Ada Edgar hadn’t always been a thief.

Since she was a girl, she’d liked to work for the things she wanted, whether that meant doing more chores around her house than she wanted, or babysitting the Jenson twins two houses down.

It was a person’s work ethic, her father, Charles, liked to say, that defined them.

Even now, as an accountant for world class criminals, she worked long hours organizing their books and making sure their money was secure.  Keeping them rich even as they robbed others blind.

The very same criminals that wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if they ever learned she was stealing from them.

They trusted her, after all, to secure what meant the most to them, and that trust hadn’t come easy. Not only had she needed someone to vouch for her—to stake their very life that she was trustworthy—but she had also needed to prove she was the best at what she did by working more hours than anyone at the firm and making sure her books reflected the work.

Eight years ago, she would have laughed at the very idea of her coming to work for an American accounting firm that helped rich men get richer from ill-gotten gains, but things had been different then. She had been different then. And the very things that seemed so important at that time no longer mattered.

Four years ago, she had wanted to prove herself—to show the men skeptical of her abilities that she was the best launderer they would ever hope to find, though now she wondered why she had cared to prove anything to people that didn’t think twice about her.

She also wanted to show her father she hadn’t needed him despite his promise that she would—she had wanted to be right in the choices she’d made.

She could turn hundreds of thousands of dollars into millions. She made sure the money couldn’t be found by various enemies and governments alike.

There was no longer a question whether she had been worth it, she was good. Even now as she balanced precariously on the line between right and wrong, there was no question whether she could do her job or not.

Once, crunching numbers had been something she was proud of.

Since she was a child, she’d had an affinity for them, and long before she had ever attended Cambridge University, she had even helped her parents manage what little money they made from their respective jobs.

It had been simple then.

Before everything had changed.

Before her parents had lost it all.

Before she had to become the person she was now.

Humble beginning were nothing to be ashamed of—she now knew—and for a while, her parents and sister, Marie, had never left her wanting for anything. They were all she had needed.

Until they moved and her father had promised them all a new start in a bigger house and better things. Their life had been better for a while, until the day the new company he worked for had to downsize and he was one of the first to be let go. She’d learned rather quickly how poverty—true poverty—could change people.

Her father smiled less. Her mother cried more. And though Marie hadn’t understood the enormity of what was happening around them, she had still felt the staggering effects of it as well.

Ada, older at the time, had been reminded daily what little they had once she’d started attending her new secondary school with holes worn into the bottom of her shoes and wearing a uniform that was at least a size too small.

She’d tried to keep her head down and not draw attention to herself, but children were cruel and they’d delighted in reminding her of her shortcomings and what little she had though it was no fault of her own.

The worse they were to her, the more her resentment toward her mother and father grew. It had been their fault, she’d believed, for the bullying she’d suffered. She channeled that anger and bitterness into her studies, ensuring her marks never slipped, even as everything at home felt like it was falling apart.

Because her father wasn’t the only one feeling the effects of the change his lack of a job caused—it had slowly seeped into each of them, threading through every thought and emotion until it was all anyone could focus on.

‘Why couldn’t he find another bloody job?’ she’d asked herself often in those days.

It had been her father’s fault that they were so poor, she’d thought.

His fault that her mother had needed to find another job on top of the one she already had to keep them going as one month turned into two of his lazing on the couch, grumbling as he watched the telly.

His fault that she had needed to get a job as well once she was old enough, to help to support the family though he was the patriarch and it had been his responsibility to provide for them. While other girls her age had jobs as well, they were able to buy little bits and bobs they wanted while it felt like she was the only one having to hand over the hundred and something pounds she made a week, only keeping a twenty for herself.

She didn’t care that the evidence of her hard work was all around her—the heat in the water, the running water in the sinks, and food on the table—she only saw that she didn’t have something tangible and fit neatly in her closet.

Anger had fueled her for months on end until she was finally able to send off her application to Cambridge after graduating. But even then, that anger had only dulled to simmer, like burning embers clinging to life in her being.

She hadn’t cared that she would have to pay back on loans for ages—she was just glad she could finally escape her family and leave their meager existence behind.

Her mother, Edna, had never understood why she wanted to leave. No, that wasn’t quite right. Her mother had never minded their life, and didn’t understand why Ada did.

