His hand was wrapped around the waist of a younger woman with long blonde hair.

She was looking up at him, her face tilted toward his.

It was Chloe.

My younger sister.

Around her wrist was the Tiffany silver bracelet I had given her for her twenty-fifth birthday.

A text message appeared beneath the image.

“They’ve been at the Horizon Resort since Tuesday,” the message read.

“He told her you agreed to the divorce.”

My breath caught in my throat.

The room seemed to shrink.

The cursor on my laptop screen still blinked over the blue “Confirm Wire” button.

Seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars was seconds away from being mine.

But my hand began to shake.

If I took the money now, Lucas would know immediately.

He would lock down, and I would lose my chance to find out what he had done to Chloe.

And I needed to know who sent this photo.

I slowly slid my index finger off the mouse.

I looked at the phone screen again.

My thumb hovered over the keyboard.

“Who is this?” I typed.

I hit send.

The three gray dots appeared at the bottom of the chat, indicating the unknown sender was typing a reply.

“A friend,” the response came back.

“Why are you helping me?” I asked.

“Because he did this to me first,” the person wrote.

I stared at the screen, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Before I could type another question, the phone buzzed in my hand with a new incoming message.

“It’s registered in my name,” the screen read. “But I have never been to Palm Springs in my life.”

I stared at the glowing blue bubbles on my phone.

My finger hovered over the mouse, still tempted by the “Confirm Wire” button on my laptop screen.

Seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars would buy me a new life.