The bullet wasn't meant for her.

That was the first thing Cassidy Boone thought when she felt the lead punch through her back, right between the shoulder blades, like a fist from God.

The bullet was meant for Roy, that idiot Roy, who was supposed to cover the right flank of the stagecoach while she handled the driver. A clean job. Quick. Like the last twelve they'd pulled together on the dusty roads between Tucson and Tombstone. But Roy, the goddamn moron, had gotten into an argument with the new kid -- some eighteen-year-old punk who didn't even know how to ride -- over who got to keep the gold watch off the fat passenger.

A gold watch.

Cassidy Boone, the woman who'd pickpocketed the sheriff of Prescott himself without the old man feeling so much as a tickle, the one who drew a revolver faster than any man west of the Mississippi, the one who'd survived ambushes, shootouts, a snakebite, and three attempted hangings...

Died over a goddamn gold watch.

The stagecoach guard -- one she hadn't seen because he'd been hiding among the trunks on the roof, because of course they hadn't checked, because Roy was too busy fighting over his stupid trinket -- shot her in the back.

In. The. Back.

She didn't even get the honor of dying face-first.

Cassidy fell off the horse like a sack of potatoes. Face in the red dirt, dust forcing its way up her nose, the taste of iron and grime in her mouth. She heard Roy's screams, a second shot, horses bolting. She tried to move. Her body wouldn't respond.

Shit.

She was twenty-five years old. She'd killed eleven men -- well, thirteen, but two didn't count because they were self-defense and one was a bastard who deserved it. She'd stolen more than she could spend in three lifetimes. She had no home, no family, not even a dog to bark at her when she walked through the door.

And she was dying in the middle of nowhere, face in the mud, because of an idiot and a watch.

What a stupid way to die, she thought.

It was the last thing she thought.

After that, there was nothing.

No light at the end of the tunnel, no angels, no demons waiting with a list of her sins. No divine judgment, no reunion with her mother -- not that she was particularly eager to see her anyway. Nothing at all.

Just darkness.

A black, thick, silent void.

And then...

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

A sound. Constant. Rhythmic. Irritating as a fly trapped inside her skull.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Cassidy tried to open her eyes. Her eyelids felt like someone had placed coins on them -- like they do with the dead, she thought, and the irony wasn't funny. She tried to move her fingers. Something tugged at her hand. Something squeezed her arm. Something was shoved up her nose.

What the hell...?

The light hit her like a gunshot. White. Brutal. Nothing like the yellow glow of oil lamps or the desert sun. This light was cold, flat, unnatural.

She blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.

The ceiling was white. Smooth. No wooden beams, no cobwebs, no water stains. White as the snow she'd once seen in the Colorado mountains and swore never to see again because she nearly lost her toes.

She turned her head. Slowly, because her neck cracked like an old door.

There were... things. Things she didn't understand. A box with a green line that rose and fell in time with the beep beep beep. Transparent tubes coming out of her arm -- her arm? -- connected to a bag hanging from a metal pole. Wires. Buttons. A wall with a hideous painting of flowers that looked like they'd been painted by someone with no hands.

Cassidy looked down.

The hands she saw weren't hers.

They were soft. White. No calluses, no scars, no cigarette burn on the left one from when she was fourteen. The fingers were short, pudgy, with clean, even nails. Hands that had never held a revolver. Hands that had never picked a pocket. Hands that hadn't done a damn thing in their life.

She lifted her arms. They were heavy. Everything was heavy. Her entire body was... more. Bigger. Softer. More everything.

"What the hell is this?"

She tried to sit up. The tubes pulled. The beeping box sped up. Everything hurt: her throat like she'd swallowed glass, her stomach like someone had reached inside and stirred up her guts, her head like a horse had kicked her skull.

But Cassidy Boone was not the kind of woman who stayed in bed.

She ripped out the thing in her nose -- a tube, who the hell shoved a tube up her nose? -- and the pain made her let out a rough grunt. She looked at her arms, covered in purple bruises around where the needles went in. Needles. They'd stuck needles in her.

"Is this hell? Because it sure looks like it."

The door opened.

A man in a white coat walked in, tall, with glasses and a clipboard in his hand. Behind him, another man. This one wasn't wearing a coat. He wore a suit that looked like it cost more than everything Cassidy had stolen in her entire life combined. He was handsome, with a sharp jawline, dark hair slicked back, gray eyes as cold as a gun barrel in winter.

And at his side, clinging to his arm like a tick wearing perfume, a woman. Blonde, thin, with the fakest smile Cassidy had ever seen -- and she'd known plenty of con artists.

The one in the coat spoke first.

"Mrs. Montero, good to see you awake. You've been in a coma for a week. We performed three stomach pumpings. The substance you ingested..."

The words entered her brain as if he were speaking underwater. Mrs. Montero. Coma. Stomach pumpings. Substance.

The one in the suit didn't move. Didn't come closer. Didn't take her hand. Didn't ask how she was. He stood three meters from the bed with the same expression someone would have checking whether the meat at the market was still fresh.

"Can she talk yet?" he asked the doctor. Not her. The doctor.

"She needs rest. Her body suffered severe trauma. The gastric damage--"

"I asked if she can talk."

