Divorced And Secretly A Billionaire

In four years of marriage, my husband went from a two-thousand-dollar-a-month desk jockey to a multi-billionaire topping the Forbes list. Me? I was still a low-level clerk scraping together thirty-five hundred a month, every cent of which barely put a dent in the mortgage of our rundown starter condo. So I pulled the plug. I demanded a divorce, asked for a clean fifty-million-dollar exit settlement, and prepared to vanish into the sunset. When he signed the papers, his eyes were bloodshot. The pupils flickered for a fraction of a second, shifting into a sharp, inhuman slit before returning to their usual piercing grey. ""Funny,"" he murmured, his voice raspy and razor-thin. ""You're suddenly so brave when it comes to leaving me."" Brave or not, the wire cleared. Fifty million in the bank. Until I accidentally clicked into an unfamiliar account linked to my social security number. I stared at the string of zeros behind the balance. I counted them once. Twice. A third time. My hands wouldn't stop shaking. How in God’s name does an entry-level clerk with a thirty-five-hundred-dollar paycheck have over a billion dollars sitting under her name? 1 My name is Laney. I’m twenty-eight years old. This was our fourth wedding anniversary, and it was also the exact day I decided to leave my husband. Don't judge me yet. Hear me out. My husband is Rhys Barrett. Last month, Bloomberg clocked his net worth at roughly twelve billion dollars, cementing his spot as one of the youngest self-made tycoons in the country. Whenever the financial press writes about him, they always lean on the same word: ""ruthless"". At twenty-seven, he was the undisputed king of Barrett Holdings, an empire spanning commercial real estate, cutting-edge tech, and clean energy. Impressive, right? A modern fairy tale. Now take a look at me. A grunt in the back-office documentation department of a no-name logistics firm. Gross salary: thirty-five hundred. Take-home after taxes and benefits: twenty-six hundred. I was still living in the cramped, pre-war walk-up on the east side that we bought with a high-interest loan years ago. My paycheck barely covered the HOA fees and my half of the mortgage. I ate soggy turkey wraps from the office cafeteria, and I commuted every single morning on a squeaky electric scooter. To put it in perspective: the catering bill for a single Barrett Holdings board meeting could probably fund my entire annual salary. Naturally, you’re wondering: if the gap was that absurd, why the hell did I marry him in the first place? The answer is simple: four years ago, Rhys Barrett wasn’t Rhys Barrett. Four years ago, Rhys was a twenty-two-hundred-a-month cubicle drone who split rent with two roommates and whose greatest weekend pleasure was dragging me to the farmers market right before closing so we could haggle for half-priced chicken legs. Back then, when he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkled like warm parchment, sweet and disarming. We were college sweethearts. We dated for two broke, starry-eyed years after graduation, and then we signed our marriage license at city hall. That first year was as normal as a marriage could get. He cooked; I did the dishes. He stayed late at the office; I kept the porch light on. He got a modest promotion; I cheered until my throat was raw. And then, the world tilted. The shift began in year two. He was poached by a high-stakes private equity fund as a junior partner. The red-eye flights started. The late nights bled into early mornings. At first, I was supportive. Everyone has to hustle; ambition is a grueling mistress. Gradually, though, I realized it wasn't just that he was busy. He had turned cold. Not just emotionally distant, but physically frigid. His skin, once warm and vibrant, had taken on the pale, marble-like texture of someone who never saw the sun. When he came home, he didn't eat; he seemed to sustain himself on nothing more than a deep, melancholic exhaustion. He avoided direct contact, and when he did touch me, he pulled away as if he were fighting an agonizing, internal war against his own skin. Not the volatile, slamming-doors kind of cold, but an icy, clinical detachment. When I stood directly in front of him, he looked through me as if I were a piece of mid-century furniture. He didn't hate the couch, but he certainly didn't have an emotional relationship with it either. Let me give you a few examples. Our second anniversary. I took a half-day off work, bought a bundle of eucalyptus and peonies, and spent five hours braising short ribs and baking a tart. The food grew cold. I reheated it. It grew cold again. At eleven that night, the front door clicked open. ""Happy anniversary, babe,"" I whispered, holding on to the ragged edge of my smile. He barely glanced at me. He stayed in the threshold of the foyer, where the shadows were deepest, shielding his eyes from the harsh kitchen