Fists landed on it a moment later.
I sm*shed the window with a marble soap dish, knocked the shards loose, and climbed through the frame.
Jagged glass cut into my palm and calf.
I dropped into the muddy garden, cold rain pounding, and sprinted toward the estate road in a silk dress with no shoes.
Flashlight beams swung through the hedges behind me.
Headlights appeared through the downpour.
A black sedan rounded the bend.
I stepped onto the asphalt and threw both hands up.
The car stopped inches from my knees.
For a moment there was only rain on the hood and my own breathing.
The rear door clicked open.
A man in a dark tailored coat looked at my bl*eding, bare feet, then at the figures running from Wendy’s property, and his face didn’t change at all.
“Get in,” he said.
I did.
Only after the locks clicked shut did I recognize him.
Flynn Harlan.
Founder of Northgate Capital — the firm that had quietly purchased most of Sterling Global’s corporate debt that very morning.
Wendy taught me that power belonged to whoever controlled the room.
As the sedan pulled away, I realized she had never once asked what I learned while she ignored me.
She was about to find out at midnight.
PART 2
The car smelled of leather and rain.
Flynn Harlan handed me a first-aid kit from under the seat before he said a single word, and then he faced forward and let me shake in peace, which I have since learned is the most expensive kind of courtesy there is.
I wrapped my palm.
I watched the gates of my father’s estate shrink in the rear window, two flashlight beams stranded at the fence line like fireflies in the rain.
“You know who I am,” he said finally.
“You bought our debt this morning. A hundred and sixty million of it. The finance department noticed, Mr. Harlan. I am the finance department.”
Something that wasn’t quite a smile crossed his face.
“And you’re the daughter.”
“I’m the eighteen percent.”
“No,” he said, looking at me fully for the first time.
