Chapter 1 Ordinary People Matter Too
My name was Liliana Cortes, and with a single sentence, I could make Wall Street shake.
I had three of the most powerful men in the world protecting me.
My husband, Levi Alvarez, was the most feared shark in cross-border finance.
If someone so much as made a joke at my expense, he could wipe out their entire circle before the week was over.
My closest friend, Zachary Burgess, headed investigations at the IRS.
With a flick of his wrist, he could send an entire family to prison.
My younger brother, Dylan Cortes, had launched his own quant fund at seventeen.
He had turned our family into one of the richest and most powerful names in the world, and not just anyone even got the chance to curry favor with him.
On my thirtieth birthday, I sat in a rooftop restaurant, pregnancy test results in hand, and waited for twelve hours.
Instead, I got a cold notification saying Dylan was dead, that his fund had imploded amid allegations of regulatory violations, and that he had jumped to his death.
And there was Levi, standing with the police, making sure Dylan's death was officially ruled a suicide.
I snapped and demanded answers.
Zachary grabbed my hand and pressed my thumb down on the cremation authorization form.
"Your brother is already dead. The least he can do now is take the blame for someone who still has a future. Willow wasn't born with what you had. She wasn't born a Cortes. The least you can do is give her this one thing."
Levi didn't even give me a second to react before he seized my wrist and forced my finger into the red ink pad and onto the form.
His assistant snatched up the paperwork and headed straight for the police.
I ran after them, but the entrance was already packed with reporters.
"Mrs. Alvarez, sources say your husband and Mr. Burgess were once caught up in a major financial fraud scandal in Southeast Asia, and that Willow gave up everything to get the evidence that saved them. Is that true?"
"If the Cortes family never would have built this empire without Ms. Estes, then why would Dylan target the Estes Group in the first place?"
"Mr. Cortes was known as a once-in-a-generation financial genius who never associated with dirty players. Are we supposed to believe now that the entire Cortes Group was built on dirty money from the start?"
"Will your husband and Mr. Burgess once again keep hundreds of defrauded investors from getting justice?"
Camera flashes seared my vision.
I had barely opened my mouth when Levi slapped a stock transfer agreement down in front of me.
"Even though Dylan was my wife's brother, I've always believed in doing what's right. He brought this on himself, and no one else is to blame. This transfer is our way of making amends to the victims."
A high-pitched ringing filled my ears.
Just the night before, the two of them had thrown Dylan a party to celebrate closing a major deal, and they'd stayed up until dawn talking about the future.
Just the night before, they had sworn that even if the world fell apart, they would never let anyone hurt me.
And now they were burying the truth about Dylan's death and forcing me to give up everything he had spent years building!
I ripped the contract to shreds and turned on Willow, who was standing off to the side with a smug little smile on her face.
"I raised Dylan. I knew him better than anyone, and he would never have killed himself. I'll dig until I uncover the truth."
I looked Levi and Zachary dead in the eye. "And you two really think the Estes family is why you made it out alive all those years ago?"
I was grinding my teeth so hard my jaw ached, but Willow's eyes filled with tears in an instant, and she dropped to her knees right in front of the cameras.
"Ms. Cortes, I know your family is powerful enough to crush families like mine without even trying. But my brother doesn't deserve this. Please, I'm begging you, just let him go. Mr. Cortes really did frame him..."
The reporters erupted.
Zachary stepped forward at once and helped her to her feet, sympathy written all over his face.
"Liliana, your brother is the one who committed the crime, and you need to answer for it! You've been spoiled for so long, you've forgotten that ordinary people matter too!"
Levi was worse. He swept my legs out from under me, sent me crashing to the ground, and looked down at me with a glacial stare.
"Get up and apologize to the victims on behalf of the Cortes family. As your husband, I'll personally make sure every last dollar is paid, even if it bleeds the Cortes family dry!"
