THE FALL OF KESTREL TOWER

Cassandra Kestrel had learned to read a boardroom the way other people read weather the tilt of a shoulder before a storm, the silence that came right before someone decided to ruin your life.

She should have seen it coming.

"The board has reviewed the discrepancies," her half-brother Weston said, not looking at her. He was looking at the papers in front of him instead, as if they were more difficult to face than she was. "Four million dollars, Cass. Routed through three shell accounts, all traced back to your login credentials."

"That's impossible." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "I never authorized those transfers."

"The logs say otherwise." Weston finally lifted his eyes, and for one unguarded second she thought she saw something like regret there. Then it was gone, replaced by the practiced solemnity of a man performing grief for an audience. "I fought for you. I told them there had to be an explanation. But the evidence"

"Is fabricated." She stood, and the chair scraped loud enough that two of the board members flinched. "Someone did this. Someone with access to my accounts, my passwords, my"

"Cassandra." Their father's old friend, Director Halloway, wouldn't meet her eyes either. That was how she knew it was already over. Nobody in this room had decided anything today. It had all been decided before she walked in, in some other room, at some other table she hadn't been invited to. "The board has voted. Effective immediately, your shares are placed in trust pending a full investigation. Security will escort you from the building."

Security. As if she were a stranger. As if she hadn't grown up in this tower, hadn't learned to walk on these marble floors before she'd learned to walk on grass.

She looked at Weston one more time. Searched his face for the brother who used to sneak her chocolate before dinner, who used to say someday this will all be ours, Cass, yours and mine together searched for anything human left in him.

He looked back at her with the flat, patient expression of a man who has already won and is simply waiting for the losing side to leave the table.

"You'll regret this," she said quietly. It wasn't a threat. It was a fact, stated plainly, the way she'd state a quarterly projection.

"I already do," Weston said. "Every day."

She almost believed him. That was the worst part some small, stupid piece of her almost believed him, right up until the moment security's hand closed around her arm and the doors of Kestrel Tower shut behind her for what she thought, then, would be the last time.

She didn't cry. Not in the elevator, not in the lobby, not on the sidewalk where reporters had somehow already gathered, drawn to scandal the way sharks are drawn to blood in the water.

She didn't cry that night either, alone in an apartment that wasn't seized yet but would be by morning, staring at a bank account frozen down to nothing, a name dragged through every headline in the financial section.

Kestrel Heir Disgraced in Embezzlement Scandal.

Golden Girl's Fall From Grace.

Sources Say Cassandra Kestrel Fled Rather Than Face Charges.

She hadn't fled anywhere. Not yet. But by the time the sun came up, she'd made her decision because there was nothing left in this city for her except people who believed a lie, and a brother who had told it.

She packed one bag. She left her phone on the kitchen counter, still buzzing with messages she would never answer. And she walked out into a life she hadn't chosen, carrying nothing but the two things nobody could take from a boardroom vote: her mind, and the absolute, ice-cold certainty that Weston Kestrel would pay for what he'd done.

It would just take longer than either of them expected.

Five years longer...

End of Chapter 1