After the divorce, I walked away with almost nothing to my name. A cracked phone. Two garbage bags filled with clothes. And my mother’s old necklace, the last thing I owned that might help me make rent. My ex-husband, Dylan, kept the house, the car, and the life we had built together. The judge called the outcome fair. Dylan looked satisfied.

Life in the estate was a crash course in power. Arthur trained me. He didn't teach me to be a damsel; he taught me to be a player. I learned the languages of money: stocks, acquisitions, hostile takeovers. I learned the language of survival: hand-to-hand combat, surveillance detection, and how to spot a lie.

But the Syndicate was closing in. We began to see drones hovering over the property, and Arthur’s men intercepted encrypted messages that named me. The danger was palpable.

"Dylan has surfaced," Arthur told me one afternoon, his voice grim.

My breath caught. "Is he... is he working for them?"

"He’s their lead tracker," Arthur confirmed. "He wasn't sent to marry you, Clara. He was sent to wait for you to lead them to the key. He didn't know you had it until the moment you walked into that jewelry store."

I felt a surge of nausea, followed by a surge of rage. Dylan, who had laughed when the judge took my car. Dylan, who had made me feel small for years. He hadn't just been a bad husband; he had been a predator.

"I want to handle him," I said.