Jaden walked down the concrete steps of City Hall. Her heavy combat boots splashed into a puddle, sending dirty water flying across the pavement.

A sharp autumn wind whipped down the street. She shivered, zipping her leather jacket all the way up to her chin.

Her phone erupted in her pocket. The shrill ringtone sliced through the heavy metal still playing in her ears.

She stopped on the sidewalk and pulled it out. Tammy.

Jaden’s expression went flat and cold. She hit the green button. Before she could even breathe, Tammy’s screeching voice exploded through the speaker.

“Where the hell are you?!” Tammy screamed. “Gus had a heart attack! He’s in the ICU! He never even made it to City Hall!”

Jaden’s fingers dug into the plastic case of her phone. Her knuckles turned white. A cold weight dropped into her stomach.

“If Gus didn’t show up,” Jaden interrupted, her voice dangerously quiet, “then who the hell did I just sign papers with?”

Dead silence on the other end. Then, Tammy shrieked louder. “What did you do?! You stupid, worthless—”

Jaden pressed the red button. The noise died instantly.

She stood frozen in the middle of the crowded sidewalk. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She shoved her hand deep into her jacket pocket and pulled out the crumpled marriage certificate.

The sunlight broke through the gray clouds, hitting the white paper.

Jaden stared at the spouse line.

Constantine Kensington.

The bold black letters seemed to burn. Her vision sharpened, and for a full three seconds, she forgot to breathe.

A delivery guy on a bicycle swerved past her, clipping her elbow. “Watch it, bitch!” he yelled.

The hit snapped Jaden back. She ground her teeth together. She pulled up an encrypted browser on her phone and typed in the name.

A photo loaded instantly. CEO of Kensington Group. Cold eyes. Sharp jawline. The exact same arrogant bastard who just bumped her shoulder.

Jaden traced the edge of the paper with her thumb. A dark, humorless laugh escaped her throat. This was the most absurd mistake of her life.

Her phone buzzed. A text message from Burt.

Where the hell are you?! Gus never showed up! If you screwed this up, you’re dead to us!

Jaden stared at the screen. She opened a second browser window and ran a deep search on Gus Miller. Her fingers moved fast. Within seconds, she had cracked his encrypted medical records. No cardiac arrest. He was hiding in the ICU under a fake name because the IRS had flagged his offshore shell companies for massive tax evasion.

She closed the browser. Her eyes narrowed. The Hicks family had tried to sell her to a convicted criminal.

A hot, violent energy surged through her veins.

She opened her contacts and dialed a heavily encrypted line.

“Ernest,” Jaden said. Her voice was absolute zero.

“Young King,” Ernest replied instantly, his tone reverent and ironclad.

“I need eight hundred and eighty thousand dollars in untraceable liquid funds. Transfer it from our dummy account to Burt Hicks’s private checking account. Now. This is my final payout to sever all ties.”

“Understood,” Ernest said. “Do you need a cleanup crew? I can send men to handle the problem.”

“No,” Jaden said flatly. “This is my final transaction with them. I’m not dirtying my hands with trash.”

She hung up. She folded the marriage certificate with precise, sharp movements and shoved it deep into her pocket.

She stepped to the edge of the curb and threw her arm up. A yellow cab slammed on its brakes in front of her.

The driver rolled down the window. “Where to?” he asked, then flinched. The girl standing there radiated pure murder.

Jaden pulled open the back door and slid onto the cracked vinyl seat.

“Queens,” she said. She rattled off the address of the Hicks’ rundown townhouse. Then she pulled out her phone and typed a quick message to Ernest: Have my equipment bag ready at the drop point on 7th and Main. I’ll pick it up after I’m done.

The cab accelerated, throwing her back against the seat. Jaden crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes. Her muscles coiled tight. She was going to rip their pathetic lies apart.

The yellow cab jerked to a stop in front of a peeling, two-story townhouse in Queens. The tires crushed a pile of dead brown leaves.

Jaden pushed the door open and threw a crumpled hundred-dollar bill through the partition window. “Keep the change.”

She stepped onto the cracked sidewalk. Her heavy boots hit the rotting wooden steps of the porch. Every step felt heavy, calculated.

Before her hand even touched the brass doorknob, Jimmie’s shrill laughter pierced right through the thin wood.

“She’s such a loser,” Jimmie mocked from inside. “She couldn’t even keep a dying sixty-year-old man on the hook. Now she’s got nothing.”

Jaden’s eyes went dead. She lifted her right leg, the thick sole of her combat boot aiming straight for the lock.

Crash.

She kicked the door open. Wood splintered. The heavy door slammed violently against the interior wall, shaking the entire house.

The laughter inside died instantly.

Burt was sitting on the stained couch, smoking a cheap cigar. The loud bang made him jump. The burning ash dropped directly onto his thigh. He yelped, slapping at his pants.

Tammy rushed out of the kitchen, waving a greasy spatula. “Are you crazy?!” she screamed, pointing it right at Jaden’s face.

Jaden kept her hands shoved in her pockets. She stepped over the threshold, her face completely blank. She walked into the living room like a predator entering a cage.

She ignored Tammy’s spit flying through the air. She stopped right in front of the cheap glass coffee table.

Jimmie stood up from the armchair, crossing her arms over her chest. Her face was caked in cheap foundation. “What, did the old man dump you? Back here to beg for scraps?”

Jaden let out a low, dark chuckle. She tilted her chin up, her piercing gaze locking onto Jimmie’s eyes.

“Gus didn’t have a heart attack,” Jaden said. Her voice was smooth, but it cut like a razor. “He faked it to hide in the ICU. The IRS is auditing his shell companies for tax evasion.”

Burt’s face drained of color. He shot up from the couch. “How the hell do you know that?”

Jaden didn’t answer. She pulled her phone from her pocket and brought up a screenshot of the wire transfer confirmation Ernest had just sent.

She slammed the phone face-up onto the glass coffee table. Smack.

“Look at it,” Jaden ordered.

The screen displayed a crystal-clear bank statement. It showed a direct wire transfer of eight hundred and eighty thousand dollars from a blind Cayman trust—her trust—directly into Burt’s private checking account. The timestamp was two minutes ago.

“This is your severance,” Jaden said, her voice dripping with disgust. “That money is my final payment to be legally and permanently removed from your custody. Consider it hush money. You take it, you sign the papers, and you forget I ever existed.”

Tammy’s face went pale. She grabbed the phone, staring at the balance. The number was real.

Burt’s eyes darted between the phone and Jaden’s cold stare. “You… you have that kind of money?”

“I have a lot more than that,” Jaden said flatly. “But this is all you’re getting. Take it or leave it.”

She reached into the inner pocket of her jacket and pulled out a thick stack of papers. Her lawyers had drafted it the moment she decided to cut ties.

She threw the papers right at Burt’s face. The heavy pages slapped his cheek and scattered across the floor.

“Sign it,” Jaden commanded. “Take the money, and get the hell out of my life.”