light. ""Oh. Is that today?"" Then he walked into the study and shut the door. The flowers sat on the kitchen counter all night. The next morning, his personal assistant stopped by to pick up his dry cleaning and threw them into the trash chute. Then came our third year, on my birthday. I deliberately didn't mention it to anyone, a childish little test to see if he’d remember. Technically, he did. A courier arrived at our apartment that afternoon holding a sleek black box. I untied the ribbon. Inside was an Hermès silk scarf, accompanied by a stiff cardstock note that read: ""Wishing you a happy birthday."" The signature wasn't his name. It was ""Barrett Holdings, LLC"". And right next to the printed text was a corporate embossed legal seal. A corporate seal, ladies. My husband gave me a birthday card stamped with the official corporate seal of his holding company. In that moment, I genuinely didn't know whether to weep or call the cops. It got worse. Last winter, his company held its lavish annual gala, and for reasons beyond my comprehension, he insisted I accompany him to play the dutiful partner. I figured, fine, we’re legally wed, I’ll show up and smile. Halfway through the evening, a major institutional investor approached us, swirling a glass of vintage scotch. ""Rhys, my boy,"" the man boomed, ""who’s your charming companion?"" Rhys looked at me. His gaze flickered with a sudden, sharp hunger that he masked instantly behind a veil of aristocratic indifference. His hand, encased in a leather glove to prevent any inadvertent skin-to-skin contact, remained rigid at his side. ""A friend."" ""A friend."" I am your damn wife. Your lawful, legally documented spouse. My name is on the certificate filed with the county clerk. And you introduce me as ""a friend""? That night, I sat alone on our tiny, freezing balcony for two solid hours and ate the entire box of artisanal dark chocolates that had been handed out as party favors. I spent the next twenty-four hours violently sick with food poisoning. Even my gastrointestinal distress was courtesy of Rhys Barrett. Living like that isn't living. His private driver knew my face but could never recall my name, referring to me politely as ""the lady from Mr. Barrett’s residence."" His executive secretary kept a meticulous color-coded master schedule where the ""Personal/Family"" column remained permanently blank. He flew across continents without a word; I’d only find out he was in London or Tokyo when his photo popped up on my Bloomberg app. He was ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange while I was reheating leftover soup in an apartment with peeling wallpaper. I tried to bridge the chasm. Once, desperate, I cornered him in the foyer. ""Rhys, do you remember what you promised me the day we got our marriage license?"" He paused, his brow furrowing slightly. He kept his back to me, his silhouette unnaturally still in the dim light. ""What did I say?"" ""You said that no matter how crazy life got, you'd always come home and make me a grilled cheese when I was having a bad day."" He went silent for three seconds. Then he pulled out his phone. He opened an app, ordered an artisanal sandwich from an upscale deli down the block, and managed to fire off two urgent corporate emails before putting his phone back in his pocket. By the time the delivery guy knocked on the door, Rhys was already in the back of an Escalade speeding toward a midnight conference. I ate that lukewarm bread soaked in my own quiet tears—the bleakest meal of my adult life. So when people ask why I wanted a divorce, it wasn't about the money. All right, maybe a tiny bit about the money. But mostly, it was because my spirit had eroded to dust. For four years, I felt like a cheap portable charger tucked away in the back of a drawer—only remembered when someone needed a quick, utilitarian boost before being tossed back into the dark. That wasn't a marriage; it was a storage locker. He had checked Laney Drew into long-term storage, slapped an expiration date on the box, and waited for the lease to run out. Fine. If he wouldn't unpack me, I’d check myself out. Last month, I spent three evenings drafting the settlement terms. I wrote in a fifty-million-dollar buyout. It sounded like an astronomical sum, but stacked against his twelve-billion-dollar valuation, it was barely a fraction of a percent—a rounding error. To me, on a thirty-five-hundred-a-month salary, it was enough to ensure I’d never have to look at a corporate spreadsheet again for the rest of my life. A number he wouldn't bother fighting over, and a number that set me free. Tonight was the night I served it. Eight o’clock. He was home early for once, lounging on the Italian leather sofa, scrolling through financial audits on his tablet. The room was dark; he had disabled every smart-bulb in the living area, preferring to exist in a twilight haze that would have been blinding to anyone else, but