It’s what’s done, she’d said one evening. You take care of your family no matter what.

But Ada had never understood that notion. It was because of family that they struggled so much. It was because of family that she felt as if she was drowning.

The day she’d moved out, she never looked back.

Not until she was far enough away that she no longer felt the heavy weight of responsibility on her shoulders.

That day, her father had called her selfish, shook his head in that way that said he was disappointed as she’d loaded her suitcases in the trunk of the idling taxi. The emotion that choked her had nearly prevented her from leaving, but her desire for freedom had far outweighed her need to not be a disappointment to him.

And, in the end, once she’d graduated a second time and found a decent paying job, she’d been able to send money home. Regardless of his proclamation that he’d never want anything from her, he never sent a single check back.

Ada thought about that day a lot over the years, especially now as she watched the rain drum outside and slide down the clear glass pane of her office window on the thirty-second floor of the building. She couldn’t get it off her mind.

Her first day here had felt like she was on top of the world when she sat behind her desk, gazing out at the sprawling city of Los Angeles bathed in the glow of the moon.

It had been beautiful.

Enchanting.

Until it wasn’t.

No, Ada hadn’t always been a thief, not when she’d been able to afford her lifestyle and send money back home, but desperation could make the strongest of men forget their morals.

It was a year ago today, in fact, that turned her world on its axis.

“There was an accident,” Edna had said on a hiccuping breath, her words muffled over the call, but Ada had heard her well enough. “Your father—”

Those had been the only words Ada needed before she was on the first flight back to London, needing answers from someone other than her mother and Marie who could barely get a word out without sobbing.

“An accident,” the floor manager of the factory where her father had worked repeated, his brow beading with sweat as he’d regarded three inconsolable women. “Could have happened to anyone.”

She had barely been able to wrap her mind around the fact that an accident had nearly taken her father’s life, let alone that she had been so out of touch with her own family that nothing he was saying even sounded remotely possible since the last she’d heard, her father still wasn’t working.

Worse, the floor manager couldn’t have known that because of the accident, her family would be thrust right back into the life they had only narrowly escaped. Bills still needed to be paid, despite the accident, and now that her father was in a physical state that required special supervision, his care also came with a hefty price tag.

She’d thought that first phone call was bad, but it was nothing compared to the one she’d received nearly a month later.

“He needs to be moved to special care,” her sister had said over the voicemail eleven months ago that had ultimately set this all into motion. “He’s not getting everything he needs. I don’t … I don’t remember what all the nurse was saying, it was a lot. It costs fifty thousand pounds a month, though. Fifty thousand! Who the hell even has that kind of money? Mum thinks she can buy us some time if we sell the house and move into a flat, just the two of us, but I’m not sure how long that’ll last.”

She’d paused after that remark, weighted with grief and anger and helplessness.

Ada knew the feeling well.

“Could you give me a ring when you get this? You’ve always done well with the numbers.”

A fact that was both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because she had been able to send them three thousand dollars every month without blinking an eye at the amount.

A curse because she knew that was no longer enough and there was only one way she could get the money they needed. She’d been sitting at her computer at the time, running numbers for a client. Three million dollars was just sitting there, untouched. The man it belonged to hardly checked the account, she’d reasoned, that was her job.

He wouldn’t notice if a little was missing.

A little over fifty thousand dollars was nothing to a man like him.

It was almost too easy shifting money from that first account into a separate one she’d set up minutes before.

Maybe if it hadn’t been so easy, she wouldn’t have gone back a second time.

Or a third.

Fourth.

Fifth.

Until she was no longer thinking of the consequences of her actions.

Until it no longer mattered.

It started out so small, that first withdrawal, but now she was more than a quarter of a million dollars deep with no way out.

Brushing that thought away, Ada turned back to her computer as it beeped, signaling the end of the transaction she’d been waiting to process—her last one for the day.

Finally.

Now she could go home.

She blew out a breath, exited the browser and wiped her search history, before closing it all down.

Pulling on her coat, she shook out her hair before grabbing her purse from the side table and locked up her office as she left.

It was a short walk to the bank of elevators across from her office, but as she readied to hit the button to head down, the bell dinged and the doors slowly slid open.

