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Part 1 The ammonia smell of the mop water was the first thing I registered. The second was the laughter. It was 06:30 at the main galley, Naval Station Norfolk. The breakfast rush. The clatter of trays, the smell of burnt coffee and cheap bacon, and the sharp, pressed laughter of young officers trying to…

Exactly 7:00 a.m., Lucas Grant stepped from the back of his gleaming black car and moved toward the towering glass entrance of Grant Technologies. His gray suit was immaculate, his shoes mirrored the pavement, and his every step was precise. The automatic doors slid open before he even reached them, as if the building itself…

Part 1 Freshly brewed coffee and pastries in the mornings. But let me tell you from the beginning, because this story doesn’t start with a lock. It starts much earlier. Back when I still believed that being a good mother meant giving everything and expecting nothing in return. My name is Emily. I’m 67 years…

Part 1 The fear started on a Tuesday. It wasn’t the usual kind of fear I lived with—the dull, chronic ache of “Can I make rent?” or the sharp spike of “Was that a footstep in the hall?” This was new. This was different. It was black, shiny, and sat across the street from my…

Part 1 “Try not to make it awkward. Behave yourself for once.” Hudson doesn’t even look up from his phone when he says it. He just takes another sip of his scotch, completely casual, like he’s reminding me to pick up his dry cleaning instead of demanding I host his ex-girlfriend at our Christmas dinner….

Part 1 If a twenty-dollar bill could buy a future, mine should have come with change. Five years after I left home in the rain with pneumonia and “address unknown” printed on a hospital bracelet, I sat behind an interview desk in Denver and watched the sister who once smirked as I walked into the…

Part 1 The salt spray felt good on my face, a sharp, clean sting that cut through the cloying cloud of expensive perfume and quiet, derisive laughter. I was an island. That’s the word the source material used, and it was right. I stood on the polished teak deck of a yacht so large it…

Part 1 My world runs on a ticker tape. 8:00 AM, Hong Kong exchange. 9:30 AM, NYSE open. 4:00 PM, the bell. My life is a series of calculated acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, and hostile takeovers. I am Richard Sterling, and my office on the 54th floor is a glass-walled command center where I move markets….

Part 1 The first sound wasn’t the gunfire. It was the static. A burst of it, sharp and electric, that sliced through the humid jungle air and right into my ear. Then came the voice. “Haze to all callsigns… Contact, contact, contact! Ambush, three directions! We are… taking heavy fire… enemy strength is… fifty, maybe…

PART 1 My name is Sarah Martinez. I’m twenty-eight years old, and I look like I’m about to ask for prom directions. I stepped off the bus at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, clutching a worn duffel bag and squinting into the thin, gold light of early morning. The air was soft, humid, and smelled like damp…

Part 1 The October air in the Cascades has a bite that gets in your bones. It’s a wet, penetrating cold, and it’s the first thing I remember about that day. The second is the silence. I’m Emily. I live with my Grams in a cabin that’s been in our family for four generations, tucked…

PART 1 “Unlike some people, I picked a real career.” My sister Emily raised her champagne glass. The crowd at her perfect, glittering wedding laughed. I smiled until my cheeks ached. Her words felt like a slap, sharp and clean, aimed directly at me. I was “some people.” I sat at Table 9, the one…