seemed to provide him with a strange, predatory comfort. I laid the crisp stack of papers directly over the screen. ""What's this?"" He didn't even look up. ""Divorce papers."" The words landed like lead weights. The room instantly lost all its warmth. Rhys finally lifted his head. His gaze was an unreadable labyrinth—shock, bewilderment, and something else simmering beneath the surface: an agonizing, animal-like conflict that made his knuckles turn white as he gripped the edge of the sofa. ""What did you just say?"" ""I want a divorce,"" I repeated, keeping my voice entirely neutral. ""The terms are laid out clearly. Read them over. Fifty million dollars in cash. You keep the condo, you keep the town car—not that the car was ever mine anyway. I’m only taking my clothes and personal belongings."" He stared at me. One beat. Two beats. Then his mouth twitched, curving into something faint and bitter. ""Funny. You're suddenly so brave when it comes to leaving me."" It was a bizarre thing to say. What did he mean, ""suddenly so brave""? Was I supposed to have been terrified before? I hadn't stayed out of fear; I’d stayed because I had been an idiot in love. ""I’ve thought it through, Rhys,"" I said, meeting his eyes. ""For the past four years, you’ve lived your life, and I’ve lived mine on the periphery. Instead of dragging this corpse around, let’s just bury it."" He lowered his chin, turning his attention to the document. He turned the pages. Deliberately. Excruciatingly slowly. I braced myself for a brawl. I expected him to sneer, to shred the papers, to threaten me with his legion of cutthroat corporate attorneys. In the boardroom, the man never conceded an inch of territory without drawing blood. Instead, he did nothing of the sort. He reached the final page, unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen, and signed. Clean. Decisive. Every stroke of ""Rhys Barrett"" executed with the cold perfection of a multi-million-dollar commercial merger. He slid the folder across the table toward me. ""Everything you asked for. It’s yours."" His voice was barely above a whisper. He kept his head turned away, his jaw locked as if he were physically restraining himself from lunging toward me—or perhaps, from shattering into a thousand pieces. I looked at him. His bottom lip seemed to tremble for a fraction of a second, but before I could be certain, the familiar, impenetrable mask settled over his features. I gathered the papers. ""Thank you."" As I turned toward the foyer, I heard a dull ""clack"" behind me. It sounded like the heavy pen dropping from lifeless fingers onto the glass tabletop. Or maybe it wasn't a pen at all. Maybe it was the sound of a man who had finally, decisively, severed the only tether that kept him anchored to humanity. I didn't turn around to check. Stepping through the front door, I expected a rush of triumph, or maybe a crushing wave of grief. But there was only numbness. It felt like being pushed out into the sunlight after four years in a windowless solitary confinement cell. The air was sharp and biting. But it was outside air. Clutching the signed agreement, I stepped into the chilly November night. Did I make a cinematic exit? Not even close. His security detail's oversized Suburban was parked so close to the bike rack that it took me ten humiliating minutes of scraping my knuckles just to yank my rusty electric scooter free. 2 The bureaucratic wheels turned with terrifying speed. Rhys’s legal powerhouse handled the filings with clinical efficiency. By ten the following morning, every document had cleared the county court. The fifty-million-dollar wire hit my checking account that afternoon. I sat cross-legged on an unmade bed, staring at the notification on my phone screen until my eyes burned. ""$50,000,000.00."" It was the first time in my existence that I possessed a sum with that many commas. Up until today, the most I’d ever had in savings was thirty-two hundred dollars, mostly cobbled together from odd tax refunds and savings bonds my dad bought me when I graduated high school. Fifty million. It didn't feel real. It felt like Monopoly money printed on a glitching screen. My first instinct was to call Tabby. Tabitha Briggs had been my partner-in-crime since the third grade. We were the kind of friends who shared everything—mostly because she stole my oversized sweaters and stretched them out. The line connected. ""Tabby,"" I breathed. ""I got a divorce."" A dead pause. ""You what?"" ""I divorced Rhys Barrett."" Another beat of silence. And then her voice exploded through the speaker, nearly blowing out my eardrum. ""You fucking ""what""?! You divorced the king of the Bloomberg index?!"" ""I did."" ""Bitch, congratulations!"" That was her immediate reaction: congratulations. I didn't know whether to laugh or hang up. Three seconds later, her brain caught up. ""Wait, wait, wait. What am I congratulating? Are you insane? Laney, twelve