Chapter 8
Cash stormed into his office on the 40th floor. He threw the crumpled bag of fries into the trash can so hard it dented the metal mesh.
He felt dirty. He felt foolish.
His phone pinged. An email from Isidora's lawyer. Demand for Asset Disclosure.
"Gavin!" Cash yelled.
Gavin appeared, looking terrified.
"Freeze everything," Cash said. "I want a total blockade. The joint accounts, the supplementary cards, the grocery money. Everything."
"Sir," the CFO spoke up from the corner of the room. "That could be seen as financial abuse in court. The judge will-"
"I don't care!" Cash slammed his hand on the desk. "She wants to play games with lunch? Let's see how she eats when she can't buy food. Do it."
Two hours later, Isidora stood in the checkout line at a bodega in Bushwick. She had toothpaste, ramen, and a bottle of cheap wine on the counter.
She swiped her card.
Beep. Declined.
She frowned. She tried the other one. The emergency backup.
Beep. Declined.
The cashier sighed loudly. "Lady, you got money or not?"
The line behind her shuffled impatiently. A man groaned. "Come on, move it."
Isidora felt the heat rise up her neck. It was a specific kind of shame-the shame of poverty she thought she had escaped forever.
"My mistake," she said calmly, pulling a twenty from her wallet. She paid for the toothpaste and left the rest on the counter.
She walked out of the store. The bell on the door jingled cheerfully, mocking her.
She walked back to the loft. Her stomach growled.
"He cut me off," she told Harper as she walked in.
"That prick," Harper said. "Here, take my card."
"No." Isidora sat down at the burner laptop. Her eyes were dark holes. "He wants to starve me? Fine. I'm going to eat his lunch."
She opened a secure, encrypted email client. She attached the PDF file she had spent the last three nights perfecting.
Subject: Project Icarus - Short Report on Ferguson Tech.
Summary: Revenue recognition irregularities. Undisclosed related-party transactions. The Emperor has no clothes.
She sent the file to the anonymous tip lines for three of Wall Street's most feared financial journalists. Then, she activated a script. A network of burner social media accounts began seeding keywords related to the report on Twitter, creating a digital breadcrumb trail for the algorithms to follow.
She hit Enter.
That evening, Cash was at Chante's apartment.
Chante was standing in front of the mirror, holding the emerald brooch against her chest.
"It's a bit... old fashioned, isn't it?" she complained, wrinkling her nose. "I wanted the diamond choker."
Cash wasn't listening. He was staring at his phone.
"Sir!" Gavin burst into the room without knocking. He was holding a tablet. "The stock. After-hours trading."
Cash grabbed the tablet.
A red line plummeted down the screen like a falling knife.
Ferguson Tech down 12% in after-hours trading following anonymous short report.
Cash read the report. His eyes scanned the data. It was precise. It was forensic. It cited obscure accounting footnotes that only an expert would notice.
Author: Nemesis.
"Who wrote this?" Cash whispered. The blood drained from his face. "This... this is Isidora's work. The precision... it's her signature."
He thought of her quiet competence, the way she dissected financial statements for sport. "That conniving little lawyer," he muttered. "She has the guts after all."
"It's viral, sir," Gavin said. "Twitter is blowing up."
"Get PR on the line," Cash shouted. "Deny everything!"
In the loft, Isidora watched the red line drop.
It was beautiful. It was the color of vengeance.
Her phone rang. It wasn't Cash.
It was Frank Tate. Her foster father.
She answered. "Frank?"
"What the hell did you do?" Frank screamed. "My card was declined at the club! The waiter cut it in half in front of everyone!"
"Cash cut me off, Frank," Isidora said tiredly. "I told you."
"You fix this!" Frank roared. "You get back in that house and you apologize! I have bills, Isidora! You owe us!"
Isidora closed her eyes. The war was fighting on two fronts now.
"I can't," she said.
"Then come here," Frank said, his voice dropping to a menacing growl. "We need to talk. Now."
Isidora looked at the red line on the screen. She had drawn blood. But now the sharks were circling.
"I'm coming," she said.
Chapter 9
The Tate house in New Jersey sat on a dying lawn. The paint was peeling.
Isidora pulled Harper's rusted Honda Civic into the driveway. She stared at the house. It was a mausoleum of her childhood trauma.
She walked inside. The air smelled of stale cigarettes and desperation.
Janice, her stepmother, was in the kitchen. "Look who decided to grace us with her presence. The Duchess of Nothing."
Frank sat in the recliner, his face purple with rage. He held the pieces of his cut credit card.
"You embarrassed me," Frank spat. "Do you know how much that membership costs?"
"I don't care about your club," Isidora said. "I want to know about the brooch."
Frank froze. "What?"
"The emerald brooch," Isidora said, stepping closer. "You told me you lost it. But I saw it at L'Eclat. You sold it."
Frank stood up. He was a big man, and he used his size to intimidate. "So what if I did? That was payment! For raising you! You think you were free? You were a burden!"
Isidora felt sick. "That was my mother's."
"Your mother was a lunatic," Frank sneered. "And you're just like her."
Tiffany, her stepsister, walked in. She was wearing a knock-off Versace dress.
"If you're divorcing him," Tiffany said, examining her nails, "give me his number. I bet he'd like someone who knows how to have fun. Not a prude like you."
Isidora looked at them. They were vultures picking at a carcass.
"I'm leaving," Isidora said.
"Not so fast," Frank said. He blocked the door. "There's a community fundraiser tomorrow night. Here. In the backyard."
"So?"
"I told everyone Cash Ferguson is coming," Frank said. "I need him here. To show the neighbors I'm still... connected."
"He won't come," Isidora said. "We aren't speaking."
Frank pulled out his phone. He turned the screen toward her.
It was a photo. Grainy, black and white. A woman in a hospital gown, strapped to a bed, screaming.
Isidora's breath stopped. It was her mother.
"I found this in her old files," Frank said. "If Cash doesn't show up tomorrow, I post this. 'The Crazy Genes of the Ferguson Heir.' The press will eat it up."
Isidora watched her own hands tremble, a fascinating biological reaction to a threat variable. She calmly reached into her purse, her thumb sliding over the record button on her phone. She needed his confession on tape. She needed leverage.
"You wouldn't," she whispered, playing the part.
"Try me," Frank said.
Isidora walked out to the car. Her hands were steady now. The tremor was an affectation she had dismissed. She couldn't put the key in the ignition because she was mapping out the next five moves in a chess game she had no intention of losing.
She had to get Cash here. But not by begging.
She pulled out her burner phone. She texted Cash.
Please. Frank is threatening me. I need you to come to a dinner tomorrow. Just for an hour. I'll do anything.
She knew he would reject her. The rejection was part of the plan. It was the data point she needed to confirm his complete lack of empathy before she moved to the next phase.
She waited.
Three dots appeared. Then vanished.
A message popped up.
Begging?
Then another.
Busy.
Then, a notification: Message Not Delivered. Recipient has blocked this number.
He had blocked her. Perfect.
Isidora dropped the phone. She put her head on the steering wheel, not in despair, but in concentration. She was trapped, but only for the moment.
Then, she remembered something.
Cash had a stress ulcer. He had been complaining about his stomach for weeks before the separation. When he got stressed, he got sick. And when he got sick, he reverted to a child.
Isidora lifted her head. Her eyes were dry.
She knew how to bring him here. She didn't need to ask. She just needed to wait for his body to betray him.
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