The yellow cab carved through the dark streets of Manhattan, streetlights sliding across Ansley's face in alternating stripes of gold and shadow.
She sat in the backseat, staring out the window at the blurred city. Her chest rose and fell in slow, calculated breaths. Her thumb rubbed the empty spot on her ring finger, the ghost of the diamond still pressing against her skin.
Thirty minutes later, the cab pulled up to the massive iron gates of the Crawford estate in Long Island. The gates swung open with a groan of old metal.
Ansley pushed the car door open. Her heels clicked sharply against the stone steps of the grand porch—each step a hammer strike. She grabbed the handles of the heavy mahogany double doors and shoved them open.
The crystal chandelier in the living room blasted her with light so bright it stung. Her father, Garfield, sat in the center of the leather sofa, a whiskey glass sweating in his hand. Beside him, her stepmother Kandy perched on the edge of her seat like a vulture waiting for carrion.
Kandy's face instantly stretched into a fake, overly sweet smile. She stood, smoothing her silk skirt, her bracelets jangling. "Ansley, darling, you're finally—"
Ansley walked straight past her. Didn't acknowledge her existence. Sat down on the single armchair opposite Garfield, crossing her legs with deliberate, unhurried precision.
Garfield scowled, his bushy gray eyebrows colliding in the center of his forehead. He tapped his index finger aggressively against the leather armrest. "Where have you been? You ignore my calls all night. You have absolutely no manners."
He cleared his throat, sitting up straighter, puffing his chest out. "You are going to take Brylee's place. You will marry Mortimer next month."
Mortimer. Seventy years old, three ex-wives, a reputation that made the tabloids salivate.
Kandy pulled a lace handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her perfectly dry eyes. "Brylee is just too young, Ansley. We can't ruin her life."
Ansley let out a dry, humorless laugh that scraped out of her throat like broken glass.
So that means you can ruin mine?
She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. She opened the video she had just recorded.
She tossed the phone onto the expensive marble coffee table. It landed with a loud clack, spinning slightly before settling. The video started playing.
The wet, rhythmic sounds of skin slapping skin and Brylee's high-pitched, theatrical moans echoed through the massive living room, bouncing off the vaulted ceilings.
Garfield's face turned a violent, swollen shade of purple. The veins in his neck bulged against his starched collar, throbbing visibly.
Kandy gasped. Her face drained of all color, going slack and skeletal. She lunged forward, manicured fingers reaching to snatch the phone.
Ansley shot her leg out. The pointed toe of her stiletto pinned the edge of the phone to the marble with a sharp click. Kandy froze mid-lunge, her hand hovering uselessly.
Ansley leaned forward. Her eyes were dead—flat and cold as a frozen lake.
"I will marry the old man."
Garfield stared at her, his chest heaving, sweat beading on his upper lip.
"But," Ansley continued, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper, "I want my mother's perfume formula. Right now. And I want five percent of Crawford Industries transferred to my name."
Garfield slammed his fist onto the coffee table. The whiskey glass jumped, sloshing amber liquid across the marble. "You are extorting your own father! Do you honestly think I can't have that video scrubbed from the internet in an hour? I own half the media in this city. Don't test me, Ansley."
Ansley didn't flinch. She pressed the tip of her shoe harder against the phone, the stiletto point digging into the screen. "The video is already on a dead man's switch. If I don't check in within the next ten minutes, it releases to a dozen independent journalists and international outlets. Your move." She tilted her head, a predator's gesture. "One click from them, and this goes to every gossip outlet in New York. The Crawford name will be garbage by morning. The merger will fail. Everything you've built will burn."
Garfield's jaw trembled violently. He stared at the screen, at Brylee's frozen, debauched image, then at Ansley's cold, unblinking eyes. His mind raced through the calculations—stock prices plummeting, the board revolting, the scandal metastasizing. He gritted his teeth so hard they squeaked audibly.
He reached over and pressed the intercom button. His voice was hoarse, defeated. "Send the lawyer up from the study."
Kandy stomped her foot, the heel cracking against the marble. She grabbed Garfield's sleeve, her nails digging into the fabric. "Garfield, you can't! That's too much!"
Ansley shot Kandy a glare so lethal it felt like a blade pressed to her throat. Kandy snapped her mouth shut and shrank back into the sofa cushions, her face ghost-white.
A minute later, the family lawyer hurried into the room, his suit jacket misbuttoned, sweat rings blooming under his armpits. He handed Ansley an iPad loaded with the electronic transfer documents, his hands trembling.
Ansley scrolled through the pages. She read every single hidden clause, every buried trapdoor. She'd spent five years teaching herself corporate law in preparation for this exact moment. When she was satisfied, she signed her name with the stylus.
A green confirmation popped up on the screen. The shares were hers.
The lawyer reached into his briefcase with shaking hands and handed her a small, encrypted USB drive. The formula. Her mother's life's work, stolen by Kandy years ago, finally back in the right hands.
Ansley slipped the USB into the hidden pocket of her bag. She stood and smoothed the hem of her coat with a single, precise motion.
She didn't say goodbye. She didn't look back. She turned her back on them and walked out the front doors into the freezing night air, the cold wind hitting her face like a slap—and feeling, for the first time in years, like freedom.
