Heiress Takes All

Book 1: Heiress Heists

by Emily Wibberley, Austin Siegemund-Broka

Genres: YA Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

The Inheritance Games meets Ocean's 11 in this thrilling YA adventure about a vengeful daughter determined to pull off the perfect heist in the midst of her father’s wedding.

Seventeen-year-old Olivia Owens isn't thrilled that her dad's getting remarried...again. She's especially not thrilled that he cheated on her mom, kicked them out of their Rhode Island home, and cut Olivia out of her rightful inheritance.

But this former heiress has a plan for revenge. While hundreds of guests gather on the grounds of the gorgeous estate where she grew up, everyone will be thinking romance—not robbery. She’ll play the part of dutiful daughter, but in reality she’ll be redistributing millions from her father’s online accounts. She only needs the handwritten pass code he keeps in the estate's safe.

With the help of an eclectic crew of high school students and one former teacher, Olivia has plotted her mid-nuptial heist down to the second. But she didn't plan for an obnoxiously nosy wedding guest, an interfering ex-boyfriend intent on winning her back, greedy European cousins with their own agenda, or a vengeful second wife. When everything seems like it's going wrong, Olivia has to keep her eyes on what really matters: getting rich. And when she’s done, “something borrowed” will be the understatement of the year.

Release date: June 4, 2024

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 368

Sample

I REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE WORN HEELS TO MY VERY FIRST HEIST.

They cost me only seconds on the stairs, possibly less. Seconds might be critical, though, in moments like this one. I reach the bottom steps, then the dark wood of the basement corridors, where I pause to pull off my pumps.

Ugh. More lost moments.

The instant they’re in my hand, straps hung on my rubbed-raw fingers, I run.

Footsteps pound behind me. Not the ominous rhythm of two feet or even the hectic syncopation of four. This is a crowd.

The long passageways I’ve dashed into mock me with their formality, their elegance. White baseboards giving way to pink paint; deep, dark hardwood floors where the balls of my bare feet thump with every step; crown molding, which… I only know what crown molding is because Dad would not stop pointing out to guests that the crown molding dates back to the 1800s.

I don’t fixate on their charms, though. Instead, I concentrate on how I know every inch of this house.

Like it knows me. The Olivia who learned to walk here. The wide-eyed girl who couldn’t help imagining she’d inherited her very own modern fairy tale, complete with the closest thing to a castle Rhode Island possessed. The Olivia who invited over prep school classmates to experience its epic grounds because when she felt like she couldn’t be interesting or important or loved, one thing she could be was rich.

The Olivia of now, who visits every week, quietly shocked by how quickly she could feel like a guest.

The Olivia of today, determined to steal from this house the way the past few years have stolen from her.

I hit the first corner in the hall, clenching my fist around what I’ve stolen, a reminder of why the footsteps won’t stop. With every step, I fight to ignore the warm, wet sensation running down from my shoulder to my elbow. Sweat sticks the fabric of my dress to my back.

My ruined dress. It’s probably the only pang of remorse I have for how the day went. The pink baby-doll dress my mom purchased, determined for me to fit into my dad’s world, despite how his new bride’s handbags cost what Mom makes every month. If I get out of here, I know how Mom’s face will fall when she glimpses the present ragged state of what I’m wearing.

I understood that today would exact its costs, though. Every one of us did. If I’m caught, I won’t be the only one going down for this.

Pushing my pace, I hit the next corner. Left, past the restroom with the white orchid. I wonder if even one single human being has used the white-orchid restroom this millennium. Then the next turn, right—

Wham. I slam my hand on the handle of the unassuming, unpretentious door. Behind it, concrete service stairs descend even lower. The walls of the hallway here have changed without warning from genteel Georgian to unceremonious, unyielding gray cement. The deepest inner workings of this home, where guests never come, hold the house’s circuit boards, its mechanics, its nerve center. Mr. McCoy would point out how metaphorical the sharp change is, for capitalism or, I don’t know, national history. Every country club hides mazes of concrete.

