"I'll think about it," I said as I slipped my wrist free, my tone even.
A man at his level did not need immediate flattery. He needed to be kept waiting.
A month later, outside the Superior Court of Los Angeles, the sun beat down without mercy.
A bailiff escorted a man up the courthouse steps.
It was Arthur.
A heavy black ankle monitor was strapped around his leg.
The custom suit that had once fit him like a second skin now hung loose on him in tired folds, and he'd lost so much weight he barely looked like himself anymore.
His company was facing delisting over corporate fraud and embezzlement. Its accounts had been frozen, and his personal finances were so deep in the red the numbers barely looked real anymore.
When he passed me, he stopped.
"Don't think you've won, Chloe," he mu
