Bride and Boss

My father owed a number he could not pay, so on a Tuesday morning I stood in a law office in Newark and signed my name next to Ruslan Agapov's. Two witnesses, one notary, no flowers. He got the freight company. I got the trucks, the invoices, and the accounts, and the first thing I did as a married woman was tell my new husband I would not be changing my name. He did not argue. He moved into the office down the hall. He ran his audits across my desk. And then I found a payment in the books with a signature I recognized, and I made the mistake every woman in my position makes: I decided I could handle it myself. I met the thief in a diner and cut a deal he had no intention of honoring. Now I'm in the back of a truck in Elizabeth, my husband is on his way with a stack of papers and a lighter, and I have to figure out which of us is going to walk out of this with the company.