor with his cane. Thwack!
"Insolent girl!" he roared. "You have nothing! We can crush you like a bug!"
"Then crush me," Seraphina said, her voice trembling but her chin high. "But I won't lie for you. And I won't disappear."
"We will bury you in litigation," Harold's eyes narrowed. "We will bleed you dry with legal fees. You will be an old woman before you see a courtroom."
"I have time," Seraphina said.
She turned to the butler, who was standing in the corner, trying to be invisible. "My coat, please, Higgins."
Higgins hurried to obey.
"You walk out, you get nothing!" Ethan shouted, standing up. "I'll destroy you, Seraphina! I made you!"
Seraphina paused at the heavy oak door. She looked back at the tableau of greed and fear.
"You didn't make me, Ethan," she said quietly. "You just rented me."
She walked out of the mansion. Her adrenaline was spiking, her hands shaking uncontrollably now. She needed help. She needed a shield.
She pulled out her phone and dialed the number the Professor had given her.
"I need an appointment," she whispered into the receiver. "Now."
