All Chapters of Market of Remorse : Chapter 1
- Chapter 10
60 chapters
The Billion-Dollar Hangover
Chapter 1: The Billion-Dollar HangoverThe wood of the desk was cold against Jianro’s cheek, smelling of cheap veneer and stale coffee. He bolted upright, his lungs burning as if he had just surfaced from the depths of a dark ocean. His hands flailed, knocking a half-empty mug of lukewarm caffeine across a stack of overdue notices."Where... where is the needle?" Jianro rasped, his voice cracking. He clawed at his chest, expecting the sharp, agonizing sting of the lethal injection or the cold shackles of the federal transport. "Am I dead? Is this the box?"He stared at his hands. They weren't the withered, scarred hands of the man who had spent the last three years in a high-security cell. They were smooth, the skin taut over young knuckles, free of the tremors that had plagued his final days."Wait," he whispered, his eyes darting around the room. "This isn't a cell. This is... my old apartment on 4th Street."He stood up so quickly his chair tumbled backward, clattering against the
Last Updated : 2026-09-02
The Analyst and the Anomaly
Chapter 2: The Analyst and the AnomalyThe door handle rattled again, more violently this time. Jianro’s heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. His eyes darted from the glowing phone screen—Don’t answer—to the wooden slab that was the only thing separating him from the unknown."Jianro? Man, I know you’re in there! I can see the light under the crack of the door. Open up, it’s freezing out here!"Jianro exhaled, the tension leaving his body in a shaky hiss. It was Makari. But his relief was short-lived. Why had the mysterious texter warned him?He stepped toward the door, his hand hovering over the deadbolt. "Makari? You alone?""Yeah, of course I’m alone! Who else would I be with? The ghost of Christmas past? Open the door, we’re gonna be late for the gala."Jianro unlocked the door and pulled it open. Makari stood there, adjusting a slightly crooked bowtie, looking every bit the eager junior partner. He pushed past Jianro into the cramped apartment, smelling of cheap c
Last Updated : 2026-09-02
Two Players, One Board
Chapter 3: Two Players, One BoardJianro didn’t pull away. He stood his ground, the cold wind of the balcony whipping his hair across his forehead. He looked into Amara’s eyes—the eyes of the woman who had professionally decapitated him in a courtroom three years from now—and felt a strange, twisted sense of kinship."A hit?" Jianro repeated, his voice barely a whisper. "You’re saying the bankruptcy wasn't just a result of my own stupidity? That someone pulled the strings?"Amara let out a sharp, jagged laugh. "Stupidity? Jianro, you were a genius. That was the problem. You were a genius who didn't know when to stop digging. You hit a vein of gold that belonged to people who don't like to share. So they buried you in the hole you dug.""And you," Jianro said, his eyes narrowing. "You were the one who threw the first shovel of dirt. You dismantled Kestane Tech like you were taking apart a Lego set.""I was doing my job!" Amara snapped, her composure fracturing. She stepped back, rubbin
Last Updated : 2026-09-02
The Art of the Scams
Chapter 4: The Art of the ScamsJianro didn’t drink. He stood frozen, the crystal glass a heavy weight in his palm, his eyes scanning the blur of tuxedos and gowns for that flash of red."Jianro, seriously, you’re turning gray," Amara said, her voice cutting through his spiraling thoughts. "What’s in the glass?""Smell it," Jianro commanded, his voice tight.Amara leaned in, her nose wrinkling as she took a cautious sniff. She frowned, then snatched the glass from his hand. She took a tiny sip before Jianro could stop her."Wait! Don't—"Amara swirled the liquid in her mouth, then swallowed, looking unimpressed. "It’s a Godfather, Jianro. Scotch and Amaretto. High-end stuff, too. Whoever sent this just has really specific taste in vintage cocktails."Jianro stared at her, his heart still hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. "Amaretto? It smells like bitter almonds. That’s the scent of cyanide."Amara let out a dry, sharp laugh. "Yeah, because Amaretto is literally made from al
Last Updated : 2026-09-02
The Butterfly's Heavy Wings
Chapter 5: The Butterfly's Heavy WingsThe roar of the explosion was a physical weight, a wall of heat that slammed into Jianro’s back and propelled him through the doorway. He didn’t feel the floor as he skidded across the hallway, only the searing sting on his neck and the suffocating scent of ozone and scorched carpet."Amara!" he choked out, coughing through a cloud of plaster dust.A hand caught his shoulder, trembling but firm. Amara was hunched beside him, her expensive silk dress torn at the hem, her face smeared with soot. She was gasping for air, her eyes wide with a manic sort of clarity."I’m here," she wheezed. "I’m... god, I’m going to kill you, Jianro. I’m actually going to kill you if that fire doesn't do it first.""Move," Jianro commanded, grabbing her arm and hauling her toward the stairs. "The whole floor is going to go. The gas line was wide open."They stumbled down the narrow staircase, bursting out into the cool night air of 6th Street just as the second-story
