Chapter 8:


    Isolde decided to keep Effie in her current private school for thest two weeks of the term—she had already paid the tuition for the year from her personal ount months ago. She wouldn’t let Grayson’s money go to waste.


    They arrived at the iron gates of St. Jude’s Preparatory School.


    A sleek ck limousine pulled up. The driver opened the door.


    Belle stepped out, wearing oversized sunsses and a trench coat that screamed “celebrity in hiding.” She held Kaiden’s hand.


    Kaiden saw Effie. He broke away from Belle and ran over.


    “Hey, stupid!” Kaiden yelled.


    Effie flinched, stepping behind Isolde’s legs.


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    Kaiden stopped, looking at Effie’s clothes. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt Isolde had bought at Target that morning, not her usual designer dress.


    “You look poor,” Kaiden sneered. “My daddy says you’re poor now.”


    Isolde stepped forward. She didn’t crouch down. She loomed over the five-year-old boy.


    “Kaiden,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried the weight of a stone b.


    Kaiden looked up, startled. Isolde had never spoken to him without a smile before.


    “Your behavior is ugly,” Isolde said. “Your clothes are expensive, but your manners are cheap.”


    Kaiden’s mouth dropped open.


    Belle rushed over, her heels cking on the pavement.


    “What are you doing?” Belle shrieked. “Don’t you dare speak to my son like that! You’re bullying a child!”


    Isolde turned her cold gaze to Belle.


    “Teach him manners, Belle,” Isolde said. “Or the world will teach him. And the world doesn’t use words.”


    She took Effie’s hand and walked her into the building, leaving Belle sputtering on the sidewalk.


    After dropping Effie off, Isolde walked down the busy Upper East Side street. Her mind was racing with calctions—rent, food, legal fees.


    She was so distracted she didn’t see the maning out of the coffee shop.


    BAM.


    She collided with a solid chest. Papers flew everywhere.


    “I’m so sorry!” the man said, dropping to his knees to gather the scattered documents.


    Isolde knelt to help. She picked up arge blueprint.


    It was a schematic for a high-bypass turbofan engine.


    Her eyes scanned it automatically. It was a mess. The intake pressure ratio was all wrong. Thebustion chamber was too small.


    “This won’t fly,” she muttered without thinking. “Thepression is off. It’ll stall at 30,000 feet.”


    The man froze. His hand stopped mid-air, reaching for the paper.


    “Excuse me?”


    Isolde looked up.


    She stopped breathing.


    It was And Roth. The CEO of Roth Aeronautics. Her old mentor’s student, her senior. The man who had once called “Valkyrie” the “Athena of Aerospace.”


    And stared at her. He looked at her face, then at the way she held the blueprint.


    “That voice,” he whispered. He squinted. “Isolde? Isolde Carson?”


    Isolde stood up quickly and handed him the paper. “I have to go.” She turned to run.


    And grabbed her wrist. Not hard, but firm.


    “Wait,” he said. His eyes were wide with disbelief. “You… you’ve been a ghost for five years. The industry thought you died.”


    “I did,” Isolde said. “I got married.”


    And looked at her cheap coat, herck of jewelry. He grinned—a shark-like, predatory grin, the kind a businessman wears when he’s just found gold in andfill.


    “You look like you need a job,” he said. “And I have a turbine that won’t work.”


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