billion dollars! Do you understand what twelve billion looks like? Let me break the math down for your tiny brain—"" ""Tabby, stop."" ""You couldn't earn his rounding errors in ten lifetimes! And you just walked away?!"" ""I walked away with fifty million."" Dead silence. Five full seconds of absolute vacuum. When Tabby spoke again, her tone was dripping with the most angelic, pure sincerity known to mankind. ""Sweetie. Angel. Did the wire clear? Because I’ve been thinking we should open a luxury boutique together."" See? That’s female solidarity for you. Thirty seconds ago I was a certified lunatic; now she was drafting business plans for my divorce windfall. I hung up on her and braced myself for the real boss fight: calling my dad. I stared at his contact photo for a solid ten minutes, more terrified than I had been when sliding the divorce settlement across the coffee table to Rhys. My father was a retired union machinist. He could accept that I made thirty-five hundred a month. He could accept that I couldn't make a decent pot roast to save my life. He could even accept that at twenty-eight, I hadn't produced a grandchild. What he could ""never"" accept was walking away from a golden goose worth twelve billion dollars. I dialed. ""Hey, Dad."" ""Laney-bug! You eat dinner yet?"" ""Yeah, Dad. Listen, I have some news."" ""What's going on? Everything okay?"" ""Rhys and I got a divorce."" The line went completely dead. Not a cough, not the sound of static. I checked the screen to see if the call had dropped. It hadn't. Then came the roar. ""YOU—DID—WHAT?!"" Every syllable vibrated with tectonic fury. ""We signed the papers, Dad. It's finalized."" ""Laney Drew! You listen to me! If you think for one second you can just walk out on a man like Rhys—"" ""It's done, Dad. It's legal."" ""You..."" He choked on his own outrage. It was probably the first time in his life he’d been completely blindsided by his daughter's ruthless efficiency. Then the lecture began. No, not a lecture—a full-blown congressional address. ""You ungrateful, reckless girl! Do you have any idea what kind of man Rhys is? A titan! A prince! And look at you—thirty-five hundred a month, running around in discount sneakers! What did our family do in a past life to deserve a son-in-law like that? And you threw it in the trash? Did you hit your head? Did a mule kick you between the ears? How can you look me in the eye? How can you look at your mother’s memory? You—"" ""Dad, he gave me fifty million dollars in cash."" The transmission ceased. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. ""Fifty million? In your account? Right now?"" ""Cleared this afternoon."" Two more beats of silence. When my father spoke again, her voice was as smooth and warm as honeyed bourbon. ""Well, you know, Laney-bug... truth be told, I always felt Rhys was a little too stiff for you anyway. Always working, never around for Sunday roasts. A girl needs a husband, not an absentee landlord. You did the right thing. Your old man is proud of you."" I pinched the bridge of my nose. Incredible. Fifty million dollars could rewrite a parent’s core moral philosophy in under five seconds. He pivoted faster than Rhys’s corporate jet. After hanging up, I decided I needed to celebrate. A proper victory dinner. I was an independent woman with fifty million dollars in liquidity. I hopped on my scooter and zipped across town to the most notoriously pretentious omakase joint in the financial district. I’d read about it in lifestyle magazines—fifteen hundred to two thousand a head, reservations booked six months out. But tonight, armed with my new net worth, I walked right up to the host stand. They had a single stool open at the bar. The waiter handed me a minimalist, leather-bound menu. I flipped it open. A5 Miyazaki Wagyu: seventy dollars a slice. Bluefin Toro with Kaluga caviar: forty-five dollars a bite. ""One bite."" Forty-five bucks. I closed the menu. Under the table, I covertly opened DoorDash to see if there was a cheap noodle bowl place nearby. It wasn't that I was being cheap; it was that muscle memory isn't something you can reprogram with a bank wire. You can take the girl out of the thirty-five-hundred-a-month grind, but after twenty-eight years of scouring the clearance rack, asking me to swallow forty-five dollars in a single chew caused an immediate, psychosomatic gag reflex. In the end, I sheepishly ordered a bowl of miso soup and a plain salmon donburi. Total: thirty-eight dollars. It tasted completely mediocre—honestly, the cafeteria downstairs at my office made better spicy mayo. But what was I paying for? The ambiance. The crisp, clean taste of unencumbered freedom. The first meal of the rest of my life. Flush with the arrogance of an eight-figure net worth, I boldly dropped a ten-dollar cash tip on the counter. The server looked at me as if I were a psychiatric patient who had wandered out during a fire drill. I didn't care. I