Page 65 of Escape Girl

This was maddening. Fucking maddening. I felt my spine stiffen. Those idiot bullies had no idea what was coming their—

“I’ve changed my mind,” Bella blurted. “This is the end of the road for me.” Max’s mouth dropped open, and Tess glared at her. She shrunk a little against Tess’s amber blaze but kept talking. “I’m broke, and if my name is in the papers as some sort of modern-day Mata Hari, it’s going to be hard for me to get another job.”

She didn’t need to pay for anything! I opened my mouth, but she cut me off. “I know you’d do this pro bono, Emily, but I still need to support myself. For the rest of my life, that will be more difficult if a future employer Googles me and this story is what they find. I’m not sure I have the stomach to survive a long legal battle either.” She swallowed hard, and I realized she was close to tears. “I haven’t even been home yet to deal with my grandmother’s estate.”

I’d forgotten all about the recent death in her family. Her small display of pain hit me in the solar plexus and closed my throat.

“Excuse me. I need a moment.” Bella stood from the table and walked to the restroom.

“So this is it?” Tess demanded. She kicked something under the table and our mugs all rattled. “Taggert seduces, steals, lies…and gets away with it? Again?”

Max put his arm around her. “I don’t like it either, Boots, but the man sure knows how to work the system.”

“Well, the system blows,” Tess said flatly. “Screw the system.” She looked at me. “As someone who likes the idea of taking down bad guys, doesn’t this make you crazy?”

So many thoughts were flooding through my brain that the moment, I didn’t answer right away.

Screw the system.

Who are you becoming?

Whoever you want.

“Whoa,” Tess said. Both she and Max were outright staring at me. “Emily, what is that shit-eating grin all about?”

Oh, you know. Just a series of really obvious realizations that should have occurred to me about a zillion years go.

Um, I didn’t need to work at a soul-sucking firm to make a living or to make an impact or prove my merit.

Taggert thought he was untouchable because he had money and fame?

Well, hot damn, I was the sole heir to a billionaire. If he wanted to bend the rules to get his way, then so would I. We’d just see who did it better.

I cackled aloud, already composing my resignation letter.

Taggert had made his bet and rolled the dice, counting on the fact that he would win by being the most powerful person in the fight. But I was the daughter of Tru and Sven Saturn, for Christ’ssake. I looked down at my hands, almost surprised there wasn’t lightning crackling at my fingertips. I’d completely forgotten what it was like to feel powerful.

“OK over there?” Tess asked warily. “I was just kidding when I asked if this made you crazy.”

“You know what, Tess?” I beamed. “For the first time in ages, I actually feel sane.”

I grabbed a pen and pointed it at Max. “Here’s what I want you to do.”

Chapter Twenty-One

For the nextweek, while Max dived into the less-legal side of the interwebs and did whatever magic hackers do, I put my considerable energy and focus into a different aspect of technology.

“I want to create an escape room–type experience for Bobby,” I explained to Andie, sitting at her workspace in Jo’s loft office. It was early in the morning. Andie had agreed to meet me here long before anyone else would show up for the workday. I looked down at my notes and back up at her sweet-yet-skeptical face. “I want to re-create three different spaces, and I want my voice recorded and to play when he is in them.”

“So,” Andie said, brow wrinkling. “Different from how Bobby’s rooms worked for you?”

“Yeah.” Bobby knew me so well. He knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the puzzle aspect. If a challenge was issued to me, I would take it. But he also knew that I hadn’t been in an emotional space where I could have listened to his voice. If he’d spoken in those escape rooms, I would have shut them down immediately.

But Bobby was still trying to make sense of our disaster. He still had questions. So my escape room to him was going to be less of a puzzle and more of an explanation.

Andie brought up some impressive 3D design software on her monitor. “You can send me photos of the spaces, and I can build the rooms. Then, I’ll hand it over to you to add the recordings. I’ll include instructions.”

“Perfect.”

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