Chapter 2

"Mr. Foster, that receipt is fake."

"Fake." Frank laughed, and there was no warmth anywhere in it. "Your mother says the money went out. You say it never came in. The two of you running some routine on my daughter? One of you plays nice, the other plays broke?

"Here's how it goes. Before the wedding date, the full hundred thousand lands in Emily's account. And I want to see the deed on that house and the title on that Mercedes, in my hand.

"Anything's missing, there's no wedding."

"Sir, that's not enough time. If you could give me a little—"

"You've got the nerve to tell me it's not enough time?" He rolled right over me. "Emily's been with you three years. Three years, and you can't put together a down payment. My daughter clears five thousand a month. What do you clear? You can't even match her. What exactly are you bringing to this?

"And my daughter's condition isn't going to sit around waiting for you to grow up. Think about that."

Then he was gone, and the dead line hummed in my ear.

I picked up my phone and messaged Emily. "Where are you? I need to see you."

Twenty minutes went by before she answered. "North entrance of my building, by the lot. Make it fast."

She was standing under the crooked old oak at the edge of the lot when I got there.

"Em." I reached for her arm and she took half a step back.

"My dad called you."

It wasn't a question. I nodded.

She wouldn't look at me. "My mom says your family never had the money and you've been stringing us along. My dad puts it worse. He says you're not honest. He says your mother swears she sent a hundred thousand and you swear you never saw it, so either it's in your pocket, or—"

Her voice caught.

"Or you've got another woman somewhere and it went to her."

"Emily, I don't. There's no money and there's no woman." I got my phone out. "That receipt is an AI-generated image. It never existed."

She finally looked at me. "Then why does it have a bank's name on it? My name? The amount? There's a stamp at the bottom, Adam. An official one."

"Because that's what these things do now." I pulled up Mom's messages and enlarged the receipt. "Look at the stamp. There's no branch number on it. No transaction number. It doesn't even name a branch — just the bank. Nothing about this ever went near a banking system."

She stared at the screen, then back up at me.

"Do you think I'm stupid? I finished high school, that's all, fine. But I know what AI is. It's a chatbot. It can't send anybody money. And now you're standing here telling me that same chatbot made a transfer receipt so real my father believed it, and that's supposed to mean you're broke?"

Her eyes filled.

"So what's next? I wait? I get bigger and bigger, and then your family figures I can't walk away, so you don't have to give us anything at all?"

"That's not what's happening. Two things. One, I really don't have the money. Two, I can show you exactly how she made it. Give me thirty seconds."

I reached for the app. Emily shoved my hand down.

"Don't bother. Real, fake, I don't care anymore." Her voice climbed. "Where's the settlement, Adam? That's the only question. You're standing here dodging.

"My dad said if your family would just be straight with him and admit you're struggling, he'd think about coming down to fifty thousand. But now he's decided you're a liar with something to hide."