The guest room they gave me was a glorified closet. It smelled of mothballs and Kayla's discarded perfumes. Boxes were stacked against the walls, labeled "Charity" in Brenda's looping handwriting, though I doubted any of it would ever see a donation bin.

I locked the door. It was a flimsy lock, the kind you could pick with a hairpin, but it was a boundary.

I moved to the mirror. The girl staring back at me was a stranger. Blonde hair dyed badly, roots showing, skin pale and devoid of makeup. I looked tired. I looked weak.

I reached up to my ear. The cheap plastic studs I wore were hollow. I unscrewed the back of the left one and tapped it into my palm. A receiver, no bigger than a grain of rice. I slid it into my ear canal. It vanished.

"Fox," the voice in my ear was clear, crisp. "This is Wolf. We have the latest vitals on the target."

"Go ahead," I whispered. I watched the door as I spoke.

"Intel is spotty due to the Faraday shielding in the West Wing," Wolf said. "But thermal imaging suggests his core temperature is erratic. Heart rate variability is dangerously low. It's consistent with high-dose neurotoxin exposure. If we don't intervene within seventy-two hours, there won't be a mind left to save."

I felt a cold spike of anger in my gut. They weren't just imprisoning him; they were erasing him. "Understood," I said. "I need the antidote components ready for the drop."

"We're working on it. But be careful, Fox. The Vances are the least of your worries. The Sterling estate is a fortress."

I was about to reply when my instincts flared. The floorboards in the hallway were old; they groaned under weight. Someone was coming. Heavy steps. Unsteady.

I ripped the receiver out of my ear and palmed it just as the wood of the door frame splintered. The lock gave way with a pathetic crunch.

Kayla stood in the doorway. She was swaying slightly, a bottle of vodka in one hand and a small, silver object in the other. Her eyes were glassy, smeared with mascara.

"Who said you could lock the door?" she slurred. "This is my house. My room."

I backed away, pressing myself against the dresser. "I'm sorry," I said, my voice trembling. "I just... I wanted to change."

She stumbled into the room, kicking the door shut behind her. She looked at me, really looked at me, and her face twisted into a mask of ugly jealousy.

"You think you're pretty, don't you?" she spat. "Under all that dirt. You think you can go there and seduce him? Take my money?"

"No, Kayla, please," I held up my hands. "I just want to help."

"Liar!" She lunged.

The silver object in her hand flashed. It was a dermaplaning razor, small but sharp enough to slice skin open. She swung it toward my face.

Time seemed to slow down. It was a phenomenon I had lived with for ten years-tachypsychia. In the high-stress moment of an attack, my brain processed information faster than reality.

I saw the razor coming in an arc toward my left cheek. I saw Kayla's weight shifted entirely onto her right foot, her balance compromised by the alcohol. I saw the exposed tendons in her wrist.

I could have broken her arm in three places before she blinked. I could have crushed her trachea.

But Serena Vance, the trailer park girl, couldn't do that.

I let out a high-pitched scream and threw myself to the side, flailing my arms like a panicked child.

Kayla missed my face by an inch. Her momentum carried her forward, and she crashed into the bathroom vanity.

She shrieked, turning around, the razor slashing wildly now. "You little bitch!"

She came at me again in the narrow space between the bed and the bathroom door. There was no room to run.

I fell back against the bathtub. As she brought the razor down, I caught her wrist. To her, it would feel like a desperate grab. To me, it was a calculated block. My thumb pressed into the pressure point at the base of her ulna.

She gasped, her fingers going numb. The razor clattered to the tile floor.

I didn't let go. I used her own forward momentum and pivoted my hips. I spun her around and slammed her chest-first against the edge of the bathtub.

Water from the tap I had been running earlier splashed up, soaking her silk robe. I pressed her face down toward the water for a fraction of a second-just enough to trigger the mammalian drowning reflex, just enough to terrify her.

"Let me go!" she gurgled, thrashing.

I heard footsteps in the hall. Heavy, angry footsteps. Brenda.

I released Kayla instantly. I threw myself onto the wet floor, scrambling backward until my back hit the toilet. I grabbed a towel and held it to my chest, hyperventilating.

Brenda burst into the room. "What the hell is going on in here?"

Kayla was pulling herself up from the tub, coughing, water dripping from her nose. "She attacked me!" she screamed. "She tried to drown me!"

Brenda looked at Kayla, then at me. I was huddled in the corner, shaking so hard my teeth chattered.

"I... she fell," I sobbed. "She was dancing... she had the knife... I tried to catch her... I'm so sorry!"

Brenda looked at the vodka bottle on the floor. She looked at the razor. She looked at her daughter, who was clearly drunk out of her mind.

"You idiot," Brenda hissed at Kayla. "You're wasted."

"She broke my wrist!" Kayla wailed, holding her arm.

