I watched my groom throw a $100 bill at my mother during our wedding, then smiled because the FBI was already waiting by the doors.

The next forty-eight hours were a blur. News vans camped outside our apartment building, reporters yelling questions up at our window every time we pulled back the curtains. My Facebook DMs blew up—thousands of messages, from strangers calling me a hero, from women saying they’d been in my exact position, married to rich men who treated them like property, from people sharing their own stories of being looked down on for being poor, for working hard, for not having a last name that opened doors. One woman posted a clip of my speech with the caption: This is what happens when you underestimate a woman who had to fight for everything she has. It had twenty-seven million views.

Blake’s lawyers called every hour, threatening to sue me for defamation, for emotional distress, for “ruining the Harrington family legacy.” I just forwarded the calls to Agent Carter. He told me they had nothing—all the evidence was rock solid, and half the country had already seen Blake toss that hundred-dollar bill at my mom. No jury in the world would side with him.

But Voss was still out there.

We moved Mom to a safe house in Brooklyn, FBI agents posted outside 24/7. I went back to the FBI field office every day, going through the Harrington files with a team of agents, trying to trace every dollar back to Voss. It was like untangling a spiderweb—every shell company led to another, every fake name led to another dead end. Voss was careful. He never put his name on anything. He never sent emails from his personal account. He never left a trace.

Until he called me.

I was sitting at my desk at the field office, my head in my hands, when my personal phone rang. It was a blocked number. I hesitated, then picked up.

“Grace Carter,” a voice said, low and smooth, like melted chocolate laced with arsenic. “I’ve been watching you. You’re very impressive. Taking down the Harringtons like that at your own wedding? Ballsy. Stupid, but ballsy.”

“Voss,” I said, my hand tightening around the phone. I hit the record button on the line Agent Carter had installed. “What do you want?”

“To make you an offer,” he said. “The Harringtons were idiots. Greedy, sloppy idiots. I needed someone smarter to run the New York end of my business. Someone who knows numbers, who knows how to hide money, who doesn’t ask stupid questions. That’s you. I’ll pay you five million dollars a year. A penthouse on Fifth Avenue. A private jet. Anything you want. All you have to do is hand over your mom’s old ledgers, forget you ever heard my name, and let the Harringtons take the fall for everything. No one gets hurt. Your mom stays safe. Everyone wins.”

I stared at the wall, my heart hammering. Five million dollars a year. More money than Mom and I had ever made in our entire lives combined. Enough to never worry about anything ever again.

“Let me get this straight,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “You want me to help you cover up the fact that you’ve been stealing millions from charities, scamming retirees, and locking young girls in basements? For five million dollars?”

“Ten,” he said, like he was negotiating the price of a used car. “And I’ll make sure you never have to scrub another floor for the rest of your life. Just like Blake promised your mom. Only I keep my promises.”

I laughed. Sharp, bitter, loud enough for the agents in the next room to turn and look.

“You know what your problem is, Voss?” I said. “You think everyone has a price. You think every woman who’s ever worked a hard job, who’s ever been poor, who’s ever been called a charity case, will sell her soul for a few bucks. But here’s the thing: my mom taught me that some things are more important than money. Like dignity. Like justice. Like making sure monsters like you rot in prison for the rest of your life.”

I hung up.

Agent Carter ran into the room, his face tight. “You got all of that?”

“Every word,” I said, holding up my phone. “He admitted he worked with the Harringtons. He admitted he’s covering up crimes. That’s enough for a warrant.”

“Not enough to arrest him,” Carter said, shaking his head. “He used a burner phone. The call bounced through six different countries. We can’t trace it. And without hard proof he’s tied to the shell companies, to the trafficking, to the threats against your mom? A good lawyer will get him off in five minutes. He’s too rich, too connected. We need more.”

I thought of Mom’s ledgers, of the notes she’d written twenty years ago. Shipment coming through Port of Miami, 15th of the month, Voss met with three men from Ukraine, talked about “new workers”.

“Mom’s notes say he uses the Port of Miami,” I said, leaning forward. “He brings in shipments every month. If we can catch him red-handed with one of those shipments—with the girls, with the cash—we don’t need anything else.”

Carter nodded, but his face was still tight. “Miami is Voss’s territory. He owns half the cops there, half the port officials. If we tip our hand even a little, he’ll vanish. We need someone on the inside. Someone he won’t suspect.”

A knock on the office door. A young agent poked his head in, his eyes wide. “You guys need to see this. Voss just posted on his Facebook page.”

I grabbed the tablet he handed me. Voss’s profile photo was him in a tailored suit, standing on a yacht, smiling like he didn’t have a single care in the world. His latest post was a photo of the hundred-dollar bill Blake had tossed at Mom, framed in a fancy gold frame. The caption read: Some people will do anything for money. Even marry into a family they plan to destroy. Don’t worry, Harringtons—justice will be served.

It had a hundred thousand likes. Hundreds of comments calling me a gold digger, a liar, a criminal.

He was fighting back. Using social media, using his money, using his power to turn the story around. To make me the villain.