The doctor pressed his lips together.

"She should be able to, yes."

The man in the suit looked at her. For the first time. Directly.

"Emilia."

He said it the way someone calls a dog.

"I hope this little stunt doesn't happen again. Do you have any idea what kind of scandal you caused? I had to pay a fortune to keep this out of the press. A fortune. Are you listening to me?"

Cassidy stared at him.

She didn't understand a damn thing.

"Emilia? Who the hell is Emilia?"

The blonde let out a little laugh. Small, venomous, barely audible. She covered her mouth with her fingers and looked at Cassidy with eyes that oozed a sickening pleasure.

"Oh, Emi," she said, in a sweet voice that reeked of rot. "We were so worried about you. So worried."

And then it happened.

Like a bucket of ice water. Like a lightning bolt splitting her skull. Like a thousand images forcing their way into her head, one on top of another, without order, without mercy.

"A chubby little girl crying in a corner while other children laughed."

"An old man""gray hair, sad eyes, expensive suit""hugging her:"Forgive me, sweetheart. It's for your own good.""

"A wedding. A white dress. A groom who wouldn't look at her."

"An enormous kitchen. Her cooking. Cleaning. Serving. In her own house."

"The blonde""that same blonde""kissing the man in the suit in a hallway while she watched through a half-open door."

"A bottle. Pills. No, liquid. Something bitter. The burn going down her throat. The floor rushing up. Darkness."

Cassidy -- or whatever she was now -- grabbed her head with both hands. The pudgy, soft, foreign hands. The pain was unbearable. The memories weren't hers, but they felt real, heavy, soaked in a sadness so deep it turned her stomach -- or what was left of it after three pumpings.

"Emilia Montero. Twenty-six years old. Only daughter of Aurelio Montero. Married to Sebastian Duarte. Best friend: Andrea Rios."

The blonde.

"The one hanging off her husband's arm."

"The one screwing her husband."

"The one laughing in her face."

Cassidy lowered her hands. Slowly.

She looked at the man in the suit. Sebastian. The husband.

She looked at the blonde. Andrea. The best friend.

She looked at the doctor, who was reviewing his notes and pretending there was no tension in the room.

And for the first time since a bullet entered her back on a dusty road in Arizona, Cassidy Boone smiled.

It wasn't a pretty smile.

"You know what?" she said, in a hoarse voice she didn't recognize but liked. "I'm starving. Is someone going to bring me something to eat, or do I have to get it myself?"

Sebastian blinked.

Andrea stopped smiling.

The doctor looked up from his clipboard.

None of the three recognized the woman staring at them from that bed.

And that was fine.

Because Emilia Montero was gone.

And what woke up in her place was much worse.

They discharged her on a Tuesday.

Cassidy knew because the nurse told her three times while removing the cables, the needles, and that godforsaken tube they'd shoved up her nose. "Today is Tuesday, Mrs. Montero. Tuesday the fourteenth. Do you know what day it is? Do you know where you are? Do you know your name?"

If you ask me the same thing one more time, I'll shove that tube where the sun doesn't shine, Cassidy thought. But she smiled. A crooked smile the nurse interpreted as post-coma weakness and that was actually pure restraint.

"Emilia Montero," she said, because that was what needed to be said. "I'm in a hospital. It's Tuesday."

"And I'm in a body that isn't mine, in an era I don't understand, married to a son of a bitch, and apparently I tried to kill myself with poison. But I'm not going to tell you that, sweetheart."

The doctor gave her instructions. Lots of them. Soft diet, bed rest, no exertion, follow-up in two weeks, pills for her stomach, pills for her head, pills for sleeping. Cassidy nodded at everything without listening. In her previous life, the only remedy she'd known was whiskey for the pain and a bullet for whatever the whiskey couldn't fix.

She signed some papers. With handwriting that wasn't hers, because hers was an illegible scrawl and Emilia's was round, small, the penmanship of an obedient girl. The memories were useful for that: she knew how to sign like her, knew her full name, knew the address of the house. It was like having a map inside her head, blurry at the edges but clear where it mattered.

What the map didn't tell her was what the hell that black, shiny thing waiting at the hospital entrance was.

"Mrs. Montero, the car is ready."

The driver was a short, serious man with a cap and gloves. He was standing next to... that thing. A carriage without horses. Black, long, with tinted windows and a shine that hurt the eyes.

Cassidy stood frozen on the sidewalk.

"Where are the horses?"

Emilia's memories whispered the answer like a distant murmur: automobile, car, vehicle. It moved on its own. With an engine. No animals.

"How the hell does it move without animals?"

The driver opened the back door. Cassidy looked inside. Leather seats. More buttons. A small glowing screen on the dashboard showing numbers and colored lines.

She climbed in the way someone enters a cave without knowing if there's a bear inside.

The driver closed the door and the sound made her jump. Then he sat up front, turned something, and the black beast came alive with a deep purr.

Cassidy gripped the seat with both hands.

"Easy. It's not going to kill you. Probably."

The car pulled away and the city hit her through the window like an avalanche.

