o the freezing concrete silence o

ed her wrinkled black skirt, and walk

s her bleeding knuckle. At the corner of 5th Avenue, she flagged down a yellow cab, sliding

ce raspy and dry. "The Neon A

ulled out her phone. The screen was already an avalanche of LinkedIn notif

with a numb thumb and o

balance loa

ification from Mount Sinai Hospital,

NED: -$45,000.00 -

d into her chest l

commissions were strictly contingent on deal closings. Her sixty-thousand-dollar bonus

ijacking the account, t

idn't have

perimental nerve-suppressant infusions costing eight hundred do

ld. Ever since illness took their mother and their shattered father walked out into

e Neon Antidote by night to stack the crisp hundred-dollar bills needed for his daily infusions. And in the quiet, desperate hours between shifts, she had f

ub was the only reason Ang

behind the club. Heavy bass thrummed through the reinf

sical bills, stepped out into the rain, an

empty locker, and pulled out her spare pair of flat black leather boots. She washed the blood from her torn knuckle u

ere pale, but her chin was high. The wounded wom

e swinging double doo

al glasses chimed against marble countertops. Adaline stepped behind the main bar and fell into an automatic rhythm-cracking

oor manager, shouldered his way through the

ed, wiping his forehead with a bar towel. "I

"Booth Four is reserved for the private equ

nto a silver tray. "Some high-roller slipped in unannounced forty minutes ago-no reservation, no name on the card. Walked past the bar like he had already mapped the room. Dropped an o

eavy silver tray i

h around these Wall Street sociopaths. Go d

couldn't afford to; this floor was the only room in Manhattan where the city's highest players gathered-and the only place where someone migh