Brenda grabbed Kayla's arm and inspected it. "It's not broken, you drama queen. It's barely red."

She turned to me. She walked over and slapped me across the face.

The impact stung, snapping my head to the side. I let the tears spill over. I didn't flinch. I took it.

"Clean this mess up," Brenda ordered. "And if you touch my daughter again, I will have Frank throw you out on the highway."

"I'm sorry, Aunt Brenda. I'm so sorry." I kept my head down, hiding my face in the towel.

Brenda dragged Kayla out of the room. I heard them arguing down the hall, Kayla's drunken protests fading into the distance.

I sat on the cold tile floor for a long moment. I lowered the towel. My expression was blank. I touched my cheek where she had slapped me. It was throbbing.

Good. The bruise would help sell the story tomorrow.

I stood up and looked in the mirror again. I wiped the fake tears from my eyes.

"One down," I whispered to the reflection.

The next morning, Frank threw a black credit card onto the kitchen table. It slid across the wood and stopped in front of my plate of dry toast.

"Get her something that doesn't look like it came from a dumpster," he told Brenda. "But keep it under budget. We need the cash for the settlement."

Brenda snatched the card up. "Come on," she barked at me. "And put a hat on. I don't want the neighbors seeing your roots."

We went to the mall. Not the high-end boutiques on Fifth Avenue, but a sprawling outlet center on the edge of the island. Kayla came with us, wearing dark sunglasses to hide her hangover, her wrist wrapped in an Ace bandage she didn't need.

Brenda dragged me into a store that smelled of cheap polyester and desperation. She started pulling things off the racks. Bright pinks, neon greens, animal prints. Clothes that screamed "new money" and "no taste."

"Try this," she said, shoving a tight, sequined cocktail dress at me. It looked like something a disco ball would wear to a funeral.

I went into the changing room. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. I pulled the dress on. It was itchy. It was tight in the wrong places. It was perfect for the role.

I stepped out. I let my shoulders slump. I chewed the gum I had popped into my mouth earlier with my mouth open. I walked awkwardly, stumbling a little in the heels they had given me.

Kayla snickered. She had her phone out, snapping pictures. "Look at her," she whispered to Brenda. "She looks like a hooker on clearance."

Brenda nodded, satisfied. "It fits her personality. We'll take it."

I saw the salesgirl watching us. She had a look of pure disdain on her face. Poor white trash trying to play dress-up, her eyes said.

I caught Kayla's reflection in the mirror. She was typing furiously on her phone, posting the photo to her private group chat. "Wait until you see what my cousin is wearing to meet the Sterlings. #CharityCase."

I made a mental note of the timestamp. That photo would be useful later. Evidence of their cruelty, if I ever needed to burn them down publicly.

After the shopping, there was the hair salon. Brenda instructed the stylist to bleach my hair platinum blonde. Not a nice, honey blonde. Platinum. White. Fried.

"Make it bright," Brenda said. "She needs to pop."

The stylist looked at my hair, which was healthy despite the bad dye job I'd given it myself for cover. "Are you sure? This will damage the cuticle..."

"Just do it," Brenda snapped.

Two hours later, my scalp was burning, and my hair felt like straw. I looked in the mirror. I looked exactly like the stereotype they wanted me to be. A gold-digger. A bimbo.

The final stop was a "manners consultant" Frank had hired for a two-hour crash course. Mrs. Gable was a stern woman with a British accent that sounded fake.

She tried to teach me how to walk with a book on my head.

"Chin up, shoulders back," she commanded.

I took two steps and let the book slide off. I bent down to pick it up, bending at the waist instead of the knees, giving Mrs. Gable a view of my underwear.

She gasped. "Oh, good heavens! No!"

I did it again. And again. I spilled tea. I used the salad fork for the cake. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

By the end of the hour, Mrs. Gable looked ready to retire.

"Mr. Vance," she told Frank, who had come to pick us up. "She is... unteachable. She is a liability."

Frank looked at me with pure hatred. "She's not going there to talk politics, Mrs. Gable. She's going there to sign papers and breed."

I stood there, popping my gum, looking vacant. Inside, I was smiling. They thought I was stupid. Stupidity was the best camouflage in the world.

I needed to use the restroom before we left. I went into the stall and locked the door. A moment later, I heard Brenda and Kayla enter.

"I can't believe we have to give that idiot two million dollars," Kayla complained. "That's my inheritance, Mom."

"Shh," Brenda said. "It's a signing bonus. Frank has to transfer it to get her to sign the prenup. But don't worry. Once she's in that house, once the trust fund is unlocked for us... who cares what happens to her?"

"But two million?"

"She won't live long enough to spend it, honey. You know what they say about Julian. He's killed two nurses already. Why do you think they're accepting her? They need a body count that doesn't sue."