Buildings. Enormous ones. Made of glass and steel, so tall they seemed to want to touch the sky. They weren't made of wood or adobe. They didn't have balconies with rusted railings or hand-painted signs reading SALOON or HOTEL. They were smooth, gleaming, cold.

And there were more horseless carriages. Hundreds. Thousands. Every color, every size, moving in orderly lines along black, smooth roads without a single pothole or stone. Some were small, others enormous as stagecoaches, and all of them moved faster than the best horse Cassidy had ever ridden.

People walked along the sidewalks staring at little glowing tablets they held in their hands. All of them. Like they were hypnotized. Nobody looked ahead. Nobody looked to the side. They walked like sleepwalkers with their faces glued to those things.

"What the hell is wrong with them? Are they bewitched?"

Some guy crossed the street without looking and the driver slammed the brakes. Cassidy lurched forward and the seatbelt -- which she hadn't known she was wearing -- squeezed her chest like a rope.

"Son of a--!" she blurted, grabbing the seat in front of her.

The driver looked at her in the mirror.

"Are you all right, ma'am?"

"All right? That thing nearly ripped my ribs out!"

The driver said nothing. He kept driving.

Cassidy leaned back in the seat, breathing hard. Emilia's body wasn't built for scares. Her heart was pounding like a war drum and she was out of breath just from leaning forward.

This body is a wreck, she thought. But not with contempt. With curiosity. The way someone examines a new horse: fat, slow, untrained, but with potential.

"I'm going to get you in shape, chubby. You and I are going to get along just fine."

The mansion was obscene.

There was no other word. Cassidy had seen big houses. She'd robbed haciendas belonging to wealthy ranchers, governors' mansions, luxury hotels where mine owners blew fortunes on whiskey and prostitutes. But this was another level entirely.

A black iron gate opened on its own -- on its own! -- as the car approached. The driveway was white stone, lined with trees trimmed into shapes that looked like animals. The house -- if you could call it a house -- had three stories, a gray stone facade, enormous windows, columns at the front, and a fountain in the center of the garden with a marble angel spitting water.

"Emilia, your father was disgustingly rich."

The memories confirmed it: Aurelio Montero, real estate tycoon, owner of half the city's downtown, dead two years ago from a heart attack. Everything was left in Emilia's name. Everything. The mansion, the properties, the accounts, the investments. All under clauses she'd never read because Sebastian told her there was no need, that he'd take care of it.

"Of course he'd take care of it. The bastard."

The car stopped in front of the main entrance. The driver opened her door. Cassidy got out slowly -- her body was heavy, her legs trembling after a week in bed -- and looked up at the facade.

This is mine.

Not Cassidy Boone's, dead outlaw on an Arizona road. Emilia Montero's. And now, by some whim of fate, the devil, or whoever had shoved her into this body...

Mine.

She climbed the front steps gripping the railing. The front door -- dark wood, carved, bigger than the entrance to any saloon -- opened before she reached it.

A woman was waiting inside. Short, thin, her hair pulled back in a bun so tight it stretched her eyebrows. Black uniform with a white apron. A face like vinegar. Eyes that looked at Cassidy the way someone looks at a stain on the floor.

"Mrs. Montero," she said, without a gram of warmth. "Your room is ready. Follow me."

She didn't ask how she was. Didn't say "welcome back." Didn't offer water, food, a chair. Nothing.

Cassidy followed her in silence. For now.

They crossed the foyer -- white marble, a double staircase that rose like open arms, a chandelier the size of a horse hanging from the ceiling -- and instead of going up... they turned right. Past the kitchen. Past the laundry room. Down a narrow hallway that smelled of bleach and damp.

And they reached a door.

The woman opened it.

Cassidy looked inside.

The room was the size of a cell. Smaller than any brothel room she'd ever slept in -- and she'd slept in plenty. A single bed pushed against the wall with a faded gray bedspread. A nightstand with a lamp that looked like it had been rescued from the trash. And a closet.

If you could call it a closet.

It was a cheap wooden wardrobe, doorless, less than a meter wide. Inside hung five garments. Five. All gray, all old, all worn out, all two sizes too small for Emilia's body. Clothes that didn't fit. Clothes that probably never fit. Clothes someone had chosen on purpose to remind her, every morning, that she didn't deserve anything better.

Cassidy looked at the room.

Looked at the closet.

Looked at the clothes.

And then looked at the woman with the tight bun, who was waiting in the doorway with her arms crossed and a little smirk she barely bothered to hide.

"This is my room?" Cassidy asked.

"Same as always, ma'am."

Cassidy nodded. Slowly. Calmly.

"What's your name?"

"Dorotea. I'm the housekeeper. I've been in this house for six years."

"Six years," Cassidy repeated. "Six years in my house."

Dorotea blinked. Something shifted in her face. Something subtle, like a crack in a wall that isn't noticeable yet but is already there.

"Well, technically the house belongs to Mr. Duar--"

"The house is mine."

She said it without shouting. Without raising her voice. With the same calm she would have used to tell a man at a poker table that he was cheating, right before drawing her revolver.

"The house is mine. Everything inside it is mine. Every piece of furniture, every plate, every sheet, and every tile you're standing on with your servant's shoes... is mine. Do you understand that, Dorotea?"