She had no time at all to prepare herself for the sight of the woman standing inside wearing a white, figure-hugging dress and towering heels, or the man standing at her back who, at the very sight of him, made Ada instinctively take a step back.

Her fingers tightened around the handle of her purse as fear slithered down her spine.

Suits walked these halls everyday, and if not one of them, there were men in tailored jeans and T-shirts that cost just as much.

This man, whoever he was, didn’t fit either mold.

He wore a bulletproof vest with far too many straps, and a pair of cargo pants that molded to powerful thighs with weapons secured on nearly every inch of his body.

Dark hair hung past his ears, strands falling over his eyes—eyes that were the same dark shade. But the most terrifying aspect about him was the mask that covered half of his face.

Everything about him was designed to spark fear in whoever he crossed paths with. From the guns, to the muscular arms, and even the way he stood. He practically bled violence. But his eyes …

There was nothing there.

No emotion.

No indication that he felt anything at all.

He was just a weapon, poised and ready to be unleashed.

But the woman in front of him didn’t appear concerned by his presence.

Why would she? He was here with her.

“Good evening, Ada. I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”

She tried to pay attention to the woman in front of her, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the walking weapon behind her. “I—”

“Oh, don’t mind him,” she said easily, a delicate accent coloring her words. “He’s only here to ensure nothing happens to me.”

With the way he was staring through her, Ada didn’t want to even look at the woman the wrong way.

Clearing her throat and adopting a smile that she hoped made her look less afraid, Ada asked, “Is there something I can help you with tonight, Belladonna?”

A clever moniker if Ada had ever heard one.

There was the traditional spelling of the poison, bella donna, but whenever the woman picked up a pen, she wrote it as if it were her own name. Both lethal and unassuming in its flower form, it also described the woman who bore it well.

Ada didn’t know the meaning behind it, and had never felt comfortable enough to ask, but each idea she had were all rather gruesome considering the effects of the poison.

“Let’s speak in your office,” she suggested, eyes sweeping the corridor. “I trust it’s a bit more private in there.”

Surveillance cameras were installed in the main foyer, audio recorders as well, but for the sake of the clients—and Ada, as it were—all the private offices weren’t bugged in any way.

She risked one last glance at the man standing behind Belladonna before turning back for her office, unease settling into her heart as she tried to think of why they were here rather than the reason she hoped they weren’t.

Despite the many accounts she’d pilfered through, Belladonna’s hadn’t been one of them.

Inside her office, Ada flipped the light switch, circling her desk before sinking down into her chair, watching as Belladonna did the same—her guard remaining standing—before she turned her computer back on.

For the last year, she had taken more than one odd meeting with the woman across from her, yet she still wasn’t used to being in her presence. Not just in the way she dressed—always in white, no matter the occasion—but also in the way she carried herself.

Plenty of women, especially the wives and mistresses of the men she did business with here, also looked the part, but they all had a tendency to be a bit more ostentatious.

The difference, they say, between new money and old.

Belladonna wasn’t dripping in jewels, nor did she wear an obnoxious fur coat as one of Ada’s former clients, Carmen Rivera, had done often despite the California weather.

In fact, besides a pair of pearl-shaped diamond earrings, she wore no other jewelry or embellishments at all.

Funny, really, considering she was worth more than half a billion dollars, and that amount was just from the accounts Ada knew about.

“Apologies,” she said, glancing down at the calendar left open on her desk. “I didn’t think we were meeting for another few weeks.”

Belladonna offered a pleasing smile, crossing one leg over the other. “In the interest of time, I needed to move our meeting up. Considering the last few weeks I’ve had, I can’t afford to risk waiting any longer.”

Ada hadn’t the slightest idea what she was on about, but she didn’t voice that thought aloud. She was thankful, however, that their conversation seemed to be about her rather than anything Ada might have been doing. “It’s no trouble at all. Did you have questions about your account?”

She gave a demure wave of her hand. “In due time, but for now, I want to talk about you.”

Ada swallowed, that earlier relief dying a quick and sudden death as she forced herself to meet the woman’s gaze. “Me?”

“And after,” Belladonna went on as if Ada hadn’t spoken. “If you do exactly as I say, you’ll come out on the other end of this relatively unscathed.”

“Unscath—I’m sorry. Come out the other end of what?”

