MY MOTHER DRAINED MY $500,000 SAVINGS AND LEFT ME AN EMPTY HOUSE. 48 HOURS LATER, SHE BEGGED ME FROM A HOLDING CELL.

The visiting booth at the Cook County Department of Corrections smelled of cheap floor disinfectant, iron rust, and dried tears.

A pane of scratched, double-thick Plexiglas separated me from my younger sister.

Brittany sat on a fixed aluminum stool, hunched over in an oversized mustard-yellow jail jumpsuit that made her look frail, almost childlike. Her makeup was gone, her dyed honey-blonde hair was tangled into a greasy knot, and the dark circles under her eyes looked like fresh bruises.

When she picked up the heavy black plastic receiver on her side of the partition, her hand shook violently.

I lifted mine. The earpiece hummed with faint line static.

"Avery," Brittany choked out, pressing her forehead lightly against the glass. Her breath fogged the surface in small, erratic circles. "Thank God. Thank God you came. Please tell me you talked to the prosecutor. Please tell me you’re getting me out."

I looked at her, searching for the sister who used to sneak into my bed during summer thunderstorms, the girl I had tutored through algebra and covered for when she missed curfew in high school. But all I could see was the woman laughing beside Diane at family dinners, swirling cabernet, asking how it felt to have half a million dollars sitting idle while calculating how to take it.

"I didn't come to get you out, Brittany," I said, my voice quiet, even, and devoid of malice. "I came because your lawyer said you had something to hand over."

Tears spilled over Brittany’s lower lashes, leaving shiny tracks down her hollow cheeks. "Avery, you don't understand! Mom forced me! She told me you looked down on us, that you thought we were trash because you worked in tech and had that big portfolio! She told me you laughed at me when my boutique went under!"

"I paid two months of your boutique’s commercial lease so you wouldn't get evicted, Brittany," I reminded her.

"I was stupid! I was terrified!" she sobbed, clutching the cord with both fists. "She told me you were going to cut us off forever, that you were going to sell Grandma’s farm and move to Europe! She made me help her pack the U-Haul! She handed me the crowbar for the safe! She said if I didn't help, she’d take my name off Dad's insurance trust!"

"Dad's insurance trust was drained by Diane seven years ago," I said flatly. "You knew that. You were in the room when Arthur Sterling gave us the probate accounting."

Brittany froze, her mouth hanging slightly open as her rehearsed defense began to disintegrate.

"You didn't do this because you were afraid of Diane," I continued, leaning closer to the perforated metal speaker box. "You did this because you wanted a Waikiki penthouse. You wanted to sit on a beach with a drink with an umbrella in it, laughing about how stupid your older sister was for actually working for a living. You wrote down four hundred thousand dollars in your little black journal for 'Brittany’s wardrobe and investment capital.'"

Brittany pulled back from the glass, her expression hardening into something sharper, uglier—the exact sneer Diane had worn for thirty years.

"So what if I did?" she whispered, her voice dropping into a petulant hiss. "You always had everything, Avery! Dad bought you your first car! Grandma paid for your fancy degree! I got community college and Mom’s hand-me-down sedans! You sat in that big suburban house like a little queen, giving us lectures about budgets and emergency funds! Why did you get to have security while I had to live month to month?"

"Because when Dad died, I took two jobs and paid off his funeral debt while you charged four thousand dollars of spring break clothes to his credit cards," I said. "Because when Grandma was dying, I cleaned her bedpans and sat by her bed while you complained that her hospice room smelled like vinegar. Security isn't luck, Brittany. It’s what’s left when you refuse to become a parasite."

Brittany’s chest heaved. She looked down at the scratched metal shelf beneath the glass.

"I have something," she said quietly, her voice trembling again, switching back to transaction mode. "Something the feds don't have. Something that will put Mom away for the rest of her natural life, and make sure Marcus Vance never gets out of a federal penitentiary."

"What do you have?"

Brittany reached into the pocket of her jumpsuit and pressed a folded piece of paper against the Plexiglas. It was a photocopied page torn from a spiral notebook, filled with routing numbers, account passwords, and an address in the Cayman Islands.

"Mom kept a secret offshore account," Brittany whispered, her eyes wide, pleading. "She opened it three years ago using Dad’s old social security number before the death master file updated. She’s been skimming tax refunds and small estate distributions through a shadow corporation in George Town. There's almost six hundred thousand dollars in it. It was her emergency escape fund—the money she wasn't going to share with me, or Marcus, or anyone."

I looked at the scrawled numbers.

"How did you get this?"

"I stole her thumb drive while she was in the shower at the hotel before we went to the airport," Brittany said, a triumphant, spiteful grin breaking through her tears. "I knew she’d screw me over eventually. That's who she is. If I give you this, Avery... if I testify for the U.S. Attorney against Mom and Marcus... will you tell the judge to recommend probation for me? Will you tell them I was a victim of familial coercion?"

I stared at my sister.

Even here, locked behind two inches of bulletproof composite, wrapped in institutional cotton, facing a ten-year sentence for felony burglary and wire fraud, she hadn't learned a single thing. She was still trading, still scheming, still offering to throw her own mother under the bus for a lighter sentence.

They truly were made of the same poisonous cloth.

"Give the paper to your public defender, Brittany," I said softly, standing up from the stool.

"Avery! Wait! What about the deal? Will you write the character letter?"

"No," I replied, holding the receiver steady against my ear. "I won't write a letter asking for leniency. But I won't ask for the maximum either. I will let the law give you exactly what you earned."

"You selfish bitch!" Brittany slammed the heavy plastic handset against the glass, creating a sharp spiderweb crack near the rim. "I'm your sister! I'm your only sister! You’re going to be all alone in that empty house! You hear me? Alone!"

A guard stepped forward behind her, grabbing her arm and twisting her back toward the cell corridor.

I hung the receiver back on its metal cradle, turned my back on the screams, and walked out into the cold Chicago afternoon.

Outside, the sleet had stopped. High above the gray skyline, a long seam of blue sky was cracking through the clouds, letting down the first pale warmth of an approaching spring.

I checked my phone.

A text from Arthur Sterling was waiting on the home screen:

The Delaware Chancery Court just issued the permanent injunction. The Galena farmland is fully restored to your trust. The stolen heirlooms have been cataloged and loaded into a private transport. They will arrive at your home tomorrow morning at nine. You are free, Avery.