rode my scooter through the crisp evening toward Tabby’s place. I couldn't go back to the East Side condo anymore—that belonged to Rhys now. Tabby’s guest room was my temporary sanctuary. When I unlocked her door, she was sprawled on the couch aggressively button-mashing on a PlayStation controller. ""Did the cash land?"" she yelled without looking up. ""When are you buying me dinner?"" ""Rain check."" ""You always say rain check! You owe me seventeen meals, Laney, I have a spreadsheet!"" I ignored her, retreated into the small guest bedroom, and collapsed onto the mattress. I pulled out my phone to scroll through mindless celebrity gossip to dull my buzzing thoughts. And then— A banner notification dropped down from my banking app. ""Automated Balance Alert: Unlinked Institutional Account ending in 8867."" I glanced at it, preparing to swipe it away as spam. Then my thumb froze. Three... three hundred and forty-six million? I sat bolt upright. I read the notification again. Slowly. ""Current Available Balance: $346,782,451.00."" Under my personal social security profile, there was a primary checking account ending in 8867. Holding over three hundred and forty million dollars. What the actual hell was this? I was a low-level clerk. The most money I had ever touched in my entire existence was the fifty-million-dollar buyout that hit my account four hours ago. Where had an extra three hundred million materialized from? My hands began to shake uncontrollably. It wasn't awe. It was cold, suffocating terror. In this world, when free money falls from the sky, it's never manna. It's an anvil waiting to crush you. 3 First thing the next morning, I sprinted to the bank. I hadn't touched a bite of breakfast. Not because I wasn't hungry, but because my stomach was tied in knots. When an ordinary person making thirty-five hundred a month wakes up to find three hundred and forty-six million dollars sitting under her name, sheer panic is the only reasonable biological response. My mind was spiraling down a rabbit hole of worst-case scenarios. Was I being framed? Had an international cartel used my identity as a corporate pass-through? Was I an unwitting co-conspirator in a money-laundering scheme? Was the FBI going to breach my door tomorrow morning while I tried to explain that I genuinely thought my biggest asset was a five-hundred-dollar Vespa knockoff? I burst through the double doors of the flagship commercial branch downtown and marched straight to the concierge desk. ""Hi. I need someone to trace the source of funds in an account under my name. Ending in 8867."" The branch manager took my driver's license, plugged the digits into her terminal, and tapped a few keys. Then her face froze. More accurately, her entire demeanor underwent a molecular transformation. The standard, glaze-eyed customer-service smirk vanished, replaced by an expression of reverent, trembling deference—the look one might reserve for a person who possessed the power to make them vanish without a trace. ""Mrs. Barrett... would you please—would you mind stepping into the private executive suite?"" ""I don't need a suite, I just need to know if this money is—"" ""Right this way, please. Immediately."" She practically escorted me by the elbow into a soundproof glass office with plush velvet chairs, bustling around to hand-pour me a cup of single-origin pour-over coffee. The treatment was roughly ten thousand times warmer than anything I’d experienced in my four-year marriage. Ten minutes later, the regional vice president strode in, clutching a thick leather binder bursting with printed ledgers. ""Mrs. Barrett, thank you for your patience,"" he began, smoothing his tie. ""This particular high-yield custodial account was established thirty-six months ago. It has received recurring, structured wires on the first of every month, ranging from five hundred thousand to ten million dollars. The originating entity—"" He flipped a tab. ""—is a series of private asset-holding companies directly controlled by Barrett Holdings."" The room seemed to drop ten degrees. Barrett Holdings. Rhys. ""Are you... are you certain?"" ""The trail is pristine,"" the VP said smoothly. ""Furthermore..."" He hesitated, peering over his gold wire-rimmed spectacles. He seemed to be observing me with a mix of awe and morbid curiosity, as if he knew the 'true' nature of the man who had authorized these transfers. ""Mrs. Barrett, this is hardly your only active vehicle with us. You are also the sole designated beneficiary of two private brokerage portfolios and an irrevocable generation-skipping trust."" ""I'm sorry, what?"" ""The brokerage portfolio currently holds an equity valuation of approximately four hundred and twenty million dollars. The irrevocable trust carries a net asset value of two hundred and eighty million."" He paused, studying me with subtle bewilderment. He was clearly trying to process how a woman wearing worn-out sneakers