The elevator doors to the executive floor of Meyers Media slid open with a soft ding.

Anaya stepped out.

The receptionist, a young girl named Sarah who usually greeted Anaya with a sympathetic smile, gasped.

Anaya wasn't wearing her usual uniform-the charcoal gray pencil skirt, the modest silk blouse, the low heels designed to make her shorter than Barrett.

Today, she wore red.

It was a dress she had bought years ago and never worn. Crimson, fitted, with a neckline that was professional but unapologetic. Her heels clicked sharply against the marble floor, a rhythm of war.

"Ms. Rowe?" Sarah stammered. "Mr. Meyers is... he's in a meeting. He said no interruptions."

"I'm not an interruption, Sarah," Anaya said, not breaking stride. "I'm a resignation."

She pushed open the double glass doors to the CEO's office without knocking.

The room was exactly as she remembered. The panoramic view of Manhattan. The modern art. And the two people who had ruined her life.

Barrett was sitting behind his desk, his face thunderous. He was staring at his phone-likely at her text message. He hadn't blocked her access yet; he probably thought it was a childish attempt to negotiate a raise. The arrogance.

Adele Townsend was perched on the edge of his desk, her legs crossed, leaning in close. She was laughing at something, her hand resting possessively on Barrett's shoulder.

The tableau was perfect.

The door slamming against the wall made them both jump.

Barrett looked up. His eyes widened when he saw her. For a second, he looked stunned-by the dress, by the intrusion, by the sheer fire radiating off her. Then, the familiar mask of irritation slammed down.

"Anaya," he barked, standing up. "What the hell is this? You turn off your phone? You send me a childish text? We have a merger to finalize."

Adele straightened up, smoothing her skirt. She gave Anaya a pitying, condescending smile. "Oh, Anaya. We were just talking about you. Barrett was just saying he thinks you might need some time off. You've been working so hard."

"A breakthrough," Anaya repeated, her voice steady and calm. "Not a breakdown."

She walked to the desk. She pulled her building access card and the key to the executive safe from her purse. She dropped them onto the glass surface. Clack. Clack.

"My resignation is effective immediately," Anaya said.

Barrett walked around the desk. He was tall, imposing. He used his physical presence to intimidate, looming over her.

"You can't quit," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "You signed a contract. You have a non-compete. And frankly, Anaya, you have nowhere else to go. This job is your life."

"Was," she corrected. She looked up at him. Really looked at him.

He was handsome, devastatingly so. But now, all she saw was the man who would lock her in a room to die. The man who would trade her for a stock price.

"I'm done, Barrett."

Adele let out a soft sigh. "Anaya, dear. I know this must be difficult. It's clear you have... strong feelings for Barrett. But we're all adults here. It would be a shame to let personal emotions derail a promising career."

Jealousy.

Anaya looked at Adele. The woman was beautiful, polished, and rotten to the core.

A laugh bubbled up in Anaya's chest. It started low and erupted into the room, loud and genuine. She laughed until her ribs ached. She laughed at the absurdity of it all.

Barrett and Adele exchanged a look of genuine confusion. They had expected tears. They had expected begging. They didn't know how to handle laughter.

Anaya wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. "Jealousy?" she said, shaking her head. "Adele, you can have him. You deserve each other. Truly. A matched set."

Adele's smile froze. Her face went rigid.

"Anaya!" Barrett shouted, slamming his hand on the desk.

Anaya turned on her heel. She walked toward the door, her red dress swishing around her legs.

"Wait," Barrett called out, stepping after her.

Adele grabbed his arm. "Darling, let her go. She's clearly unstable."

Anaya paused at the door. She didn't turn around. She spoke to the air, loud and clear.

"Barrett," she said. "Before you sign the final papers... you might want to audit the Townsend logistics subsidiary. Specifically the offshore accounts in the Caymans. Just a friendly tip."

The silence in the room was instantaneous and heavy.

It was the secret that had killed her in the last life. The embezzlement. The fraud Adele was hiding to inflate her company's value before the merger.

Anaya heard Adele's sharp intake of breath.

