EMMA

My first day at Sterling & Cole Investments, someone handed me a coffee order for eight people.

"You're the new intern, right? Oat milk latte, two sugars, and don't mix them up, sweetie."

That was Madison. Heels like weapons, smile like a knife.

I took the order. Smiled. "Got it."

Here's the thing nobody at this company knows: my name is Emma Cole. And "Cole" is on the building. The whole building. Forty-two floors of glass and ego, all owned by my grandmother.

Three weeks ago, she called me into her study, slid a folder across the desk, and said, "Someone inside my company is stealing from the family trust. Two million, gone. And secrets are leaking to our competitors."

"Call the cops," I said.

"No. I want to know who. And they can't know I know." She looked at me over her glasses. "You'll go in as an intern. Nobody watches an intern."

She was right. Nobody watches an intern. Nobody even sees one.

Which, honestly, makes this the best cover in Manhattan.

JAKE

I was late. Again. My father, the CEO, had a habit of scheduling eight a.m. meetings just to punish me for existing.

I crashed through the lobby, tie crooked, and there was a girl by the elevator holding a tray of eight coffees like it was a hostage situation.

"Hey. Coffee girl. Ninth floor, you're going my way."

She looked at me. Calm eyes. Weirdly calm, like a lake that might have a monster at the bottom.

"I have a name," she said.

"I'm sure you do. Hold the door."

She held the door. Then she pressed every button from four to eleven.

"What are you doing?"

"Practicing," she said. "I'm new. I need to learn all the floors."

"I'm going to be late!"

"That sounds like a planning issue, not a coffee issue."

I stared at her. She stared back. Blinked twice. Zero fear.

Interns usually laugh at my jokes. Or my name. Or at least my tie. This one looked at me like I was a slow elevator.

I was late to the meeting. It was, somehow, the most interesting sixty seconds of my month.

EMMA

The coffee trick was childish. I admit it. But Jake Sterling is the CEO's son, and people trust people they think they've already figured out.

He filed me under "coffee girl." Perfect. That file gets read by nobody.

By ten a.m., I had already learned three things.

One: the sixteenth floor has a locked records room that two interns got fired for entering last year.

Two: everyone gossips at the copy machine. Especially about Vice President Derek Kane.

Three: Derek Kane signs off on trust transfers himself. No second signature. Which is, accounting-wise, like leaving your front door open with a sign that says "free stuff."

"Derek's office is off-limits," Madison warned me at lunch, blocking my path with a salad she wasn't eating. "And so is the executive floor. Interns stay in the pit."

"The pit?"

"Cubicles. Where you belong." She smiled at the other girls. "Poor thing. That outfit. Did you get it on clearance?"

"No," I said. "I got it in a store. That's usually how it works."

One of the other interns snorted coffee out of her nose. A small girl named Priya. I liked her instantly.

Madison's smile went thin. "Careful, sweetie. Interns are easy to replace."

"So are mean girls," I said sweetly. "There's literally an app for it now."

I walked away before she could figure out if that was an insult.

JAKE

At the afternoon meeting, my father was tearing into the compliance team.