Chapter 1 - The Bet
Cruelty was a currency in Larkin Steves's world, and he spent it freely.
When he invited his aggressively mousy secretary to the bloodiest, highest-stakes gala of the underground year, it was supposed to be a punchline.
He expected a poorly fitted cardigan and a panic attack.
Penelope Woods managed the spreadsheets for the Steves Syndicate.
At twenty-eight, she possessed the kind of aggressive averageness that made people look straight through her.
She wore slacks the color of wet cement.
Her blouses were invariably high-necked and purchased from department stores that smelled of lavender and defeat.
She knew exactly who she worked for.
A person did not process invoices for bulk purchases of industrial lye and plastic sheeting without putting the pieces together.
Larkin Steves had inherited the syndicate from his father three years earlier and transformed a brutal, messy organization into a corporate machine.
He was composed almost entirely of sharp edges.
Lately, however, he had become profoundly bored.
Boredom in a man like Larkin was dangerous.
"She's a robot, Larkin," Thomas Dixon, his cousin and underboss, had laughed from across the polished oak desk.
"Tell her it's a mandatory corporate function and watch her show up in a tweed skirt suit."
Penelope had overheard every word of their cruel bet through the slightly ajar door of the executive suite.
She had locked herself in her cramped fourth-floor walk-up that evening, staring at the peeling paint on her ceiling.
She was exhausted from shrinking.
For years, she had folded herself into tiny, unnoticeable squares so loud, dangerous men would not look at her twice.
They wanted a joke.
But Penelope was the woman who balanced their books.
She understood margins and return on investment.
She opened her laptop and transferred five thousand dollars from her emergency savings into her checking account.
She was not going to be their punchline.
As the transfer confirmation flashed on her screen, her encrypted burner phone buzzed violently in her desk drawer.
It was a device she had kept hidden for three years, and it had never rung once.
She slowly opened the drawer and read the incoming text message from an untraceable number.
It contained a surveillance photo of Larkin Steves with a red target drawn over his chest.
The message below it read: "The assassination happens at the Gala on Friday."
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A second text immediately followed.
"Make sure you are standing close enough to grab his master ledger when he falls."