I race down the hall, passing the first door, then the first corner, then the second door. I played hide-and-seek down here once with my mom before the divorce.

The third door on the left is wide-open.

I rush inside, then slam it shut, chest heaving, my perfect homemade balayage now congealed clumps of brown and blond hanging haywire over my shoulders. In the center of the small, dark room, I pull my phone from my damp clutch. My heart constricts when the screen lights up.

The group chat is frantic.

Knight

King, please respond!!!! THE hell is going on

Queen

King seriously. Update now

Rook

Someone please get a picture of the cake.

Knight

??? The cake RN???

Assface

Yo the cake was poppin my guy.

I gotchu.

Rook

Can someone other than Assface get eyes on the cake?

Pawn

King, please confirm your status. Thanks.

Knight

You text so weird man

Pawn

I text like an adult, Knight.

With shaking hands, I key in my reply.

King

Everything is under control.

Stick to the plan.

The truth is, the message is for me, too. Everything is under control, I repeat in my head. You’re fine. No, you’re incredible. You’re ingenious. Okay, now you’re getting hyperbolic. Rein it in, girl. You’re good. You’re fine.

Everything is going to be fine.

Everything is under control.

Past the closed door, the sound of footsteps is now nearly inaudible. The wet trickle is reaching my forearm.

Everything is under control.

Slowing my breathing, I press on my phone’s flashlight to investigate my surroundings for escape routes. While I might know every inch of this unwelcoming home, I don’t necessarily know every conceivable hidden exit from its subterranean floor. Because—funny thing—none of the near lifetime of memories I’ve willingly or unwillingly made here included felonies.

Not wanting to draw my pursuers, I keep the overhead light off, which leaves everything outside the glow of my flashlight unclear in the dark. But there—near the ceiling, one small rectangular window reveals the deep blue evening outside. I just need something to climb on to reach it.

Swinging my light to the wall of high metal shelves, I search for pool equipment or boxes of gardening supplies or who knows what—

The door crashes open behind me.

In one of the most heart-stopping moments of my life, it occurs to me—the fact that the footsteps were dampened didn’t mean they weren’t coming closer. I whirl, the iridescent jewel of my phone’s flashlight sweeping the room.

When my eyes reach the doorway, framing my pursuer in the light of the concrete hallway, I say nothing. I do nothing, except realize, for the first time today—

I do not have everything under control.

I STEP INTO MY HEELS. THEY’RE PERFECT, THE FINISHING TOUCH. IN the mirror, I look over my handiwork.

The first thing I notice isn’t my outfit. It never is. It’s the initials inscribed in the corner of the glass in the staff room of Vive, the superstore where I’m employed. The work of knifepoint, carved into the mirror that’s intended to help us look professional on our way to the register, or, in my case, the custodial closet. EH.

Of course, I have no idea what they mean, which makes them the only interesting thing in the room.

Otherwise, the Vive employees’ lounge is a gray underworld in contrast to the clean commercial aisles outside. Overhead lights humming with their depressing cast. Couches no one uses, wispy cotton protruding from the rips in their cushions. Lockers against one wall with empty loops for employees to place our own locks.

It is not, shall I say, the ideal place to get ready for my father’s highest-of-high-society wedding. I don’t need the openly judgmental glances of the coworkers who pass me on their way to their lockers to know my preparations for the day—my pink dress, my ivory heels—look, put gently, ironic.

I focus on the initials, letting them center me. EH. When I need to escape the reality of my work, I occupy myself by inventing possible meanings for them.

EH. Equine haberdashery, I note when I pass the hats with horse logos on them.

Exquisite handbags. The purses in the display case, fifty-dollar bags I walk past with embarrassment—not because I work here, but because I know I once would have, on price and misguided principle alone, considered them cheap and chintzy. I used to wear Gucci and Shinola to school. Now I can’t afford what I used to mock.

