THE HUNGER GAMES OF HUDSON YARDS

The silence in the elevator was suffocating. My head was spinning. The ten thousand dollar, the silk dress, the shoes, the hope, it was all gone in a digital heartbeat. I felt naked despite the expensive fabric against my skin. He had shown me the dream and then snatched it back just to prove he could.

​"You bastard," I hissed, the words tasting like acid.

​Julian didn't even blink. He adjusted his cufflinks, the gold glinting in the dim light of the lift. "Rule number one of dealing with me, Elara: never assume the money is yours until the debt is settled. You haven't settled anything."

​"I have your laptop," I reminded him, my hand tightening on my clutch.

​"And I have the exit codes to this building," he replied as the doors slid open into a private garage. A black Maybach was waiting, the engine purring like a caged beast. "Get in."

​I didn't have a choice. I had zero dollars in my account and a dress that I now technically couldn't pay for if the store decided to chargeback. I was a beautiful ghost in a high-end car, being driven to an unknown destination by a man who treated people like line items on a balance sheet.

​We drove in silence toward Hudson Yards. The city blurred past, a kaleidoscope of lights that felt further away than ever. We pulled into a private bay, and Julian led me toward a glass-walled office that overlooked the river. It was cold, clinical, and smelled of ozone.

​"Sit," he commanded, gesturing to a leather chair.

​"I'm tired of being told what to do," I said, staying on my feet. "What is this? You want your laptop back? It’s in a locker at the bus station. You’ll get the key when I see fifty thousand in a locked escrow account."

​Julian laughed. It wasn't a warm sound. It was the sound of a predator watching its prey try to growl. He walked over to a wet bar and poured two fingers of scotch.

​"You’re still playing for pennies," he said, turning back to me. "I don't care about the laptop, Elara. Not really. Most of that data is backed up on a server in Switzerland. What I care about is the fact that you found the one backdoor I thought was closed. You have a talent for finding the cracks in the armor."

​He walked toward me, his movements slow and deliberate. He stopped so close I had to tilt my head back to look at him.

​"I have a business meeting tonight," he said. "An underground auction. The kind where people don't bid on art. They bid on information, favors, and lives. My rivals expect me to show up with a trophy. Someone beautiful, silent, and compliant."

​"And you think I'm going to be your trophy?" I scoffed. "I don't do 'silent' very well."

​"Exactly," Julian’s eyes darkened. "I want you to be the loudest thing in the room. I want you to drain them. I’m going to give you a corporate card with a five-million-dollar limit. Your job is to make sure my biggest rival, a man named Arthur Sterling, leaves that room with nothing but his pride in tatters. You outbid him on everything. You humiliate him."

​"And what do I get?"

​"Twenty percent of whatever you save me," he said. "And I reinstate that ten thousand with a zero at the end."

​One hundred thousand dollars. It was more money than I’d ever seen in my life. It was enough to move out of Brooklyn, enough to start over, enough to never have to swipe a laptop again.

​"Why me?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly.

​"Because you have the one thing my usual companions lack," Julian whispered, his hand coming up to cup my jaw. His skin was warm, a sharp contrast to his cold words. "You have a genuine, burning hatred for people like me. Use it. Turn that anger into a weapon. Make them pay for every time they've looked through you."

​He handed me a matte black card. It felt heavy in my palm.

​"The car is waiting," he said. "Don't disappoint me. Because if you lose his money, Elara, you won't just be broke. You’ll be mine."