Page 86

I look at the New York City skyline stretching outside my windows. I am alone in this glass tower, with people screaming for my dethroning, my father screaming for his legacy, possibly days away from going to prison for something I didn’t do.

And worst of all, Isabella is gone, and I don’t know where she is.

I scroll through the last messages I received from her. The jokes, the flirty comments among the texts about work, entirely unaware of the doomsday to which we were headed.

She helped me write the letter. She put her heart into the original draft, believing we were at the start of something good. And I’ve turned it into a weapon.

I’m paralyzed by the fear of failure, but the failure has already happened. The doctored letter is a masterpiece of deception that will save the company and the King legacy. It will keep me out of prison, my father and Jesse, too.

It will also kill the last human piece of me that’s left.

I look at my phone one last time. No missed calls, no texts, just the empty, black screen.

I realize now that the math I’ve been running all night was wrong. You can’t subtract your soul and still have a life left over.

I pick up the phone and call the Ghost.

“Undo it,” I tell him. “All of it. Vance, Jenkins, every file I touched tonight. Put it back the way it was.”

Then I close the report without sending it, and I sit alone in the dark with what I almost did.

33

ISABELLA

The steam from the herbal tea rises in a swirl against the comforting dim light of my apartment, disappearing into the air, just like my future with Sebastian.

Stop being so dramatic!

The voice in my head sounds a lot like my mother’s—the mother I’m currently trying to ignore as I huddle on my couch wrapped in a soft blanket. I just wish it offered the comfort I so desperately need right now. My head throbs with the rhythmic insistence of a drum—a physical manifestation of the migraine that’s been clawing at my temples since I walked out of Julian King’s study and out of Sebastian’s life.

“You have a type, Isabella.”

Mom comes out of my kitchen with a plastic bag of whatever she could grab from my fridge and pantry. The woman can’t help but treat my place like her personal bodega. I try to hide the best things from her, but I don’t always know when she’s going to show up.

Like today.

“You choose men who are projects, Isabella. You choose men who will never change.”

I almost bite back, It takes one to know one, but I don’t need that argument right now.

“If you would just act a little less competent, maybe you would stop scaring them away. You’re overconfident and men don’t like that. They want someone they can take care of, who needs them. You act like you don’t need anyone.”

Because I don’t. If I ever fall into the trap of relying on someone, they’ll just betray me, and I’ll be alone again.

“I don’t need the lecture, Mom.” My voice sounds hoarse. I take a sip of the tea, disappointed that it’s lukewarm.

I put the mug on the coffee table and snuggle back under my blanket. “I don’t want to hear about it right now. I don’t want to think about it. Just stop, please!”

But she continues as if she didn’t hear me. “I knew it when he arrived in that fancy car and stepped into the house with his fancy suit that Paloma wouldn’t shut up about. He thought he was better than us, but he’s not.”

Mom is muttering to herself, looking at the items I have on my mantel, little things that are important to me for one reason or another. I’m sure one of them will go missing.

“You always go after men who think they’re better than us, except for Mark. He was a good man. He was down-to-earth. He didn’t put on airs and pretend he was better than everyone. But you had to break up with him, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Mom,” I groan, burying my face in my hands. “Yes, Mark was perfect, except for the fact that he cheated on me and always made fun of me⁠—”

“You know that’s the way some people show their love, Isabella,” Mom scolds, interrupting. “You need to grow thicker skin.”