and an off-the-rack trench coat could possibly be sitting on over a billion dollars in liquid capital—or perhaps, how a woman had managed to become the sole obsession of someone who clearly didn't belong to the normal human cycle of wealth and aging. I couldn't hear him anymore. The blood was roaring in my ears. Established three years ago. Monthly structured transfers. From Barrett Holdings. Rhys. It was all Rhys. Over the course of three years, quietly, systematically, across cash accounts, index positions, and blind trusts... he had funneled over a billion dollars into my legal possession. This was the man who introduced me as ""a friend"" at his industry gala. The man who stamped my birthday card with a corporate seal. He had secretly built a gilded fortress around me, brick by hundred-million-dollar brick. I sank back into the velvet armchair, my mind completely short-circuiting. ""Additionally, Mrs. Barrett,"" the executive pressed on, his voice floating toward me as if through deep water, ""there are the real estate deeds."" ""How many deeds?"" I croaked. ""Three prime residential estates and one commercial tower. The residences include a penthouse at the Madison Grand downtown, a lakeside villa in the private enclaves out west, and an estate in the hills. The commercial asset is an entire twelve-story corporate building in the high-tech corridor."" ""All in my name?"" ""Titled solely to you. The deeds were recorded incrementally between two years ago and... roughly three months back."" Three months ago. Right when Rhys was formally featured on the cover of Forbes. While the press was crowning him the newest titan of industry, he was secretly signing commercial real estate over to his nobody wife. A memory pierced through the haze. Last autumn, we were sitting in the living room. He had been sitting in the dark again, his features sharp and pale in the moonlight as he reviewed contracts. Out of nowhere, I had sighed and said, ""You know, if you ever burn out from all this, we should just sell everything, move somewhere quiet near the water, and open a little bakery. You handle the cash register, I’ll bake the bread."" He hadn't answered. I assumed he was too busy reading to care. Now, looking at the portfolio records... the purchase agreement for the private lakefront property had been executed precisely three days after that conversation. Jesus Christ. Holy hell. When I finally walked out of the bank, I left my scooter chained to the bike rack. I walked. I needed the freezing wind against my face to keep my knees from buckling. A billion dollars. Three homes. A commercial high-rise. All mine. And just yesterday, I had walked out of his life thinking I’d cleverly hustled him for a fifty-million-dollar settlement. Looking back now, that fifty million wasn't a settlement. It was petty cash compared to what he had already handed me. I spent four years convincing myself that I was nothing more than an inconvenient shadow in his glittering ascent. Would a man who didn't give a damn about you quietly divert an empire’s worth of wealth into your hands? Would a cold-blooded—perhaps literally cold-blooded—sociopath buy you a lakefront sanctuary seventy-two hours after you casually mentioned you wanted to live near the water? I stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. The city air stung my lungs. A massive, terrifying question took root in my chest: If he loved me enough to do all this... why did he spend four miserable years treating me like a ghost? That afternoon, I caught a cab to the Madison Grand penthouse. A hundred and eighty square meters of prime downtown real estate. I pressed my thumb to the biometric scanner; the lock clicked open instantly. I stepped inside. The entire place took my breath away. It wasn't the sterile, monochromatic modernism favored by high-powered executives. The floors were rich, reclaimed hardwood. Warm, amber lighting glowed from the fixtures. An open-concept kitchen featured a massive butcher-block island. On the bookshelves lining the living room, someone had carefully curated vintage hardcover editions of obscure mid-century science fiction novels—my hyper-specific reading obsession. I opened the Sub-Zero refrigerator. Two full shelves were stocked with cans of Diet Coke—my exact brand. I opened the pantry. Arranged in neat, obsessive rows were boxes of the ridiculously spicy instant ramen I always craved when I was stressed out. Every single detail had been tailored to my taste. He hadn't forgotten anything. He remembered every damn thing about me. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Tabby: ""Quinn is hosting a mixer at that private members club tonight. You in?"" I stared at the glowing screen, my thoughts a tangled web of confusion and grief. I typed back two words: ""I’m in."" I needed a drink. And I needed to be around human beings to prove to myself that I hadn't slipped into an alternate reality.