She opened the door and walked out.

As the elevator doors closed, she saw Barrett pulling his arm away from Adele, a look of suspicion dawning on his face.

Anaya stepped out into the lobby and out of the building. The sun hit her face. She took a deep breath. The air tasted like exhaust and hot asphalt, but to her, it tasted like freedom.

Her phone buzzed in her purse.

She glanced at it. Dad.

Earl Rowe. Calling for money. Just like clockwork.

The old panic flared for a second-the conditioned response to fix everything for everyone. Then, she remembered the plan.

She declined the call.

She raised her hand and hailed a yellow cab.

"Where to, lady?" the driver asked.

"The Hamptons," Anaya said.

She had one last stop before she disappeared. The company retreat was this weekend at Barrett's estate. Her passport and a stash of emergency cash were in the safe in the guest cottage she used to stay in.

She was going to get them. And she was going to burn the bridge so thoroughly that not even ashes would remain.

The Uber driver hesitated at the wrought-iron gates of the Meyers estate in East Hampton.

"You on the list, miss?"

"I'm the Chief of Staff," Anaya said, flashing an old ID she hadn't turned in. "Open it."

The gate swung open.

The party was in full swing. The bass of the house music thumped against the car windows. White tents, champagne towers, and a sea of people in linen and silk.

Anaya got out. She kept her sunglasses on. She wasn't here to socialize. She moved through the crowd like a ghost, heading toward the guest cottage.

"Well, look who decided to show up."

Anaya stopped.

Adele Townsend stood on the slate patio overlooking the infinity pool. She was holding a flute of champagne, surrounded by her court of socialites. She was wearing a white bikini and a sheer cover-up, looking every inch the future Mrs. Meyers.

Anaya tried to step around her. "Move, Adele."

Adele stepped into her path. "Did you come to beg for your job back? Or did you come to apologize for that little scene in the office?"

The music seemed to dip. People turned to watch. This was the entertainment. The heiress vs. the help.

Barrett was near the bar, talking to a group of investors. He turned, his eyes locking onto Anaya. He started walking toward them.

Adele leaned in close, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "You know, Barrett told me about your father. The gambler. The drunk. We all know you're just a gold digger, Anaya. You spread your legs for the boss hoping for a payout, and now you're mad the contract is terminated."

The rage that hit Anaya was cold. Absolute zero.

In her past life, she would have cried. She would have run away, confirming every rumor.

Not today.

Anaya looked at Adele's feet. She was standing on the wet slate, right at the edge of the pool, in four-inch wedges.

Physics.

Anaya didn't say a word. She simply reached out, placed her palm flat against Adele's shoulder, and shoved.

It wasn't a playful push. It was a solid, forceful thrust.

Adele's eyes went wide. Her arms windmilled.

Splash!

The sound was incredibly satisfying. Water sprayed over the expensive guests. The music cut out abruptly.

Adele surfaced, sputtering. Her hair extensions were plastered to her face, her mascara running instantly. She looked like a drowned rat.

"You bitch!" she screamed, thrashing in the water.

Barrett reached the edge of the pool. He looked from Adele to Anaya, his face a mixture of shock and fury. He didn't jump in immediately; he just stared at Anaya.

"Have you lost your mind?" he roared.

Anaya stood on the edge, looking down at them. She felt ten feet tall.

"No," she said calmly. "I found it."

She reached into her purse. She pulled out a piece of paper. It was a formal, printed resignation letter. She had folded it into a sharp paper airplane.

She flicked her wrist.

The paper plane glided through the air, looping once before landing softly on the surface of the pool, bobbing right in front of Barrett's face.

"Consider that my formal notice," she said. "We're done, Barrett. In every sense of the word."

She turned her back on them.

A hush had fallen over the party. She could feel a hundred pairs of eyes on her back, but she didn't care.

She walked to the guest cottage, keyed in the code, and opened the safe. Her passport. A stack of cash. She shoved them into her bag.

She walked out the back gate, where her Uber was waiting.

As the car pulled away, she didn't look back at the mansion. She didn't look back at the chaos she had caused. She looked forward.

