The Non-Disclosure Agreement

Chapter 2 The First Misjudgment

I walked back to the cramped third-floor apartment I shared with Maya. The stairwell smelled of burnt toast, and her cheap floral detergent drifted through the door.

She saw my soaked clothes and pulled me inside without asking.

"Bad day at the temp agency?" She searched the tiny kitchen and came back with instant noodles in a mug. "Eat. You look awful."

"Something like that." I warmed my hands on the mug. She had spent two dollars and asked for nothing in return.

I was halfway through the noodles when someone hammered on our thin door.

Julian stood in the hall, one shoulder against the peeling wall. His tailored suit had probably cost more than everything in the apartment. He looked past me and wrinkled his nose.

"Took you long enough. I knew you wouldn't last a day." He walked in without being invited. "Ready to come to your senses?"

He drew a check from his inner pocket and dropped it on our unsteady coffee table.

One hundred thousand dollars.

"Take it. Consider it a severance package for a sister we never really had. Stay quiet and leave Chloe alone."

Maya started to speak. I shook my head and took out my cracked phone.

I tapped record and held the screen where Julian could see the red light. Both his face and the check were in frame.

"So, this is the official offer from the Sterling family? One hundred thousand dollars for me to disappear and pretend I don't exist?"

His smile dropped. "What are you doing? Put that away."

I stopped the recording and saved it. Then I held the check out to him. "Take your hush money. Tell our 'parents' my silence isn't for sale."

He snatched the check back. "You're making a huge mistake, Aria."

"I already made mine. I believed I belonged to your family."

I shut the door. Julian hit it once with his palm before his footsteps retreated down the stairs.

The next morning, I took my last three hundred and seventeen dollars to a dim internet café.

I paid for two hours at a corner terminal and opened a basic trading platform.

In my first life, I had studied finance every night, hoping Richard would notice. He laughed when I offered him my first market analysis, but I kept studying.

The information had returned with me.

I put all three hundred and seventeen dollars into a short position against OmniCorp. My hand shook once before I confirmed the trade.

In my first life, the company's celebrated CEO had been exposed for massive fraud that morning, and the stock had collapsed.

For the next hour, the position stayed red. The fee for the terminal kept counting down in the corner of the screen.

Then, at 11:03 AM, the news broke.

The fraud alert appeared first. Sell orders followed so quickly that the chart could barely redraw. My return doubled, then climbed again.

When I closed the position an hour later, the balance read fifty thousand dollars.

Sterling money could swallow that amount in an afternoon. For me, it paid for choices.

I left the café and found a small department store. The cheapest black pantsuit on the rack was stiff through the shoulders, but it fit.

In the dusty fitting-room mirror, I pinned back my hair and checked the sleeves. Tomorrow, I would start spending the rest of the money.