Dorotea opened her mouth.

"Ma'am, I was only--"

"Is this where Emilia slept?"

"You've always slept here, ma'am. Mr. Duarte arranged for--"

"Mr. Duarte" -- Cassidy savored the name like someone chewing something rotten -- "can arrange his own ass. But not my house. And not my rooms."

Dorotea stepped back half a pace. Her eyes opened a little wider than normal.

"Mrs. Montero, I think the coma affected your--"

"Would your mother sleep here, Dorotea?"

"Excuse me?"

"I asked if your mother would sleep here. Because I'm not sleeping here. I am the owner of this house, and from today on, everyone is going to respect me. Everyone. You, the driver, the gardener, the cook, and that asshole I married. Or you all get out of my house. Because all of this--" she spread her arms, gesturing at the walls, the ceiling, everything -- "is mine."

The silence lasted three seconds.

Dorotea raised her hand and slapped her across the face.

The blow landed sharp. Like a small gunshot. Cassidy's head snapped to the right and her hair fell across her face.

The hallway went silent.

Cassidy didn't move.

Neither did Dorotea. She stood with her hand still in the air, breathing hard, her face red and her eyes full of a contempt she'd been practicing for years. Six years of giving orders to the lady of the house. Six years of treating her like a rag. Six years of knowing she could do whatever she wanted because Emilia never, ever hit back.

Cassidy pushed the hair from her face.

Slowly.

And looked at her.

Dorotea saw something in those eyes she hadn't seen before. Something that didn't belong to the fat, quiet, broken woman she knew. Something that made her exhale and take another half-step back.

"That," Cassidy said, in a voice so low it was barely audible, "is the last time you raise a hand to me."

Dorotea opened her mouth to speak.

She didn't get the chance.

Cassidy backhanded her so hard it sent her to the floor.

It wasn't a technical blow. It wasn't elegant. It was brutal, heavy, with all the force of ninety kilos and five foot five of fury behind it. Emilia's hand was wide, soft, and fat, and when it connected with Dorotea's cheek it sounded like someone had clapped with rage.

Dorotea hit the hallway floor on her backside. Her cap went crooked. Her eyes filled with tears. She pressed her hand to her face and the mark was already there: red, swollen, perfect, shaped like five pudgy fingers stamped into the skin.

Cassidy looked at her own hand. Rubbed it with the other, thoughtful.

"Heavy, but hits hard. I like it."

She crouched down. Not much, because the body couldn't manage much, but enough for Dorotea to see her up close.

"That's the last time you raise a hand or your voice to me. Next time I'll cut it off and feed it to the dog. If we even have a dog. Do we have a dog, Dorotea?"

Dorotea didn't answer. She was trembling.

"I'll take that as a no. Shame. Now get up off the floor -- you're getting it dirty."

She turned around and walked back down the hallway. Slowly, because her legs were still shaking and her heart was pounding, but with her back straight and her chin up. The way she used to walk through the streets of Tombstone after a good heist.

The kitchen went silent when she entered.

There were three people in there: a heavyset cook with a frightened expression, a young woman holding a rag like it was a shield, and a skinny man who seemed to be someone's assistant. All three stared at her like they'd seen a ghost.

The gossip had already spread.

Cassidy ignored them. She opened the fridge -- Emilia's memories told her the big white box was called a fridge and that there was cold food inside, which struck her as pure sorcery but useful sorcery -- and grabbed the first things she found. A piece of chicken. Cheese. Something green that smelled good. Bread.

She sat at the kitchen island and ate with her hands.

The three employees stared without blinking.

"What?" she said with her mouth full. "Never seen someone eat before?"

Nobody answered.

Good.

She went up to the second floor after eating.

The stairs nearly killed her. Every step was a battle. Her knees cracked, her thighs burned, she couldn't get enough air. By the time she reached the top, she was sweating like a horse after a race and had to grip the banister for a full minute to keep from falling over.

"Emilia, did you ever go up these stairs?"

The memories told her no. Emilia lived downstairs. The second floor was Sebastian's territory. She didn't go up because he didn't want her to. Because the sight of her annoyed him. Because Emilia's mere presence disgusted him.

Son of a bitch.

The second-floor hallway was another world. Thick carpet, paintings on the walls, dark wood doors with gold handles. Cassidy opened the first door. Bathroom. Bigger than the room they'd expected her to sleep in. Black marble, a bathtub the size of a horse trough, mirrors everywhere.

Second door. A study. Wooden desk, books, a flat screen on the wall.

Third door.

The master bedroom.

Cassidy stood in the doorway.

The bed was enormous. Gigantic. With white sheets, fluffy pillows, a headboard of dark leather. Heavy curtains, soft carpet, nightstands with museum-quality lamps. And at the far end, a set of double doors standing open, leading to the walk-in closet.

She entered the closet.

The left side was Sebastian's. Suits, shirts, shoes, everything organized by color like a damn catalog. Watches in a glass case. Perfumes lined up like little soldiers. Ties hanging from a rotating rack that Cassidy stared at with genuine fascination for five seconds before moving on.

The right side.

Cassidy stopped.