Framed in the gray of the employees’ room, I reach for the makeup I brought to work. The waver of weakness in my imprecise hand is from the hours I’ve just spent scrubbing the floor surrounding the refrigerators, where someone dropped a glass bottle of tea.

I need to work quickly, and not just for my own reasons. If the metal door on the other end of the room opens and my manager, Oren, emerges, he’ll enlist me in helping Shaun shelve the deodorant. Yes, even though my shift ended eleven minutes ago.

Yes, even in my dress.

I’m what Vive calls “general personnel,” which means I do whatever my manager wants. Rarely is it cash register. More often, it’s cleaning.

I’m not ashamed to scrub floors, not when I know it’s helping my mom with our finances. No, I’m ashamed by how much I suck at it. I have no intuition for the work, not to mention no musculature. Growing up on the Owens estate with housekeepers, I developed no finesse for what equipment or products to use, how much pressure each surface or stain demands, or countless other intricacies, leaving me envious of my more experienced coworkers. I’m Cinderella in reverse, the princess who discovered one day she was destined for drudgery.

I put on my concealer, smoothing out my skin, which no longer gets the perfect spray tan twice a month.

I miss my old life. I won’t pretend I don’t. When my mom divorced my dad, I was cast out of everything. His home, presumably his will… his world. The world I knew.

EH. Ex-heiress.

On my darkest days, I wish Mom had maybe… made it work. Not forgiven my father. Just… figured out how to live under our old roof instead of in the small home I moved into with her two years ago, when my father’s prenup left her with nothing. Why should we get punished for his misdeeds?

The feeling never lasts long. I love my mom fiercely. I respect her conviction, her decisiveness, her self-respect, her courage. How hard she works to provide me with the narrow bedroom in our house, one the size of the closets in the Rhode Island mansion where I lived for most of my life. The way she decorated the room with reminders of what I loved, whimsically combining French art deco posters with a soccer pencil cup and the large purple mirror on my closet door.

It took more effort to make me feel like I was home than I’d ever imagined, or deserved, an effort I know my mom doesn’t have in her to make every day.

It’s something in her eyes. Even if she’s up, moving forward, making the events of the day happen—only sometimes do her eyes look like her. Green, like mine.

Other times, when I look into them, I can see she’s stuck somewhere. In some shadowy, exhausting labyrinth she doesn’t know how to get out of. Like she doesn’t know if she’s moving forward or if she’s just still moving.

The employees’ lounge’s metal door rattles open right then. I whirl, panic rising, expecting Oren is going to criticize me for something related to the spill situation and consign me to shelving, and—

It’s only Shaun, finished, I guess, with the deodorant. He doesn’t glance over on his way to the lockers.

I face the mirror, with my chest rising more evenly, and inspect the pieces of my outfit. The dress I ordered online when Mom proudly insisted we pick out something nice. The heels. The gaudy wink of the plastic diamonds in my hair clip. The girl in the initialed mirror is Barbie come to life.

It’s the perfect disguise. Myself.

Or the idea of me. The daughter of controversial podcaster–multimedia mogul Dashiell Owens. My father’s made his fame on off-the-cuff impulsivity, on not overthinking, on deciding everything while considering nothing. Imagine what everyone in the entire universe thinks of me. Dress seventeen-year-old me up in pink with heels and shiny jewelry—nobody’s going to double-check their first impression of Olivia Owens.

Which is, of course, essential to The Plan.

Reaching for my eyelashes, I push down nervousness. The Plan. Even if the notes I’ve meticulously made in the black notebook I requested for my birthday weren’t neatly headlined with the two capitalized words, I would probably hear them with capital letters in my head.

The truth is, I haven’t thought of much else since The Plan entered my head in one dark flash the day that we received Dad’s Save the Date in the mail. I’ve studied enough to keep my grades up, to dispel suspicion. I’ve helped out my mom however I could. I got this job, the least I could do when my mom works three, supporting us while struggling to stay on top of her medical debt.

