Chapter 7

The phone rang at 8:47 the next morning.

Sylvie was standing in her kitchen, coffee in hand, watching the sunrise paint the sky in shades of orange and gold. She looked at the caller ID, saw the Ashford name, and let it ring twice before answering.

"Sylvie." It was Marcus Ashford's voice, rough with sleeplessness. "You win. We'll accept your terms."

"What terms?"

"The withdrawal of the termination notices, in exchange for—"

"No." She cut him off. "That's not a term. That's a given. I already have the authority to withdraw the notices whenever I choose. The question is what I get in exchange."

There was a long pause. "What do you want?"

"Tell me what happened on Saturday night."

Another pause. "You were there."

"I want you to tell me what happened." She took a sip of her coffee, waiting.

Marcus let out a heavy breath. "You came to dinner. My mother poured wine on you. She called it charity. She demanded a hundred thousand dollars. And we laughed."

"Why did you laugh?"

"Because..." He hesitated. "Because that's what we do. We laugh at the outsiders. We show them they don't belong. It's a way of testing them, of seeing if they'll break."

"And if they do break?"