One bridge burned. One to go.

The smell hit her the moment she opened the front door of the row house in Astoria. Stale cigarette smoke, old frying oil, and despair.

"You're back."

Brenda, her stepmother, didn't look up from the TV. She was painting her toenails on the coffee table. "Did you bring the money? Your dad owes Tony three grand."

Tiffany, her stepsister, was lounging on the sofa, scrolling on her phone. She eyed Anaya's Balenciaga bag with naked envy. "Is that new? Can I have it?"

Anaya walked past them, her heels clicking on the linoleum. She went to the back room.

Her father, Earl, was passed out on the recliner. The TV was blaring a horse racing channel. He looked old, broken, and pathetic.

Anaya felt a pang of pity, but she strangled it. Pity was what had kept her tethered to this sinking ship for a decade. Pity was why she had almost been assaulted by a loan shark in her last life, trying to pay off Earl's debts.

She walked back to the living room.

Brenda stood up, blocking her path. She held out a greasy business card. "Tony said if you go to dinner with him, he might waive the interest. He likes you, Anaya. You should be nice to him."

Anaya took the card. She looked at it. Tony's Auto Repair & Loans.

She remembered the dinner. She remembered Tony's hands under the table. She remembered running out into the rain, sobbing.

She ripped the card in half. Then in quarters. She let the pieces flutter to the floor.

"Hey!" Brenda screeched. "You ungrateful little-"

Anaya slammed a folder onto the coffee table. The sound made Tiffany jump.

"This is the deed transfer," Anaya said, her voice cutting through the room like a knife. "I am signing over my half of the house to you. It's worth two hundred thousand dollars in equity."

Brenda's eyes widened. Greed instantly replaced anger. "You... you're giving us the house?"

"In exchange for this." Anaya pulled out a second document. Emancipation and Severance of Familial Ties. It wasn't a standard legal form, but it was binding if notarized. "And a promise that you never contact me again."

"Why would we sign that?" Tiffany sneered. "We can just take the house and still call you for money."

Anaya pulled out her phone. She tapped the screen and played a recording.

It was Brenda's voice. "...yeah, just forge Earl's signature on the insurance policy. If he drinks himself to death, we get double indemnity."

Brenda's face went white.

Anaya had recorded it years ago-or rather, she would have recorded it in the future. But in this timeline, she knew exactly where Brenda kept her diary detailing the scheme. She had snapped photos of the pages before coming downstairs.

"I have photos of your diary, Brenda," Anaya lied smoothly, bluffing with the truth of the future. "Sign the paper. Or I go to the cops for conspiracy to commit insurance fraud."

Earl stirred in the other room. "Anaya? Is that my girl? Do you have twenty bucks?"

Anaya didn't look toward his voice. That part of her was dead.

Brenda snatched the pen. Her hands were shaking. She signed the document.

Anaya took the paper, checked the signature, and put it in her bag.

"Goodbye, Brenda," she said. "Enjoy the house. The bank is foreclosing in three months anyway."

She walked out.

"You bitch!" Brenda screamed after her.

Anaya stepped out onto the sidewalk. The Queens air felt lighter.

She got back into the waiting taxi. "New Jersey," she told the driver. "Nana Rose's house."

As the car crossed the bridge, her phone buzzed. A notification from her banking app.

ALERT: Your secondary credit card ending in 4490 has been frozen by the primary account holder.

Barrett. He was cutting off her money. He thought that would bring her crawling back.

Anaya reached into her wallet. She pulled out the black Amex Centurion card. It was heavy, made of titanium.

She rolled down the window. The wind whipped her hair. Below, the East River churned, dark and murky.

She flicked the card. It spun in the air, catching the last rays of the sun, before disappearing into the water. He thinks this is his power over me, she thought with cold satisfaction. He has no idea about the crypto wallet, about the knowledge I hold. This card isn't a lifeline; it's a leash. And I'm cutting it myself.

She had her own money now. She had the knowledge of the next three years of market trends. She didn't need his.

She needed to disappear.