If you really love me, you’re not going to ask how much they need. You’re going to donate, period.”

Leo met me at a nondescript diner off the Pacific Highway at midnight. He was wearing an olive-drab jacket, his dark hair messy, eyes burning with the relentless energy of a man who spent sixty hours a week digging through tax returns and private equity shell corporations.

He slid a manila folder across the Formica table, pushing aside a cup of black coffee.

“The Montgomery family isn't just wealthy, Chloe,” Leo said, leaning in. “They’re fragile. Scarlett’s father, Arthur Montgomery, is currently being audited by the IRS for using the arts foundation as a tax-free vehicle to wash private venture capital. Scarlett isn't an artist; she’s an asset. Every competition she was supposed to win was tied to corporate sponsorships and tax write-offs.”

“Until I beat her four years ago,” I said flatly.

“Until you beat her,” Leo agreed. “When the independent judges gave you the championship trophy, three major commercial contracts fell through. Arthur Montgomery lost close to two million dollars in promotional tie-ins. Scarlett threw a tantrum that allegedly ended with her smashing up a VIP lounge in Anaheim.”

I laid the emerald-green dress across the vinyl booth between us.

Leo took a pair of small jeweler’s tweezers from his pocket and inspected the stiff, irregular stitching near the base of the spine. He worked the seam loose with surgical precision.

Tucked neatly inside the satin lining was a miniature radio-frequency identification chip—the kind used by high-end luxury boutiques to track ultra-valuable jewelry—along with a small, flat tracking beacon no larger than a nickel.

“They aren't just trying to embarrass you tomorrow night,” Leo muttered, shining a penlight onto the micro-hardware. “This isn't a high school prank. They’re setting you up for grand larceny.”

My stomach churned, but the cold fire in my chest burned hotter. “Explain.”

“Scarlett’s mother is wearing the ‘Tears of Seville’ emerald necklace tomorrow night. It’s insured for six hundred thousand dollars. If this RFID tag is linked to the estate’s private security sensor network, and that necklace happens to go missing during the dinner...”

“The alarm goes off when I walk through the estate doors,” I finished the sentence for him, my voice barely audible above the drone of the diner’s refrigerator. “They’ll search me. They won't find the necklace on me, but they will find this tracking chip sewn into my dress, claiming I planned to smuggle it out. It’s Scheme Ninety-Seven.”

“Ninety-seven?” Leo frowned.

“They have a list,” I said, meeting his gaze. “A scorecard. Ninety-nine humiliations to pay back Scarlett for the tears she cried in Anaheim. Tonight was ninety-six: they faked Brendan’s near-fatal car crash so I would rush to a private clinic and donate a pint of blood, which they immediately tossed in the incinerator.”

Leo stared at me, his jaw tightening until the muscle ticked beneath his skin. “Jesus Christ, Chloe.”

“I don't want to just survive tomorrow night, Leo,” I said. “I don't want to slap Brendan across the face and walk away with my pride intact while they laugh about it behind country club gates. I want to rip the foundation out from beneath all of them.”

Leo slowly set his tweezers down. A slow, feral grin touched the corners of his mouth.

“You know,” he whispered, “I’ve spent three years trying to get a bugged audio feed inside the Montgomery gala. The private security team they hire is ex-Mossad; they jam every standard cellular transmitter within a hundred yards of the estate.”

“Can you build an offline local storage relay?” I asked. “Something that records to a hard drive and dumps the data the second it hits an open commercial network?”

“I can do better than that,” Leo replied, tapping the emerald dress. “I can turn this tracking tag into a localized broadcast loop. If Brendan and his friends talk while they’re near you, the micro-mic will record every single syllable. But we need a diversion to handle the necklace.”

“Leave the necklace to me,” I said. “Scarlett thinks I’m still the naive little girl from San Bernardino who says ‘thank you’ when they hand me table scraps. She doesn't know that my father spent thirty years auditing corporate fraud for the state of California.”

I reached into my bag and pulled out a small, velvet jewelry pouch. Inside was a near-flawless cubic zirconia replica of an antique brooch that Liam’s family had donated to the gala auction.