My phone lit up with a bank alert: attempted charge, seven hundred eighty thousand dollars, The Aurelian Room, declined. Dad leaned over my shoulder, read the screen, and smiled for the first time all day. “Right on schedule,” he said. “Now do not answer a single call.” He slid a thin gray folder across the table toward me. I hadn’t even noticed him bring it home from the courthouse.

Before I could open it, the phone buzzed again. Preston was calling over and over, and then a text appeared: Fix this right now. Brianna is crying and the manager is staring at me. Seconds later, a second alert made my blood run cold. Someone inside the club had just tried to open a new credit line using my name, my birth date, and my Social Security number, and the application was already approved pending one final signature.