There were women's clothes. Dresses, blouses, skirts, heels. All fine. All expensive. All in a size that was not Emilia's. Small size. A thin woman's size. Andrea's size.

The bastard wasn't just screwing his wife's friend. He'd moved her in. Given her space in the closet. In the bedroom. In the bed where he was supposed to sleep with Emilia.

While Emilia slept in a servant's room with five old rags in a one-meter closet.

Emilia's memories burned inside her chest. They weren't hers, but she felt them. Every humiliation. Every night alone in that tiny bed listening to laughter upstairs. Every morning cooking breakfast for a man who wouldn't look at her and a woman who'd taken her place. Every swallowed tear, every unnecessary apology, every sorry for existing that Emilia had repeated until she believed it.

Cassidy clenched her jaw.

"You're not here anymore, Emilia. But I am. And I don't forgive."

She started with the dresses.

She ripped them off the hangers one by one. No rush. Calmly. A red silk dress. A black one covered in sequins. A white one that smelled of a cloying perfume that made her nauseous. Designer blouses with labels she didn't understand but that looked expensive. Skirts. Tight pants. Lace underwear that Cassidy held between two fingers with a look of disgust before tossing it onto the pile.

Shoes. High heels, thin, red, black, gold. She pulled them from their boxes and hurled them to the floor like they were garbage.

Because they were.

She bundled everything together. Wrapped it in one of the bedsheets -- Sebastian's sheets, the ones he shared with the other woman -- and dragged it down the hallway.

The staff watched her pass.

Nobody said a word.

Nobody dared.

She went down the stairs dragging the bundle, step by step, sweating, panting, face red and hair stuck to her forehead. The bundle was heavy. She was heavy. Everything was heavy. But Cassidy Boone had dragged corpses through the desert, and a pile of some tramp's clothes wasn't going to stop her.

She crossed the kitchen. Went out the back door. The garden was ridiculous: perfect green grass, trimmed rosebushes, a white pergola, the marble angel fountain, and at the far end, a stone-paved area with a decorative fire pit surrounded by outdoor armchairs.

Decorative fire pit.

Cassidy let out a laugh.

"Rich people put fire out for decoration. Well, today it's going to serve a purpose."

She dragged the bundle to the fire pit. Untied the knot. The clothes spilled over the stones like a corpse made of fabric and lace.

She looked around. Next to the fire pit was a box of long matches -- Emilia's memories told her they were called fireplace matches -- and some white fire-starter tablets.

"Well, at least this era has something useful."

She placed three tablets among the clothes. Struck a match.

The flame danced at the tip, small, orange, alive.

Cassidy looked at it for a second. Just one.

And let it drop.

The silk was the first to burn. It twisted like a wounded animal, shriveling, blackening, releasing dark smoke that smelled of chemicals and burned money. The lace went next. Then the cotton. The shoes took longer, but when they caught fire they gave off a stench of melted plastic that made Cassidy wrinkle her nose.

She sat down in one of the outdoor armchairs. Crossed her legs -- or tried to; Emilia's legs didn't cross easily -- and leaned back with her arms spread across the backrest.

The fire grew. The flames licked Andrea's clothes with a voracity that Cassidy found profoundly satisfying.

One by one, the staff appeared.

The cook poked his head out the kitchen door, eyes wide as saucers. The girl with the rag stood behind him, covering her mouth. The skinny assistant walked out into the garden and froze ten meters away. The driver appeared from the side of the house, still wearing his cap, and stopped dead in his tracks.

And Dorotea. Dorotea came out last, her cheek still red and her eyes swollen, and when she saw the bonfire and recognized what was burning, she went white as chalk.

They all watched the fire.

They all watched Cassidy.

Cassidy watched the fire.

The flames lit up her round face, her dark eyes, the lazy smile of someone who had watched far worse things burn than expensive clothes.

"Anyone want marshmallows?" she asked.

Nobody answered.

The red silk dress disintegrated with a soft crackle, and the last sparks floated up into the evening sky like drunken fireflies.

Cassidy closed her eyes.

"Emilia, I don't know where you are. But I promise you one thing: no one is ever going to treat you like trash again. Not you, not this body, not this life."

"Because now it's mine."

"And I'm not the kind of woman who takes it lying down."

The embers were still crackling when Dorotea's phone broke the silence.

Cassidy didn't see her make the call. She didn't need to. She knew how rats worked: the second you step on their tail, they run to find their master. And Dorotea's master wasn't Emilia. It had never been.

So she stayed seated in the outdoor armchair, legs stretched out and eyes fixed on what was left of Andrea's clothes. A red high heel was putting up a fight: the plastic sole had melted into a black, bubbling mass, but the upper part was still there, twisted, like a claw reaching out of hell.

"Nice metaphor,* Cassidy thought. *That woman is exactly like that shoe. Shiny and red on the outside. Pure cheap plastic on the inside."

The air smelled of burnt chemicals, scorched perfume, and victory.

Cassidy took a deep breath.

Smells good.

They arrived in twenty-eight minutes.

Cassidy counted because she had nothing else to do and because in the Old West she'd learned that time matters. When you hold up a stagecoach, you have between three and five minutes before the next patrol arrives. When you pick a pocket, you have eight seconds before the owner notices. And when you provoke someone with power, you need to know exactly how long it takes for the retaliation to show up.