One led to the other, like partners in crime—if she hadn’t been chasing surge-priced ridesharing hours one Friday night, she wouldn’t have gotten on the road exhausted from twelve hours of consecutive hostessing shifts. She wouldn’t have nodded off for split seconds. Her car wouldn’t have skidded on ice into the highway divider.

Wouldn’t, wouldn’t, wouldn’t.

Her head hit the window hard. Her wrist crumpled from the impact. She was unconscious for fifteen hours. They were the worst hours of my life, in Rhode Island’s Kent County Memorial Hospital, where I sat silently, holding her hand, waiting for her to wake up. Every detail of my surroundings engraved itself in my memory forever. The fluorescent lights, the white floors, the sterile hallways. The days were full of procedures, scans, metal pins, “we’ll know more later,” and incessant worry.

Incredibly, she made it through. She’s fine except for pains in her wrist—and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt forcing her to keep working. Even miracles can cost everything these days.

I honestly have no idea where she is right now. On weekends she does DoorDash or Instacart, which sends her from Coventry, where we live, into every corner of Rhode Island. I’ve gotten used to having the car only from Wednesday through Friday, when she walks to the grocery store that we’re ten minutes from for her shifts.

Today, though, even with Dad’s wedding, I don’t need the car. The method of transportation is the first step. Starting in—

The clock on my phone counts up. 3:24.

With one false eyelash in my hand, I let nervousness overcome me momentarily. I don’t fight the feeling. Here, now, I can permit myself the cold fear chasing through me. The rest of the day, I’ll need to have everything under control, to compose myself into the exacting leader I know everyone needs. Right now, I can be fragile.

While I wait for my eyelash glue to set, I poke my phone screen with one sweaty finger. 3:25 p.m. Five minutes.

I exhale shakily.

I give myself seven seconds.

Then I meet my eyes in the mirror. Green, like my mom’s.

Instantly, I iron every waver out of my nerves. Every hint of tremor out of my fingers. With unshaking hands, I press my fake eyelash perfectly into place.

I’m ready. For months, I’ve filled countless notebook pages with important research, checklists, schedules, diagrams, everything. No one ever counted on Cinderella wanting revenge.

Today, during my dad’s third wedding, I’m going to execute the heist I’ve been planning for months.

I’m going to steal millions from my own father.

I GET A TEXT AT 3:28.

Early. Early is good. Exact is better, but early is good.

With one parting glance in the mirror, I return my makeup to my locker, knowing I’ll never see it again. I leave the dismal employees’ room of my job for what will be the final time, one way or another. In nine hours, I’ll either be very rich or I’ll be in deep, deep trouble.

In the parking lot outside the unassuming employees’ entrance, I like how I look in my high heels, my pumped-up makeup. I stand out in the drab neighborhood I’ve called home for two years. Coventry is picturesque, kind of—not in the usual ways, the gorgeous homes or endless lawns of Rhode Island’s expensive neighborhoods. But there’s quiet endurance in this dull landscape. Concrete isn’t charming, either, but it’s strong. Impenetrable. Coventry looks like the town knows things—like the woods of exhaust-dusted trees hold secrets they’ll never reveal.

Picturesque or not, however, this is not where one would expect to find the girl I’m pretending to be. The girl who could never mastermind today.

I lift my chin, drawing the crisp afternoon air into my lungs. There’s no hint of rain. Good. I had contingencies for rain, but they were more complicated. I don’t like complicated unless I’m in charge of the complications.

Everything is under control.

I walk to the white cargo van waiting on the pavement. The driver’s mirrored sunglasses stay facing forward when the vehicle’s sliding door rolls open to let me inside. Pulling the hem of my dress into place, I sit in the seat nearest the door, which I drag closed, sealing myself inside. There’s no going back now.

