Chapter 3

Mara wanted me to wait. I did not wait.

I needed my laptop. It held three years of commit history, every line of code timestamped and signed with my name. It was the only proof that Halecrest's engine had come out of my head and not his.

So at ten the next morning I walked into the Halecrest office on Brannan Street, past the kombucha tap and the neon sign that said BUILD WHAT MATTERS.

My badge flashed red at the turnstile.

"Ma'am." A security guard I'd brought coffee to every Friday for two years stepped in front of me. He wouldn't meet my eyes. "I've been told you're not authorized."

"I need my personal laptop. It's on the third desk by the window."

"Wren!"

Sloane Whitmore glided down the floating staircase in cream silk, her blonde hair in a perfect low knot. On her left hand my mother's sapphire caught the light, and I felt it like a slap.

"Oh, I'm so glad you came by," she said, loud enough for the whole open-plan floor to hear. Thirty engineers stopped typing. "Grayson feels terrible about how things ended. I told him we should look after you."

She pressed a business card into my palm.

"My friend runs a cleaning company. They're always hiring. Steady work, nothing too stressful." She tilted her head with a pity so polished it was almost beautiful. "We take care of the help, even the former help."

Someone near the espresso machine snickered.

Then Grayson appeared on the mezzanine with his phone to his ear. He looked down at me the way a king looks at a beggar at the gate.

"Wren." He covered the phone. "This is a workplace. You're making people uncomfortable."

"I want my laptop."

"There's no laptop of yours here." He turned to the floor and raised his voice. "Everyone, this is my former roommate. She's going through a hard time. Please be kind, but she shouldn't be in the building."

Former roommate.

I looked at the engineers. Priya had stayed at our place during her apartment fire. Marcus had cried on my couch when his father died. Not one of them said a word. They looked at their screens. Silence was cheaper than courage, and Halecrest stock options were very, very expensive.

The guard took my elbow. Gently, but he took it.

On the sidewalk my phone buzzed. It was Mara.

"Tell me you're not at Halecrest."

"I was. I'm leaving."

"Good. Now open the link I just sent you."

It was Halecrest's public S-1 filing, the document every investor in America would rely on before buying a single share. Mara had highlighted one paragraph in yellow.

The Company's founder, Grayson A. Hale, is unmarried and holds sole and exclusive beneficial ownership of all founder shares, free of any marital or third-party claim.

I read it three times.

"He swore to that," Mara said. "Under penalty of federal law. That isn't a lie to his wife, Wren. That's a lie to the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the underwriters, and to Richard Whitmore, who's about to bet nine hundred million dollars on it."

"So what happens now?"

"Now we decide how loud you want this to be." She paused. "Do you have the code?"

"He kept my laptop. But..." I closed my eyes and pictured the screen. "I pushed every commit to a private backup on my own account. He never had the password. He never asked for it. He never asked me anything."

Mara laughed, a short, dangerous sound.

"Then he's done."

That night an email landed in my inbox. It wasn't addressed to me. Grayson had forgotten to remove me from the founders' mailing list, the one I created.

You're invited. The Whitmore-Hale Engagement Gala, celebrating love and Halecrest's upcoming IPO. Saturday, 8 p.m., The Fairmont Ballroom. Black tie.

I forwarded it to Mara with one line.

I'm going.

Her reply came eleven seconds later.

Then wear something they'll never forget.