Dedication

For every woman who has been ignored, belittled, dismissed, forgotten, overlooked, or abused. This one’s for you.

Epigraph

Most people say they want justice. But they don’t really want justice. They want revenge. They want to see the pain spread around equally.

—David Gerrold

Chapter One
The Foundation

Seven women. One vote.

The Sophie Foundation. To the public, a charitable organization set up by a select group of powerful women to fund special projects relating to women’s health and welfare. Very general-sounding in its purpose, and not by accident. Behind the scenes, in private, a smaller group within the Foundation carried out a very different agenda.

“Let’s get started.” The meeting had been called to order without the need to yell or ask more than once.

Attendees immediately complied. Folders opened. Notepads appeared. They didn’t leave an electronic footprint and burned all documents after the meeting. They never wavered from this rule.

“The first item relates to the individual referred to in the documents as Offender C.”

They’d wait to vote until everyone had an opportunity to speak and all arguments had been heard and settled. No one dared to come unprepared. The thought was unimaginable. They performed invaluable work. Risky and serious work.

“In light of the facts and history, and the probability of further acts of violence, I’m requesting our most significant penalty.” A few members glanced up at the ringing command of the leader’s voice. “Death.”

Chapter Two
Gabby

Gabby Fielding hated talking with her ex-husband. She’d divorced him for a reason. A terrible, still-couldn’t-process-it reason that left her with no choice but to get out of the marriage she’d once believed, naïvely so, would last forever.

Back then she’d also considered him her best friend, a man she could trust, which now seemed trite. Today, she thought of him as a gigantic asshole, both relentless in his need to “win” and indifferent to the people around him. A blowhard with an overinflated ego backed up by an impressive bank account he’d built from almost nothing . . . and that “almost” ended up ruining everything.

This morning, yet another fight about their daughter, Kennedy, loomed. She was fourteen and had just left to start her second year away at boarding school in upstate New York, as he’d insisted. He’d argued about her needing a “push” then conflated the high yearly tuition with the guarantee of lifetime success, all while covertly convincing Kennedy she wanted to go. Gabby knew he’d picked the school because she hated the idea of Kennedy being away from home.