I sat on the toilet lid, my breath held. Two million.

They were going to pay me two million dollars to walk into a trap.

I waited until they left. I walked out of the stall and washed my hands. I looked at the platinum blonde stranger in the mirror.

Two million dollars. That would buy a lot of neurotoxin antidote on the black market.

I dried my hands. I wasn't just going to survive Julian Sterling. I was going to use their own blood money to save him.

The morning of the departure, the air in the Vance living room was so thick you could choke on it. Frank sat at the head of the mahogany table, a pen tapping rhythmically against the wood. Beside him lay a stack of documents thick enough to be a novel.

The Prenuptial Agreement. The Non-Disclosure Agreement. The Waiver of Rights.

"Sign," Frank said. He didn't look up.

I stood by the window, clutching my denim bag. I was wearing the pink dress. It was tight, uncomfortable, and ridiculous for a Tuesday morning.

I walked to the table. I picked up the pen. I hovered it over the signature line.

Then I stopped.

Frank stopped tapping. "What are you doing?"

I looked up at him. My eyes were wide, innocent. I dropped the pen. It clattered loudly on the table.

"I don't read so good, Uncle Frank," I said, my voice pitching up a little and my grammar slipping into the broken cadence I had perfected for them. "But I know numbers. And I don't see my numbers here."

Frank's face turned a shade of purple I hadn't seen before. "Excuse me?"

"I heard you and Aunt Brenda," I said. "In the bathroom. You said two million."

Brenda gasped from the sofa. "You little spy!"

I took a step back, crossing my arms. "I'm not signing. Not until I see the money."

Frank stood up so fast his chair tipped over. "You ungrateful little gutter rat! We are giving you a life! We are giving you a future!"

"You're selling me to a monster!" I screamed back. I let the tears come now. Panic, real and raw, or at least it looked that way. "You said he kills people! If I'm going to die, I want to die rich!"

Kayla marched over and got in my face. "You don't deserve a dime."

"Then go marry him yourself!" I shoved the papers toward her.

Silence. Absolute silence descended on the room. Kayla recoiled as if the papers were radioactive. They all knew the truth. They were terrified of Julian Sterling.

Frank looked at his watch. The Sterling car would be here in twelve minutes. If I wasn't in it, the deal was off. The Vance family bankruptcy would be public by noon.

He was trapped. And he knew it.

"Fine," he snarled. He pulled out his phone. "Give me the account number."

I didn't hesitate. I pulled a crumpled piece of paper from my bra. It had a routing number on it.

"What is this?" Frank squinted at it. "This is... Swiss?"

"My friend's account," I lied smoothly. "She works at a bank. Said she could hold it for me so Momma don't steal it."

Frank didn't have time to argue. His fingers flew across the screen, trembling with rage. He authorized the wire transfer.

I waited. My left eye began to itch-the signal from the contact lens I was wearing. A tiny, augmented reality overlay flickered in my vision.

My fingers, hidden behind my back, tapped a sequence on the microscopic keypad embedded in my belt buckle. It was a failsafe. Frank thought he was sending a pending authorization, something he could cancel later. But with a little help from my end, the transfer was instant and irreversible.

Transfer Confirmed: $2,000,000.00 USD.

I smiled. It was a greedy, ugly smile. I grabbed the pen and scribbled my name on the documents. I didn't even read them.

The doorbell rang.

Frank grabbed my arm, his grip bruising. "If you screw this up, Serena, I will find you. And I will make you wish you died in that house."

I pulled my arm away. I grabbed my bag.

"Bye, Uncle Frank. Thanks for the tip."

I walked out the front door.

A stretch limousine was waiting. Standing beside the open door was a man who looked like he had been carved out of granite. He wore a tuxedo that fit him like armor. His hair was grey, cropped close. His eyes were cold, assessing, and utterly unimpressed.

Higgins. The Sterling family's head of security and estate manager.

He looked at my pink dress. He looked at my cheap bag. He didn't say a word. He just gestured for me to get in.

I climbed into the back. The leather here was softer than Frank's car. It smelled of expensive cologne and old money.

Higgins got in the back with me, sitting on the opposite bench. The partition was up. We were alone.

He tapped on a tablet, ignoring me completely.

I leaned back, clutching my bag to my chest. I let out a long, shaky breath.

The car began to move. I watched the Vance house disappear in the rearview mirror. I felt the weight of the two million dollars in the offshore account-funds that Wolf was already converting into cryptocurrency to buy the illegal chelation agents we needed for Julian.

I looked at Higgins. "So," I said, popping a bubble of gum. "Is he really crazy? Or is that just, like, a rumor?"

Higgins looked up. His eyes were dead.

"Ms. Vance," he said, his voice deep and smooth. "In this family, the rumors are usually the polite version of the truth."