Twenty-eight minutes. That meant they'd been far away. Probably at the company. At her* company. Working with her* money. Together.

The car came through the gate -- another black horseless carriage, smaller than the driver's -- and screeched to a halt in front of the entrance. The driver's door flew open.

Sebastian got out first.

Cassidy watched him from the garden, through the dying flames. He was wearing the same suit from the hospital but without the tie, his shirt collar open, his formerly perfect hair now disheveled. He walked fast. Jaw clenched. Eyes like a storm.

Andrea got out on the other side. High heels, tight dress, blonde hair loose. She walked behind him with quick little steps, her face flushed, her eyes wet, her mouth twisted in a pout that probably worked wonders on men.

It wasn't going to work one bit on Cassidy.

Sebastian crossed through the house without stopping. Cassidy heard his footsteps on the foyer marble, in the kitchen, down the hallway. The back door slammed open.

And there he was.

Standing in front of the fire pit, staring at the ashes, the scraps of charred fabric, the melted red shoe. His face cycled through three expressions in two seconds: confusion, disbelief, and a cold rage that hardened his eyes like stone.

"What did you do?" he said.

He didn't shout. He said it low, controlled, like someone accustomed to his voice being enough to make the world kneel.

Cassidy didn't get up from the chair.

"I cleaned my house."

"You cleaned your--?" Sebastian looked at the ashes again. Then at her. Then at the ashes. "You burned Andrea's clothes?"

"Down to the panties. Although those burned fast. Cheap fabric."

Andrea appeared behind Sebastian. She saw the fire pit. She saw the remains. She recognized the red shoe.

The scream she let out could have shattered glass.

"MY THINGS!" Andrea clutched her head. "Sebastian, my things! My Valentino dress! My Louboutins! THEY WERE MY LOUBOUTINS!"

"I don't know what the hell a Louboutin is,* Cassidy thought, *but from the way she's screaming, it must have been expensive."

Andrea spun toward her. Her eyes blazed with a fury that warped her pretty face, stripped away the mask of sweetness, and revealed what lay underneath: pure venom.

"You're insane! You're completely insane! That clothing was worth more than you!"

"Maybe," Cassidy said. "But the clothes are ashes now and I'm still here. So you do the math on who's worth more."

Andrea looked around. Next to the fire pit, leaning against a planter, was a long iron poker used to stir the coals. She grabbed it with both hands and marched toward Cassidy, her heels digging into the grass.

"I'm going to smash your face in, you stupid fat bitch! I'm going to--!"

She raised the poker.

Cassidy stood up from the chair.

It was a slow movement -- Emilia's body wasn't built for acrobatics -- but steady. When Andrea swung the poker down, Cassidy caught it midair with her left hand. Her pudgy fingers closed around the iron like a vise. Andrea pulled. It didn't budge.

Cassidy pulled.

The poker came out of Andrea's hands like it was a twig.

And before the blonde could step back, Cassidy cracked her over the head with it. Not with full force -- if she'd used full force she would have split her skull open, and that would have been hard to explain. A measured, precise blow, right on the crown.

Andrea shrieked and grabbed her head with both hands. She dropped to her knees on the grass, her heels twisting under her weight, blonde hair spilling over her face.

"SHE HIT ME! SEBASTIAN, SHE HIT ME!"

Cassidy lowered the poker and rested it on the ground like a cane.

"That's the last time you set foot in my house."

Andrea looked up. Tears, smeared mascara, snot. Lovely picture.

"You were my best friend," Cassidy said, and the words weren't hers but they burned in her throat as if they were. "I trusted you. I opened the doors of my house, my life, everything to you. And you betrayed me with the man who's supposed to be my husband. If you can even call him that."

Andrea opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

"Get out."

A movement to the right. Sebastian. He was striding toward her, his right hand raised, fingers curled into a fist. His face burned with rage. He was going to hit her. He was going to hit his wife, the woman who'd just come out of a coma from a suicide attempt -- he was going to hit her right there, in front of everyone.

"Of course he was. Because that's what cowards do."

Cassidy didn't back down.

She raised the poker and brought it down on Sebastian's shoulder with a clean strike.

The sound was beautiful. A solid crack, iron against bone, that made Sebastian double over to the right with an animal grunt. He clutched his shoulder with his other hand, eyes bulging, mouth hanging open.

"Are you--?!"

"You've got your share coming," Cassidy said, pointing the poker at him. "I'm not kicking you out yet because we haven't settled our accounts. But your whore leaves my house. Now. This instant."

Sebastian stared at her. The pain in his shoulder twisted his face, but there was something else behind the rage. Something Cassidy recognized because she'd seen it a thousand times at poker tables, in saloons, in the eyes of men who suddenly realized the woman in front of them wasn't what they'd expected.

Confusion.

And something that looked like interest.

"Emilia..."

"Look at them." Cassidy pointed the poker toward the house.

The staff was there. All of them. The cook in the kitchen doorway. The girl with the rag behind him. The skinny assistant. The driver. And Dorotea, her cheek still marked, half-hidden behind a column.

