Amanda Carter sat alone in her office at Carter & Associates long after the rest of the building had emptied. Her fingers tapped an erratic rhythm on the glass desk.Her phone lay face down beside a stack of files she’d read and reread until the words blurred together. Outside, the city hummed, but she couldn’t hear it. All she could hear was her mother’s voice—echoes from before the coma, promises, warnings. And Jake’s voice too—steady, insistent, threatening to break the last fragile strand of loyalty she had left.She turned the phone over and over. She could call Jake, tell him she was done spying for him, done pretending to stand in the gap between him and Diane. Or she could call Diane’s nurse, ask again if there’d been any change, some flicker that her mother would wake up and take this impossible choice out of her hands.A knock at the glass wall startled her. Ethan Brooks leaned against the doorframe, sleeves rolled up, tie loose. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days—and he

Jake Sullivan stood alone on the top floor of an abandoned high-rise overlooking the Carter estate. The city stretched beneath him like a glittering map of everything he’d spent years trying to take back. He could see it now—his father’s legacy, buried under Carter money and secrets, finally clawing its way to the surface.He checked his phone. Amanda hadn’t replied. He could almost feel her hesitation, the tug-of-war inside her pulling in two directions. Part of him hated that she still mattered so much. Another part counted on it.Greg’s voice crackled in his earpiece. “Perimeter’s clear. We’ve got eyes on the north gate. If Richard tries to move anything tonight, we’ll know.”Jake nodded, eyes never leaving the distant windows of Diane’s mansion. “Good. Keep the team tight. No mistakes.”“Copy that. And Jake—watch yourself. Diane’s not dead yet.”Jake let a humorless smile ghost across his lips. “Neither am I.”He killed the connection and slipped the earpiece out. The wind at this

The city was waking up by the time Jake stepped out of the Carter estate’s iron gates. A thin dawn mist rolled off the river, swallowing the marble lions at the driveway entrance. He didn’t bother to look back at the house on the hill — that mausoleum of old money and rotting secrets.In his coat pocket, Project Phoenix felt heavier than any gold bar he’d ever stolen. It wasn’t just an account number. It was a kill switch. A promise. A grave marker with Diane Carter’s name half-carved into it.Jake crossed the empty street to where Greg waited in a black sedan. The engine idled low, headlights off. When Greg saw Jake’s knuckles bloodied, his eyes flicked to the passenger seat like he expected another corpse.Jake slid in. “Drive.”Greg didn’t ask questions. He never did. That was why he was still alive.---They drove in silence. Past the shuttered high-rises, the neon signs going dark, the clubs letting out their last drunks. This city had always felt like a coffin to Jake — too many

The rain had stopped by dawn, but the city outside the Carter estate still wore its storm like a bruise. Gray clouds drifted low over the skyline, suffocating the sun before it could warm the glass and stone towers that Jake Sullivan now claimed piece by piece.Inside the estate, Amanda Carter stood by the tall windows of her mother’s old study, eyes fixed on the heavy iron gates that guarded the family’s last sanctuary. Her phone vibrated on the mahogany desk behind her — another message from Jake. This one she didn’t open. She knew exactly what it would say: another promise, another threat, another plea to pick his side before the wolves closed in.She wrapped her arms around herself, breath fogging the glass. She could almost see him — Jake, somewhere in the city he’d made bleed for him. The same city that had spat him out once, broke him, and now crowned him king of shadows.She’d loved that boy once. Maybe she still did. But Henry Blackwood had slipped his claws into the cracks t

The Carter estate stood shrouded in uneasy silence, the calm before a storm far fiercer than any before. The walls that had witnessed decades of power plays, whispered deals, and family secrets now seemed fragile — brittle like old glass waiting to shatter. Inside, Amanda Carter paced the length of the study, her mind a tempest of fear, fury, and reluctant determination.Richard sat nearby, monitoring security feeds and intercepted communications. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, ready to respond to any threat.“They’re coming,” he said quietly, not looking up.Amanda stopped, breathing shallow.“Where?” she asked.“Every entrance, every window. It’s coordinated. Blackwood’s men have the estate surrounded.”Her heart thudded so loud it felt like a drum heralding doom.Outside, the city streets were eerily quiet, the calm stretched thin under heavy clouds. From a concealed position across the avenue, Henry Blackwood watched through high-powered binoculars, his face unreadable ben