Last Updated : 2026-09-02
Close Proximity and Corporate Espionage
Chapter 6: Close Proximity and Corporate EspionageThe red text on the monitor shimmered like a fresh wound. Jianro’s heart did a slow, heavy roll in his chest, but he didn't let his expression flicker. He had spent three years in a cage with men who would kill him for a pack of cigarettes; he knew how to keep his face a mask of stone."Wow," Jianro said, his voice loud, artificial, and dripping with forced wonder. "Look at this resolution, Amara. Sefan really didn’t skimp on the hardware. This penthouse is incredible."Amara stared at the screen, her mouth hanging open for a fraction of a second before she saw Jianro’s eyes. They were cold, sharp, and screaming a warning. She swallowed hard, her years of training as a corporate shark kicking in."The resolution is fine, Jianro," she snapped, her voice rising in a pitch of practiced annoyance. "But I don't care about the pixels. I care about the fact that you’re actually sitting here admiring the wallpaper while my father’s life’s wor
Last Updated : 2026-09-02
Red Sirens and Rusty Vaults
Chapter 7: Red Sirens and Rusty Vaults"Are you out of your mind? The elevators are dead!" Amara screamed over the deafening, high-pitched wail of the building’s emergency klaxons."I know!" Jianro slammed his shoulder against the heavy fire door at the end of the corridor. It didn’t budge. "Help me with this! If the automatic magnetic locks engage, we’re trapped in Sefan’s private cage.""Use your head, Jianro! Why would we run toward the secondary server suite if the main room just blew up?" Amara threw her weight against the metal door alongside him. The metal groaned, but the latch remained stubbornly closed."Because the fire suppression system in the main hall uses Halon gas," Jianro grunted, his muscles straining. "If we stay out there, we suffocate in ninety seconds. This door has a manual mechanical override on the interior release. Push!""I am pushing!" Amara’s face was flushed red, her designer dress torn at the shoulder, revealing soot-stained skin. "On three! One... two.
Last Updated : 2026-09-07
The Shadow Beneath the Rails
Chapter 8: The Shadow Beneath the RailsThe heavy iron door swung open with a shriek of rusted hinges, plunging Jianro and Amara into absolute darkness. Jianro dragged her across the threshold just as the corridor behind them vanished in a roaring wave of white Halon gas. The thick, chemical fog slammed against the exterior of the door, hissing as it settled over the reinforced steel.Amara slumped against the damp concrete wall, dragging air into her lungs in ragged, trembling gasps. Her hands were shaking so violently she could barely tuck a stray lock of soot-stained hair behind her ear."We're... we're cut off," she wheezed, her voice echoing in the vast, subterranean hollow of the defunct archive. "The alarms are still going off upstairs. Every corporate rent-a-cop and city patrol unit from here to the financial district is going to descend on this block in three minutes.""They won't find us if we keep moving," Jianro said, not breaking stride as he felt along the wall for the e
Last Updated : 2026-09-07
The Ledger and the Ghost
Chapter 9: The Ledger and the Ghost"Move," Jianro rasped, his hand locking around Amara's wrist as the distant, rhythmic throb of police chopper blades began to reverberate through the damp concrete ceiling above them.Amara stumbled, catching her footing on a bed of decaying manila folders that littered the floor of the abandoned subterranean archive. The air down here tasted of metallic dust, sulfur, and eighty years of bureaucratic rot."I am moving," she hissed, yanking her arm free with a sharp jerk. "You don't have to drag me like a sack of stolen hardware. My heels are already ruined, Jianro, and if you think I'm spending another night crawling through sewer grates—""Quiet," Jianro snapped, raising a single palm as he froze beside a rusted structural pillar. His eyes darted across the gloom, tracking the faint, linear sweep of a security camera mounted near the far ceiling. It was dead—its little red status diode completely dark—but the mounting bracket was suspiciously clean
Last Updated : 2026-09-07
The Encryption We Forgot
Chapter 10: The Encryption We Forgot"Look at this bracket," Jianro muttered, his fingers brushing against the cold, grease-free steel of the dead camera mounting. "It hasn’t accumulated a single speck of dust. Someone has been servicing these lines within the last forty-eight hours. Sefan didn't just abandon this subterranean floor; he kept a live feed running straight into his private terminal."Amara limped over, wincing as her ruined high heel crunched against a drift of damp, decaying municipal ledgers. She squinted up into the gloom, her face illuminated only by the faint, pulsing blue glow of the damaged datapad she clutched like a shield against her chest."Which means this entire archive isn't an escape route," Amara said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, chilled whisper. "It’s a designated funnel. He knew someone would try to pull data logs after the server room blew. He engineered the blast radius to herd us right into his trap.""Then we change directions," Jianro said i
Last Updated : 2026-09-07