The apartment was freezing. The heat had been shut off three days ago, another consequence of Lisa's systematic dismantling of our life together. I sat on the bare mattress, wrapped in my work jacket, watching my breath form clouds in the cold air.One week. That's all it had taken for my life to completely unravel.The divorce papers had arrived exactly as Lisa promised—a courier delivered them the very next morning. Lisa's father had hired Reeves & Holt, the most aggressive divorce attorneys in the city. I couldn't afford to even consult with a lawyer, let alone hire one to fight them.My phone buzzed. Another text from an unknown number that I recognized as one of Richard's business associates: "Job opportunity canceled. Position filled. Do not contact again."That made six potential jobs that had mysteriously disappeared in the past week. I didn't need to be a genius to figure out what was happening. Richard was calling in favors, making sure no one in the construction industry wo

The mysterious newspaper clipping haunted me. For three days, I carried it everywhere, reading it during lunch breaks and before bed, searching for clues I might have missed. The whistleblower mentioned in the article remained unnamed, but the timing aligned too perfectly with my own downfall to be coincidence.I finished the treatment center renovation ahead of schedule, impressing Jake enough that he offered me a permanent position as the facility's maintenance manager. The pay was still modest—$2,500 a month plus room and board—but it gave me stability, something I desperately needed."You've got a gift," Jake said as we walked through the completed women's wing. "These rooms could have been a disaster, but you turned them into something special."I looked around at the simple but thoughtfully finished spaces. I'd added built-in shelves, window seats, and soft lighting—small touches that transformed institutional rooms into places of healing. Somewhere along the way, the project ha

The first night in prison felt like the air had been sucked out of Mark Sanders’ lungs and replaced with smoke and gravel. Cold concrete pressed against his back as he lay on the thin, stained mattress, eyes wide open in the dark. The cell reeked of sweat, mildew, and regret—an odor that clung to his skin like guilt. Every sound echoed: the distant clatter of metal trays, a cough from the next block, a guard’s bored footsteps. Mark didn’t sleep that night. He stared at the ceiling and counted every time someone screamed.The morning didn’t offer much mercy. The clanging of metal against metal jarred him to his feet—breakfast time. Or as the guards called it, “feeding.” He shuffled into line with the other inmates, most of them hard-eyed men with tattoos crawling up their necks. They sized him up like wolves sniffing at a wounded deer. Mark kept his gaze low, his shoulders hunched. He didn’t speak unless spoken to. That first week, he barely ate. Even when hunger clawed at his ribs, hi

Mark returned to the prison library like it was church. Same hour. Same quiet steps. Same seat in the farthest corner, beneath the flickering light. The table was still lopsided, the air still cold. It smelled of aging books and something metallic, like rust clinging to silence. But to him, it was sacred ground. Cole joined him two minutes later, carrying an armful of books that looked like they hadn’t been touched since the Reagan era. Titles on finance, contract law, shell corporations, and tax loopholes were stacked between them like bricks. “We might as well get degrees by the time we’re done,” Cole muttered, letting the stack hit the table with a thud. “Some of this crap is dense. But if you want to find where the bodies are buried, start with the paperwork.” Mark opened a book on municipal zoning laws and scanned the index. His fingers stopped at a name that pulled at something in his gut. “Check this out.” He slid the book over. Cole leaned in. “City planning dispute filed

The library was quiet that afternoon, but Mark wasn’t flipping through business magazines or tracing hidden shell companies today. The old fluorescent light above his usual table flickered like it always did, and Cole was running late. That was fine. Mark needed a moment. A moment to breathe. A moment to remember.He closed the dusty book in front of him and leaned back in the crooked chair. His eyes drifted to the far wall of the library, but he wasn’t seeing shelves or concrete anymore. He was seeing her—Lisa.The memory hit without warning. So vivid, it was as if he could reach out and touch it. He remembered the first time they met. It was at a small community event, something simple. He’d gone to help a friend with sound equipment and ended up holding a mic that didn’t work. She’d laughed from the crowd, loud and clear, and somehow that sound had cut through everything. They locked eyes. That was it. That was the moment everything began.They didn’t have money. Mark was working t