Sophia’s gaze drifted to the folder on the table, the one embossed with Elara’s distinctive gold insignia. For a long time, she said nothing. Then she reached for it, her fingers tracing the crest as if it were a signature on fate itself.“Elara Crestwood,” she murmured. “The woman who paid Celestine’s bills before Jackson could. The one who sent lilies to the hospital. The one who made herself known without stepping into the light.”Of course she had done her own findings about Elara before now alongside other important personalities in the city. She already knew she'd face opposition both friendly and otherwise, and she already prepared herself for it.She flipped open the folder, scanning the first page of the proposal. The numbers were staggering. The influence—unmistakable.She remembered when she had been nothing more than an ambitious intern at Whitestone Dynamics, surrounded by men who looked at her brilliance as arrogance and her ideas as decoration. She had learned quickly

While all of those talks were busy going on in Evans’ recovery room, a nurse stepped quietly into a deserted corridor near the supply ward.Her name was Lorraine Beckett, and on the surface, she was everything a hospital nurse should be — efficient, polite, always where she needed to be, and never where she wasn’t supposed to. Her uniform was crisp, her shoes spotless, and her smile, when she wore it, was disarmingly gentle. But beneath that veneer of professional calm, Lorraine was far from ordinary.Within the underbelly of the City, her name carried an entirely different weight. To the underdogs, the smugglers, informants, and shadow brokers who thrived in the city’s darker corners she was known simply as “The Night Orderly.”When powerful men needed someone silenced permanently without leaving a trace, they didn’t send killers. Instead, they sent Lorraine. A well-placed sedative here, an “unexpected” allergic reaction there. And when death was too dramatic, she had other ways: m

The heavy doors of the State Conference Room shut with a muted thud, sealing in the quiet hum of voices that had been rising and falling for the past two hours. The long oval table gleamed beneath the warm light, strewn with stacks of papers, half-empty coffee cups, and tablets blinking with reports and projections. President Jonesboro sat at the head of the table, his fingers steepled beneath his chin, his expression calm but weighed by fatigue.For weeks, the nation had waited in limbo. The total eclipse that had darkened the skies and sparked panic across several states had forced an indefinite postponement of the presidential elections. The streets had only just begun to return to normal, and yet the air in the capital still felt… unsettled. Superstitions, conspiracies, whispers about celestial omens — they hadn’t entirely faded.“Mr. President,” began Secretary Alden Pierce, his tone clipped but respectful, “the Electoral Committee has concluded their assessment. The infrastruct

“Good morning, Evans.” Evans heard someone greet him that morning.He turned his head slowly. Nurse Lorraine stood by his bedside, adjusting the IV line with deliberate gentleness. Her hands were steady, her tone soft — the kind of voice trained to soothe agitation before it even began.Evans tried to speak, but his throat was dry, the words scraping out like gravel. “Are you the nurse assigned to take care of me?” He eventually managed to ask.Lorraine’s gaze flickered briefly to him, her expression warm but professional. “Yes I am. You know you’ve been unconscious for some weeks,” she said. “You were brought in badly injured. There was some internal trauma, a concussion. But I'm glad to see that you’re safe now.”Evans’ brows furrowed, his pulse quickening beneath the monitor’s steady rhythm. Brought in badly wounded? The words echoed hollowly. He tried to reach back — to remember the last thing he’d seen, the last face, the last voice — but his thoughts were a scattered puzzle, ed

Lorraine lingered near the bed after Evans spoke. For a moment, neither of them moved, and only the faint hum of the heart monitor filled the silence, a fragile rhythm that somehow felt human in a room built for control.She placed the tray down quietly, arranging the glass and pills with careful precision. Her training told her to leave, to keep her distance and her conscience clean. But her heart — the one thing she couldn’t seem to train — hesitated.“Have you been able to remember anything?” she asked softly, almost against her own will. “Before the accident, I mean.”Evans blinked, the question seeming to reach somewhere far away. “Pieces,” he murmured. “Flashes. Faces that fade when I try to hold on to them. Sounds. Rain.” He paused, rubbing his temples as if he could coax the memories back by force. “And...”Lorraine tilted her head. "And what?"“Samantha,” he said it like a prayer."The lady that was here yesterday?" Lorraine asked."Yes, she'd the one." Evans replied, his voi