Chapter 1

NICKIE'S POV

The moment the hospital billing department called for the third time that morning, I felt like I was going to lose it.

My dad's heart was running out of beats and my bank account was empty and the rejection letter from Knight Industries was sitting on my kitchen table like a verdict.

I looked at the rejection email one last time. It was so formal and cold,a two-paragraph dismissal of five years of work and my last hope. The paper felt like a slap in the face. They said they regretted to inform me.

I regretted not burning down their headquarters.

This was no longer about a job; it was a war for my dad’s life…. When you're up against the most powerful man in the state the only thing to do is fight back with everything you've got.

I folded the letter from Knight Industries, put it in my pocket. I told the billing lady I would call back. I hung up the phone. Left the apartment.

The Knight industries tower was twelve blocks away. I walked to the tower. I do not even really remember most of it. By the time the building was in front of me I had stopped feeling scared. I do not know when that happened. I just know that when I looked up at thirty floors of glass I did not feel small. I felt like someone who had nothing left to lose which's honestly a lot more dangerous.

The lobby was nice, it was really nice. There were marble everywhere, high ceilings, two big guys positioned at the turnstiles. There was a long line of visitors with their name tags and their appointments and their legitimate reasons for being there.

The first guard stepped up. I just started talking. I said it was a delivery for the executive floor something about the Meritus project and that I was already ten minutes late. I had read every news article about Knight Industries that I could find. I just threw words at him fast until he blinked. He looked at his partner. That was all the time I needed.

I dropped to my knees on the marble and the floor was cold and very smooth and I slid under the turnstile in a move I had not known I was capable of until I was already doing it, and I came up on the other side in a crouch and straightened and kept moving before either guard had processed what they had just watched happen.

The elevator doors were closing. I jammed my arm through and I stepped in and hit the button for the penthouse floor and watched the guards through the gap as the doors shut.

It took thirty seconds to go up to the penthouse floor. I put my hand over the letter from Knight Industries in my pocket. Thought about my dad. Not the one with the tubes and the monitors. My real dad. The one who told jokes and burned dinner every single time and never in my whole life made me feel like I was too much to deal with. He never made me feel like a burden. Not once.

I was going to save him.

I was going to fix this situation with Knight industries or I was going to get arrested trying and at least an arrest would be a distraction from the hospital bills.

The doors opened onto the penthouse floor and the silence hit me like a wall. Everything was quiet, thick and expensive. An assistant was already standing, already looking at me the way people look at car crashes.

I did not stop.

I put my shoulder into the boardroom door and threw my weight behind it and it opened with a sound like a gunshot.

The room was enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows. A long dark table with five people around it who had all the expressions of people whose days had just been catastrophically altered. At the head of the table sat Regaleon Knight.

I had seen photographs. The photographs did not cover it. He was not panicking. He was just sitting there still watching me the way you watch something you are trying to figure out. He was calm and careful.

I walked to the table and slammed the rejection letter down on the mahogany and the sound it made was rude and satisfying and completely irreversible.

Nobody moved.

Leon looked at the letter. Then at me.

The board members around the table were frozen in the specific stillness of people who did not know whether to call for help or pretend this was scheduled. One woman had her hand in the air holding a tablet. Just froze like that. Nobody knew what to do.

I looked only at Leon.

He raised one hand. Just one hand, palm out. And every single person at that table stood up and walked out. Sixty seconds and it was just us.

He closed the door. Came back. Sat down. Picked up my letter and read it like he had all the time in the world.

Put it down. Looked at me.

The whole city was spread out behind him. His city basically. And he had my crumpled rejection letter on the table and he wasn’t angry or confused or annoyed.

He looked interested.

He pointed at the chair across from him.

I sat down.

He smiled. First time since I walked in.

It was the smile of someone who just found what they were looking for. Sitting across from Regaleon Knight, from Knight Industries I did not feel relieved.

I felt like I had just walked into a trap set by Knight Industries.