"Get her out of here," Cassidy said. "Or leave with her."

Silence.

Nobody moved.

Cassidy raised the poker.

The driver was the first. He walked over to Andrea, who was still kneeling on the grass crying, and offered his hand.

"Miss, please..."

"DON'T TOUCH ME! SEBASTIAN!"

Andrea looked at Sebastian. Sebastian looked at Cassidy. Cassidy looked at him with the poker resting on her shoulder and one eyebrow raised.

"Andrea," Sebastian said. Slowly. Measuring every word. "Go to your apartment. I'll call you later."

"WHAT?! You can't--!"

"Go. I'll handle it."

"Sebastian, that lunatic hit me! She burned everything! You have to--!"

"I'll give you money to buy everything again. Every piece. You won't go without. But right now I need you to leave."

Andrea stared at him with tearful eyes and a trembling mouth. She searched his face for something -- protection, outrage, the promise that this wouldn't go unanswered. And she found it, because Sebastian held her gaze a second longer than necessary and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

"I see you, you bastard. I see you perfectly."

Andrea stood up. Wiped her face with the back of her hand. Smoothed her dress. And walked toward the house with whatever dignity she had left, which wasn't much considering she had grass on her knees, mascara on her cheeks, and a lump growing on her scalp.

Before going inside, she turned.

"This isn't over, Emilia. I swear it."

"Sweetheart," Cassidy said, "the last person who swore something to me ended up with a bullet between the eyes. But don't you worry."

Andrea went pale. She went inside. Thirty seconds later, the front door slammed shut.

An engine started. A car drove away.

Silence.

Cassidy let go of the poker. Her hand ached. Her back ached. Everything ached. Emilia's body wasn't built for physical confrontations, and every muscle was making her pay.

But she wasn't going to show it.

She sat back down in the outdoor armchair. Looked at Sebastian, who was still standing there, rubbing his shoulder, staring at her as if he were seeing her for the first time in his life.

"Five minutes," Cassidy said. "I'll be waiting in the living room. We need to talk."

"Five minutes? You're giving me five minutes?"

"Four and a half. You're running out of time."

Sebastian opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"Who are you?"

The question hung in the air between them, mixed with the smell of ashes.

Cassidy smiled.

"I'm your wife. Don't you recognize me?"

She got up and went inside. Slowly. Calmly. Without looking back.

The living room was absurdly large. Two white sofas, a glass table, another black screen on the wall -- these people put screens everywhere like they were paintings -- bookshelves filled with books nobody had read, and vases that cost more than an entire ranch.

Cassidy sat on the larger sofa. In the center. Taking up space.

Sebastian came in after three minutes. He'd loosened his collar and run a hand through his hair. He sat on the opposite sofa. Far away. Legs spread and elbows on his knees, the posture of a man trying to look relaxed while his knuckles were white.

They looked at each other.

"Talk," he said.

"Starting tomorrow, I'm going back to the company," Cassidy said. "And I'm taking my position as director."

Sebastian let out a short laugh. Dry. Humorless.

"Emilia, you haven't set foot in the office in two years. You don't even know how the new system works. I handle everything. I've always handled everything."

"You've already proved you can't be trusted."

The laugh cut short.

"Two years," Cassidy continued, and her voice came out deeper than she'd expected, loaded with Emilia's memories burning in her chest. "Two years of humiliation. Two years being treated like garbage. Two years sleeping in a servant's room while you rolled around in bed with my best friend. Just because I carry a few extra pounds, you despised me? That's all it took?"

Sebastian didn't answer. His jaw tightened.

"Well, now you're going to get a taste of your own medicine. Tonight you're sleeping in the room downstairs. The one with the little bed, the gray bedspread, and the one-meter closet. The one that was mine for over a year. And if it's not good enough, go sleep at your mistress's."

"Have you lost your mind?"

"Yes." Cassidy looked him dead in the eye. "I lost it the same moment I wanted to end my own life. So yes, I lost my mind. And now that I've lost it, I have nothing left to lose. So that's how it is."

The silence weighed like lead.

Sebastian studied her. His gray eyes moved from her face to her hands, from her hands to her posture, from her posture to her eyes. Searching for the Emilia he knew. The one who bowed her head. The one who apologized. The one who cried in silence.

He didn't find her.

The woman sitting across from him sat as if the sofa were a throne. She looked at him without blinking. She spoke without trembling. She had the same body, the same face, the same dark hair and the same brown eyes.

But she wasn't her.

"Did they switch her?* Sebastian thought. *Did the poison damage her brain? Did the coma rewire something? What the hell happened to this woman?"

He didn't know. And that, for the first time in two years, unsettled him.

"I need my cards," Cassidy said.

"What cards?"

"Mine. The ones your whore has been using to buy herself designer clothes. That's over. I need to buy decent clothes for this body. I'm not putting on those old rags from the closet ever again."

"Emilia..."

"And don't you dare give her money from my accounts. Because I'll find out. No more gifts from my fortune to her. If you want to keep her, use your own money. If you even have any left."

Sebastian clenched his fists on his knees.

