Chapter 2

"She's got a knife in her pocket! I felt the handle! She's going to pull it on me!"

The moment those words left Mona's mouth, the crowd of onlookers shrieked and scrambled back, tripping over themselves to get away. The young men who'd been ready to play hero a moment ago backed off several more steps.

The whole scene dissolved into chaos. Someone's coffee spilled across the floor.

Walsh seized the opening and threw up a hand.

"Security! What are you standing around for? She's resisting arrest—rough her up if you have to!"

Four security guards, who'd clearly been staged nearby, closed in at once.

They didn't care whether I fought back or not—they twisted both my arms behind me. One of them drove a knee into the small of my back hard enough to force me to double over.

I turned my head and looked at Walsh.

"Manager Walsh, you're not even trying to sort out right from wrong. Have you thought about what happens after this?

"Call corporate compliance right now. Or better yet, get the store manager, Arthur Chapman, down here to confirm who I am.

"One more minute of this nonsense, and you're going to be in serious trouble."

Walsh laughed like he'd just heard the joke of the century.

"Chapman? He's about to get transferred out of here anyway. I'm the highest authority in this building today. You're a thief who's now assaulting people with a weapon on top of it. There's no wriggling out of this one."

He swept his arm out.

"Take her downstairs."

…

The four security guards dragged me past the main shopping floor, avoiding the customer traffic, and shoved me through the staff-only fire exit.

We went down, and down, the light growing dimmer with every level.

I glanced at my phone screen. The signal bars turned flat the moment we hit the second basement level.

These people knew exactly what they were doing—they'd picked a dead zone with zero reception.

The second we were out of sight of the crowd, Mona's whole pitiful, trembling act vanished without a trace.

She stopped walking and turned to face me, her expression gone cold and flat.

Mona stalked toward me on four-inch heels.

"You've got some nerve, cutting in on my business. I'm going to skin you alive today, or my name isn't Mona Sutton."

Something clicked into place in my head the moment she said that.

I looked up at her and smiled, sharp with sarcasm.

"So that's how you got here so fast. This whole thing was a setup from the start—the thief crying thief.

"You hired people to stage a string of thefts in the store, and while everyone was distracted, you swapped the real gold and diamonds at the counter for knockoffs.

"The fakes stay on display to keep fleecing customers, and the real merchandise gets run through that trash can as a drop point and moved to the black market.

"Two birds, one stone—you launder the money and cover the hole in your shell company's books. Not bad, Mona, for someone with an entire influencer brand riding on this."

Mona blinked, caught off guard that a bottom-rung loss prevention officer had dug up that much of her operation.

But she recovered fast, and let out a brittle, mocking laugh.

"You actually figured out who I am? Not bad. Too bad the smart ones die fastest in this building.

"You think knowing the truth does you any good? Loss prevention, operations, security—every one of them is mine. You can scream your lungs out today and you're still walking out of here as the thief."

Every word out of her mouth wasn't just a confession—it was cracking the whole rotten network running through this store wide open.

Something in me lit up with satisfaction.

This little undercover errand had turned out to be worth it after all. I'd expected to catch a few corrupt middle managers. I hadn't expected to land a catch this big.

I turned my head toward Walsh, who'd been standing off to the side the whole time, not saying a word.