Wow, you’re being incredibly dramatic, I chastise myself. Did you ever wonder if you might be less high-strung if you, I don’t know, didn’t think uberserious movie-voice-over things like “THERE’S NO GOING BACK NOW”?

I put on my seat belt, my shoulders shivering involuntarily. It’s not nerves this time. The van is freezing—exactly how I specified.

In my lap, my clutch clatters with the plastic sound of my lipstick, its own reminder of what I have planned. I stole the makeup on one of the essentials-only convenience store trips my mom sent me on. It’s not the only time I’ve lifted something small in the years since my parents’ divorce. The paperweight from my dad’s attorney’s office, crystal figurines from classmates’ parties… I consider it “recreational petty larceny.”

While my little habit might’ve offered me inspiration, however, it’s nothing compared to the magnitude of today. Not even close.

The only other item in my clutch is my phone. They’re my final props designed to turn myself into a character, the stepdaughter acting out because her daddy is getting married.

Shit, I mean, maybe it’s the truth.

Steeling my nerves, I focus on my lock screen. The photo is of my parents and me from one of my dad’s companies’ fancy holiday parties. I’m fourteen, no idea what is coming for my polished life. My dress is expensive. My mom’s earrings glitter.

It’s a nice photo. Unsuspicious. Everyone, including my mom, would just assume I’m remembering my family in happier times.

No one except me knows what the photo really captures. The look in my father’s eyes, the same way he regarded me in the limo on the way to the event. His favorite glare.

I learned to recognize the prelude to his vicious impatience from exhaustingly frequent instances, whenever I dropped something or had my iPad too loud or left the house late. I’d caught it then for FaceTiming my friends from the limo. I guess I was noisy or annoying or just young and a girl or who knows.

Do everyone a favor, he snapped when I’d hung up. Keep your mouth shut tonight. While indignation flashed on my mom’s face, she knew not to provoke him further.

His glare in the photo is the perfect reminder of who he is. The careless cruelty—his unkind words were only a precursor to what would come next. Every way he would leave me needing to do what I’m planning. Every reason for ruthlessness.

The goal itself is simple. The passcodes to my dad’s online offshore accounts—handwritten, to be unhackable—are in the safe in his office, just feet from where he will be getting married in a few hours. We get into the wedding, get the combination to the safe, then get the passcodes. Steal his money.

And, more important, get revenge.

While the driver wordlessly pulls out onto the highway, I face the other passengers, projecting calm. In the back seat, laptop open, scrolling silently, with the white light of the screen highlighting the dark circles under her eyes, is Cassidy Cross. It’s the first glimpse I’ve gotten of the girl who will handle our technological requirements. Dressed entirely in black—which I did not require but very much respect—she’s frowning as if the expression is her default. Wire-cutter-sharp eyes stand out from her cream-pale skin, her curly hair pulled back from her face.

I leave her be. Despite going to the same school, we’ve only ever met over months of emails, which I’ve decided speaks well of her, given the unique circumstances of our new friendship. She looks like how she writes—efficient.

Next to her, Deonte Jones is dressed in the uniform of kitchen staff, carefully modeled on the online photos I found of the wedding’s caterers. The white coat with a precise black bow tie barely fits the present wearer’s frame. Deonte is Black, six feet tall, probably well over two hundred pounds. He’s built like a football player, which is convenient because he is a running back for East Coventry High, where I’ve gone since my dad punted me and my mom to Coventry—no football pun intended.

While we’re not friends friends, Deonte spending time with the football crowd and me falling in with my revolving door of popular-ish girls, we chat whenever we wind up in the same class or party.

I clear my throat before I speak, not wanting to have phlegm from hours of not talking to anyone during my shift in my first remark to my crew. Heist leaders do not have after-work phlegm. “Do you have the asset?”

In response, Deonte just nods his chin toward the back.

