Evelyn Cross didn't relax. She recalibrated.
The other women had settled into vacation with varying degrees of success — Isabella partied, Victoria acquired, Sofia optimized, Elena strategized. Evelyn assessed. It was what she'd done at the SEC as Director of Enforcement, and it was what she did now, sitting on the villa balcony with a laptop and a glass of water, reviewing Miami's publicly filed business registrations the way most people read a beach novel.
She was austere about it — charcoal tank top, black pants, no jewelry, no watch, hair pulled back tight. She looked like she was working a case even when she was sitting in the sun. At the SEC, they'd called her the Bloodhound. Willpower 98, Perception 99, Corruption 0. A true believer — the kind of investigator who would burn her own house down to catch a criminal in the basement. She'd been one of the most feared financial fraud investigators in the country.
