It would read the authorization as a distress signal, freeze every linked account instantly, and transmit a live alert, with the full record, to a list of recipients I had chosen in advance.

My own body, in other words, had become the trap.

The very fear they intended to use against me — the racing heart of a cornered woman — was the trigger I had wired to bring the whole thing down.

All I needed was for one of them to force my hand.

And I knew, with the patience my father had taught me, that sooner or later, one of them would.

There was a kind of justice in the design that I built on purpose, because I wanted it to be true and not only clever.