I follow the gesture to a tall cardboard box tied down with bungee cords. Bungee cords weren’t in The Plan, but they were the right move, I note. The box doesn’t budge when our driver rounds the corner onto one of the several truss bridges crossing rivers through Coventry. I’m grateful for Deonte’s improvisation.

“It doesn’t look big enough,” I say.

“That’s because it’s in pieces,” he replies. “It wasn’t safe to transport fully assembled.”

I nod silently. Once more, his logic checks out.

“Drive very carefully,” I tell the driver. Those bungee cords look sturdy, but one bump in the road and we’re screwed before we even get to the wedding.

I’m pleased when we take the next turn even slower. Glancing out the window, I determine we’re probably ten minutes from our next destination. Chitchat doesn’t feel like the vibe while we drive. Everybody’s probably hiding their nerves the same way I am, envisioning every moment, every step of the day.

I catch myself smiling from the dark humor of how jittery this wedding has us. I wonder if Maureen, my soon-to-be stepmom, is this nervous, or if self-involvement has entirely swallowed self-consciousness in the bride.

I know my dad isn’t nervous. For months, he’s been raring to convert this glaring evidence of his inability to maintain loving connections with women into his greatest success—a walk of shame spun into a victory lap. It’s classic Dad, like when he got a comedy cable channel—I forget which—to foot the bill for his “Un-Grammys” when the Grammys ruled his collection of famous episodes ineligible for various categories. His capacity for manipulating failings into marks of pride is rivaled only by his fear of looking like the loser-jerk he is.

Yeah, Dashiell Owens is not nervous.

In fact, I’m counting on it.

PAST THE BRIDGE, I WATCH THE VIEW OUT THE WINDSHIELD change while we move into the neighborhood of our next pickup, which is closer to the economic grade of where I grew up. Coventry’s one-stories with chain-link fences cede to the endless green lawns of East Greenwich, where trees hide long driveways curving up to stately homes with white shutters.

It’s September, the second week of my senior year of high school, the leaves giving up their green for the golden finery of fall. I imagine what my classmates must be doing right now instead of being crammed into this rental van. Waking up their summer-sluggish minds for the year’s first calculus problem set. Planning parties in the victory-lap halo of our final year of high school. College. The applications. The interviews. The fairs in the gym. It’s hard to imagine.

Will I even go to college? I don’t know. Although my father might step in and pay to save face, it’s not easy to contemplate leaving my mom with her debt, her lonely house. We’re the only light in each other’s days sometimes. With our present the way it looks, I don’t know how to make sense of my future.

It’s impossible to mock my compatriots’ high school preoccupations without recognizing how, deep down, I’m viciously hungry for their comforting simplicity. Much good mocking comes from jealousy, and much jealousy comes from circumstances like mine. It’s why I have such an effervescent sense of humor.

It’s also why I’m spending my Saturday in pursuit of stealing millions.

While I contemplate whether I wish I were doing homework right now instead, the van slows on the preternaturally pleasant streets. Where one of the driveways ends, our remaining member waits.

Tom Pham is going to be famous one day. You just know it when you see him. Not because he’s trying hard like most drama department prima donnas—but because he’s not. Everything, from the precise wattage of his knowing smile in every conversation to the easy slant of his posture right now, standing on the corner outside his house with his hands in his pockets, feels naturally charming and charmingly natural. He’s effortlessly cool, unflappably funny. Henry Golding meets Harry Styles in one sharply dressed chatterbox.

Right now, he looks ready to walk the red carpet. Like with Cassidy’s funereal ensemble, I did not request the exquisite flash of Tom’s outfit, the dark olive suit he pulls off with his nicely understated black tie on top of his crisp white shirt. The look is straight from GQ or Esquire except for the wide-petaled flower of his boutonniere, which is one-hundred-percent Tom Pham.

When the van pulls up, I haul the door open. Hands in his pockets, Tom cheerfully walks up to the car, where he fla. . .