Chapter 1

When my best friend’s biological father found her, she became the heiress to a crime family.

I was the extra baggage she insisted on bringing home. My greatest talent? Making one penny do the work of eight.

She handed me $450 million and put me in charge of the family’s new project.

I couldn’t bear to spend it. I paid out just $7,500.

Then the project collapsed. The family’s captains turned against her, and a rival boss showed up with his men waiting downstairs.

The girl who’d been raised in her place slid a transfer agreement across the table.

“Give me your shares. Walk away from the family. And I’ll make sure your gold-digging little friend gets out alive.”

With tears in her eyes, my best friend pressed her last bank card into my hand.

But I couldn’t stop staring at two words in the agreement:

Without compensation.

Before she could sign, I lunged forward and tore it to pieces.

“Hold on.”

“For seventy-five hundred dollars, you get the docks, the house—and her?”

...

Up on the top floor of Whitmore Group's headquarters, the conference room was hazy with smoke. Everyone looked as if they'd just been dug out of a grave.

Vanessa wore the smile of someone who had already won.

“Well, Claire? Have you made up your mind?”

No one spoke.

Notices from twelve banks demanding repayment sat in neat rows in front of Claire, alongside three payment demands and a lawyer's letter.

She stood beside the table, chalk-white. Instead of looking at Vanessa, she looked past everyone to the couch in the corner.

I was sitting there with three sad, wrinkled oranges.

Martha, the Whitmores' housekeeper, had been about to throw them out that morning. I'd heard her and rescued them. Perfectly good oranges, going in the trash? Absolutely not.

When Claire caught my eye, I peeled one and put the sections in her hand, one at a time.

Vanessa tapped the table and gave me a contemptuous glance.

“Sign, Claire, and I might even leave your useless little friend alone.”

At the mention of me, I looked up at the agreement.

Most of it meant nothing to me. But I took a closer look at the payment confirmation attached to it.

It had the bank's logo and a wire reference number at the top. The amount was so long it almost hurt to look at.

Initial project investment: $450,000,000. Paid in full on the date of execution.

Four hundred and fifty million?

Before I could think it through, Claire turned the document facedown and tried to reassure me.

“Nat, this has nothing to do with you. Take my card. Go try that new tasting-menu place downstairs.”

I shook my head at once.

“It's four hundred dollars a person. Not worth it.”

She paused, then laughed. As she laughed, her eyes filled.

“I'll decide what's worth it. The whole point of making money is getting to spend it on you.”

Nobody else understood that. I did.

When she'd first moved in with the Whitmores, people had sneered at the dirt under her nails, her inability to choose the right fork at a formal dinner, and the fact that she didn't know how to charm anyone into indulging her.

She'd crouched on the front steps, clinging to me and crying.

“Nat, I have nothing here.”

I'd thought it over, pulled out every cent I had—a single dollar—and patted her head.

“It's okay. I've got something.”

She'd cried so hard she'd gotten snot all over herself.

What she didn't know was that parting with that dollar had nearly killed me.

So when she later put $450 million in my hands, my first reaction wasn't gratitude. It was the feeling that I might need an ambulance.

What if I lost it?

Vanessa had run out of patience.

“Are you done thinking, Claire? The banks' deadlines expire at midnight. Once that happens, you'll be buried under billions in debt.”

Claire ignored her. She turned to me and forced a smile that looked worse than crying.

“Nat, go home first, okay? Lock the door. There's some chicken soup I made in the fridge...”

Before she could finish, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I glanced down.

Someone from the project's finance team in Southeast Asia had posted in our group chat. The message was very polite and very urgent.

Ms. Brooks, work has stopped on the project. When would it be convenient for you to send the remaining investment funds you promised?

I stared at it and frowned.

First, a confirmation claiming the full $450 million had been paid, used to make Claire give up.

Then a message asking me to send the rest.

One said they had all the money. The other said they were still waiting for it.

These people were running a scam.

Did that mean my $7,500 was gone?

Furious, I typed back two words.

No money.