Chapter 3: Triple

Juno's POV

Dee Okafor opened her apartment door in a bright yellow robe and a silk bonnet, with the face of a woman who had been asleep two minutes ago.

"It's eleven in the morning on a Saturday," she said. "Somebody better be dead."

"My marriage."

Dee took one look at my coat, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me inside.

Her Brooklyn apartment was small, warm and loud with color. Orange cushions on the couch. A pot of last night's jollof rice on the stove, filling the room with peppers and fried meat.

We had met on the first day of law school. I was the best in our class for two years, until I quit to become Mrs. Grant Ellison. Dee finished top instead. Now she was a criminal defense lawyer, the kind prosecutors in the borough hated to see walk into court.

She was also the only person alive who knew I was Ledger.

I sat at her kitchen table and told her everything. Tatum in my chair. The diamonds falling out of my bag. The papers. Grant saying the Seventy-Ninth Street apartment was more than I deserved.

When I got to that part, Dee pulled off her bonnet and threw it across the room.

"He said that? In front of his whole family?"

"With his mother and his sister watching. And the maids."

"I am going to key every one of his cars."

"He has nine, Dee."

"Then I'll buy more keys." She set a plate of rice in front of me. "Eat. Then tell me the rest. You've got that look."

"What look?"

"The one you get right before you burn a building down."

I took the silver laptop from my bag, typed my passkey, and turned the screen toward her.

Dee leaned in. She read Ronan's email. She read the offer to triple Ledger's rate. She scrolled down to the photo under his signature.

She put her fork down.

"Juno. Tell me you didn't."

"I did."

"Do you know who that is?"

"Ronan Sayer. Sayer Capital."

"He came up on demolition crews," Dee said. "Three years ago, you took Calder Street from him. His firm collapsed, his investors ran, and his wife walked out the same month. Grant bragged for six months that his secret consultant had destroyed Ronan Sayer. It made the front page of the Journal."

"I remember."

"He doesn't want to hire Ledger." Her voice dropped. "He wants to find out who Ledger is and take everything you own. He's been hunting whoever sits behind that email address for three years."

"I know."

I took a breath.

"I slept with him last night."

Dee went completely still. She stared at me for five full seconds. Then she buried her face in both hands and screamed into her palms.

"The quiet little society wife!" she said, muffled. "You sign your husband's divorce papers, walk into a hotel bar, and sleep with the one man in New York who wants your secret identity in the ground."

"Ex-husband."

"Legally? Not for months." She dropped her hands. "A signature gets you in line at the courthouse, that's all. Right now you're standing in the middle of a war."

"He didn't know who I was."

"Does he know now?"

"No."

"Does he have a scar through his eyebrow?"

"Dee."

"I'm only asking if he was worth it."

I looked at the rice. "Yes."

She made a strangled noise and pointed her fork at me. "We are not discussing this until you've had coffee."

"Real coffee," I said, and stood.

Outside, the rain had stopped. The pavement was wet and gray. We walked to the cart on the corner, where steam rolled off the metal urns.

"Two black," I told the vendor.

I pulled Grant's platinum card from my pocket and tapped it on the reader.

The machine gave a harsh beep.

DECLINED.

"Try it again," the vendor said.

I tapped again. The red letters flashed again.

My phone buzzed. Card suspended by account administrator.

A second message landed right under it.

Sloane: Oops. Company cards are for family. Try not to starve, darling. S.

The platinum card sat on an Ellison Group company account. Grant had never paid a bill on it in his life. The person who approved every charge on that account was his sister.

"Sloane." Dee read over my shoulder. "That smiling snake is already shutting off your water."

Behind us, a woman with a stroller sighed loudly. "Some of us have places to be."

I opened my wallet, skipped past Grant's cards, and took out a plain black debit card. It belonged to my own account. Grant had never seen it.

Since the very first email, Grant had paid Ledger from his private account through a small company called Northline Advisory. Dee had helped me set it up. The year she passed the bar, she had moved it behind her own firm so my name never touched a public filing. Every dollar had landed in this account. Six million, two hundred thousand.

"Run this one," I said.

The machine beeped green.

"And put her coffee on this card too." I nodded at the woman with the stroller. Her mouth clicked shut.

Dee grinned around her paper cup as we sat on a bench by the curb. "Look at you. Flashing the cash."

"It's mine. I earned every dime while Grant slept."

"Damn right you did. But keep your head straight." She pointed a finger at me. "You never finished law school. You don't have a license. On paper, Ledger sells business strategy, not legal advice. But you wrote contracts for Grant's company, and if anyone proves that, Sloane calls the state bar and they bury you."

"I know the law, Dee."

"Knowing the law and practicing it without a license are not the same thing." She waited. "So. What are you telling Sayer?"

I rested the laptop on my knees and opened a reply.

Grant had treated me like wallpaper since our wedding. His sister had frozen my card before the ink on the divorce papers was dry. His mother had called me a thief to my face, in front of the maids.

Ronan was the only man in New York with the teeth to tear Ellison Group apart.

And I had the map.

Harbor Point was a two-billion-dollar waterfront tower, and the city would hand it to one builder. Grant wanted it. So did Ronan.

I typed.

Ledger: Mr. Sayer. I accept. Triple is fine. Ledger works by email only. No phone calls. No meetings. Send your preliminary files on Harbor Point. Read the fine print.

"Juno, wait," Dee said.

I hit send.

His reply came in under a minute.

Ronan Sayer: Deal. But I don't pay ghosts. We meet Monday, 9 a.m., my office.

I didn't hesitate.

Ledger: Ledger never meets clients. That rule is older than you are, and it doesn't change for you. I will send my assistant, J. She speaks for me in the room. Strategic files come from this address only. Read the fine print.

I watched the clock in the corner of the screen. Two minutes. Three.

The reply landed.

Ronan Sayer: Then your assistant had better be good.

I shut the lid. My hands were shaking against the metal. I had finally pushed back, and my body didn't know what to do about it.

"Well?" Dee whispered.

"He wants to meet J on Monday."

"Who's J?"

"Me."

Dee opened her mouth, closed it, and drank her coffee in one long swallow.

My phone buzzed again. A text from Grant.

He had sent a photo of our front steps. Two suitcases and three soggy cardboard boxes sat at the bottom, in a puddle by the curb. My mother's old books stuck out of the top box, their covers warped by the rain.

Under the photo, one sentence.

Grant: Pick them up by Sunday, or they go in the trash.