“In three months’ time, you’ll be taken by … well, I’m not sure what Nix’s pets are calling themselves these days, but you’ll know them when you see them.”

Ada blinked, expecting her to laugh to indicate she was joking, but her expression never changed. “I … I don’t think I understand.”

She couldn’t be serious.

Not only was the idea ludicrous, but there was absolutely no way she could know this would happen—especially something that wasn’t supposed to happen for another three months.

“How do you know about this? Who is Nix?”

Was this a warning? Had she inadvertently done something to cross Belladonna in some way?

She could account for the people she’d taken money from, and not once had she ever stolen from Belladonna.

Too much mystery surrounded the woman.

Others’ business practices were well known—arms, trafficking, and drugs alike—but no one ever spoke of just what Belladonna had done to amass her fortune.

“You’re wondering if I know about the money,” Belladonna said carefully, reading her expression. “I do, but considering you’ve never stolen from me, I don’t particularly care what you do in your free time.”

Her heart felt like it was ready to beat right out of her chest. She couldn’t even bring herself to confirm the woman’s words. Instead, she sat with her mouth clamped shut and her fingers clenched on the edge of her desk.

“But don’t worry yourself,” Belladonna went on. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Clearing her throat, Ada said, “Then I don’t understand why you’re here.”

“As I’ve said. In three months, a team of hitters will walk into this very building, on this very floor, and take you from it.”

“Because of the money?”

“No,” she answered. “Because the Kingmaker will demand they do it.”

That name she knew well—a name that made her heart sink in her chest, panic rooting itself where the organ had once been.

If the Kingmaker was sending someone after her, that meant someone somewhere knew what she was doing and it was only a matter of time before everyone else knew too.

And once they did, neither she, nor her family, would be safe.

Sure, the thought of getting caught had crossed her mind several times over the many months she’d been secretly funneling money away, but she’d foolishly believed she would have more time to get her affairs in order—that she wouldn’t be found out until she was far enough away that they wouldn’t be able to find her—but with Belladonna’s presence across from her, that only meant one thing.

Her time was up.

Ada couldn’t find any words to say as she stared, mute, knowing there was nothing she could do now. Worse, she couldn’t even run if she wanted to, not with Belladonna’s silent guard standing at the door.

“My time is short,” Belladonna went on, “so let’s curtail the, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ discussion.”

Ada took a breath, trying to contain the panic she felt. “I-I can’t pay you if that’s what you want.”

“The question isn’t what you can do for me, rather what I can do for you. And believe me, Ada, when I say I want to help you.”

“Why?”

“Because the Kingmaker won’t be coming after you because of the paltry sum of money you took. He wants me, and unfortunately for you, you’re a way for him to get to me.”

“Because I manage your books,” Ada guessed, trying to fill in the blanks.

“Precisely.”

Her gaze flickered to the guard. “I won’t say anything, I swear.”

“You misunderstand. When he comes for you, I don’t want you to keep your mouth shut, I want you to tell him everything you possibly can about me. I suspect there’s not much.”

None of what she was saying made sense, and Ada was starting to wonder if Belladonna knew that. “I don’t understand. You want me to give him access to your accounts?”

“In short, yes.”

“But why?”

“Because the information will be what saves your life.”

Ada was starting to realize that no matter how much Belladonna explained, no matter what questions she asked, she was never going to understand.

And maybe that was the point. Maybe she wasn’t meant to understand.

“Am I going to die?” she asked softly, thinking of the letter she would need to write her family—of the apology she should have given long before now, and the forgiveness that wouldn’t come in time.

“Not if you do exactly as I say.”

“Why are you helping me?” she asked meeting her gaze, genuinely curious. She couldn’t think of anything Belladonna was getting out of this.

She sighed, her dark hair sliding over her shoulder as she leaned forward and started to speak. “He and I are a chess game—king against queen. Except, I like to offer those he sees as pawns a chance to save themselves before their worlds implode. It seems only fair. It’s the same chance I’m offering you. I can’t make you accept my help, Ada, but if you want it, it’s yours.”

“I do,” Ada said quickly, knowing she had no other options. “I want your help.”

“Then prepare yourself,” she said with a smile that wasn’t nearly as sweet anymore. “It has to get worse before it gets better.”