Sure, all of us were being investigated for the fucker’s murder, but someone had to take care of business.

That someone was me.

Always me.

I wasn’t CEO of the company, but only I could deal with the contract mess here in Las Vegas. Story of my life. Under-appreciated to the max.

The rest of them were called back to New York for more questioning.

I wasn’t going down for his murder, and neither was anyone else in my family. Not on my watch.

Zinnia—or Zee—seemed to be the key.

I just had to get her to talk.

The Wolfe of Manhattan.

I’d never met a woman I couldn’t seduce.

So I’d seduce her.

And oh, she’d talk.

1

Zee

My mother was the typical Long Island “stage mom.” She’d decided as soon as I crawled out of her womb that I was going to be in show business. I spent my formative years being dragged to audition after audition. What little time left was devoted to ballet, tap, and acting classes.

I was good at the dance part. I always got top roles in all the recitals. The acting part? Not so much. I got a commercial here and there, probably based solely on the fact that I was a really cute kid. The big break my mother hoped for never came.

Then puberty hit. I grew to five feet ten inches seemingly overnight, which ended any dance aspirations as well. My mother’s answer?

Modeling, of course. I was thin, well-built, a natural blonde, and free of an awkward stage, so she enrolled me in classes. Yeah, we really did walk with books on our heads. I also learned how to create the perfect smoky eye.

You know, things you need in life.

Despite my mother’s persistence, no agent ever signed me, and by the time I turned eighteen, my modeling career—if it ever truly existed—was effectively over.

My mother was more disappointed than I was.

I wasn’t disappointed at all. I was free! Free to pursue what I wanted. I’d been homeschooled by a tutor because of my grueling schedule, so when I was a high school graduate—or the equivalent thereof—I accepted admission to Smith College in Massachusetts. I drove my car—the one luxury my mother allowed me—to college via a stop in the city to do all the touristy things my mom never took the time to show me—sights I’d been promised by my mother after I made it in modeling. Which of course never happened.

I made it to New York.

But I never made it to Smith.

I was taken. I was hunted.

Then saved by a man whose name I never knew.