"From now on, I manage my own money," Cassidy continued. "I decide what gets spent, how much gets spent, and who spends it. And if you don't like my rules... sign the divorce papers. You're not much use to me anyway."

"We can't get divorced," Sebastian said, and for the first time his voice sounded strained, almost urgent. "You know there's a clause that prevents it."

"There are always ways around things."

Silence.

"By the way," Cassidy said, leaning back on the sofa, "I want to read those clauses. The ones in the prenuptial agreement. The ones my father drafted before he died. I never read them before, but now I want to know everything. Absolutely everything."

Something crossed Sebastian's face. Fast. Nearly invisible. But Cassidy caught it because she'd spent a lifetime reading faces at poker tables and stagecoach robberies: it was fear.

A flash of pure fear.

"There you are, you bastard. There's your weak spot."

"You can't," Sebastian said. "The documents are with your father's lawyer, and he only answers to--"

"To whom? To you?" Cassidy tilted her head. "Because I'm pretty sure my father's lawyer answers to his daughter. And his daughter is me."

Sebastian opened his mouth.

Cassidy stood up.

"Good night, Sebastian. Your room is at the end of the hallway, past the laundry room. The bedspread itches a little, but you get used to it."

She didn't wait for a response. She walked to the stairs.

The goddamn stairs.

She climbed. Again. Step by step, gripping the banister, legs burning and heart racing. But it was the third time that day she'd climbed them and, even though it still cost her dearly, it cost her a little less than the first time. A little. Enough to notice.

"Come on, chubby. You can do it. One more step. Another. Another."

She made it to the top. Sweating. Gasping. But at the top.

She walked straight to Sebastian's study.

The door was open. She went in. Closed it. Turned the lock.

The study was neat, immaculate, smelling of leather and expensive cologne. Mahogany desk, swivel chair, shelves full of binders and file folders. A portable computer -- Emilia's memories told her it was called a laptop -- closed on the desk. And on the wall, a built-in safe.

Cassidy sat in the swivel chair. Spun once, because she couldn't resist. Then again, because it was fun.

Focus, Boone.

She opened the first drawer. Papers. Contracts. Numbers she didn't understand. She set them aside.

Second drawer. More papers. A half-empty bottle of whiskey. Cassidy looked at it fondly, uncapped it, and sniffed. Good. Better than anything she'd had in Arizona. She took a long swig.

"God. Now that's whiskey."

Third drawer. Locked. Cassidy pulled. It didn't open. She pulled harder. Nothing.

"In my day, this would have been solved with a knife and thirty seconds."

She looked around. On the desk was a metal letter opener. Thin, pointed. She smiled.

Hello, old friend.

Emilia's hands were clumsy, fat, lacking the muscle memory of years spent picking locks. But Cassidy knew how a simple mechanism worked, and a desk drawer wasn't a safe. She slid the letter opener into the keyhole, turned it patiently, felt the pins, pushed...

Click.

The drawer opened.

Inside was a thick leather folder with the initials A.M. embossed in the corner.

Aurelio Montero.

Cassidy opened it.

Documents. Lots of them. With stamps, signatures, letterhead from a law firm. Legal language she didn't fully understand, but Emilia's memories helped her decipher the basics. And among the papers, a business card:

Fernando Castillo Herrera, Esq. -- Notary Public No. 47 -- Attorney & Notary -- Castillo & Associates

A phone number. An address.

"Your father's lawyer, Emilia. The notary. The one who drafted all of this."

Cassidy pulled out the card and pinched it between her fingers.

Outside, Sebastian's footsteps came up the stairs. They stopped in front of the study door. The doorknob rattled. Once. Twice.

"Emilia, open the door."

Cassidy didn't answer.

"Emilia. Open. The. Door."

Silence.

A bang. Another. The doorknob shaking.

"EMILIA!"

Cassidy took another swig of whiskey. She slipped the card into the pocket of the hospital gown she was still wearing -- she desperately needed clothes tomorrow -- closed the folder and left it where it was. She wasn't going to take it. Not yet. She didn't want Sebastian to know she'd found it.

But she already had what she needed.

A name. A number. A thread to pull.

She leaned back in the swivel chair, whiskey in one hand and the other resting on her round, soft stomach. Outside, Sebastian kept pounding on the door and shouting her name.

Cassidy closed her eyes.

"Did she know how to run a company? No. Did she know about law, contracts, finances? Also no. Could she use the little glowing screens everyone stared at like idiots? Not even close."

"But she knew how to steal. She knew how to read people. She knew when someone was hiding an ace up their sleeve. And she knew, with the certainty of someone who'd survived twenty-five years in the wildest place on earth, that the fear in Sebastian's eyes when she mentioned the clauses was worth more than any document."

"She had money to learn. She had time to adapt. And she had something Emilia never had: the absolute, unshakeable, immovable certainty that no one""not a cowardly husband, not a treacherous friend, not an entire world that looked at her with contempt""was ever going to walk all over her again."

Never again.

The pounding on the door stopped.

Sebastian's footsteps retreated down the stairs.

Cassidy smiled, took one last swig of whiskey, and fell asleep in the swivel chair, the lawyer's card in her pocket and the smell of ashes still clinging to her skin.