Part 1 My name’s Sam. I’m 32. And for as long as I can remember, my family operated on a very simple, very clear principle: there were two sons, but only one mattered. Spoiler: it wasn’t me. My older brother, Daniel, was the golden child. I don’t mean that in a casual, “oh, he was…

Part 1   The morning the prenup hit the marble, our kitchen smelled like coffee and citrus. Sinatra murmured from an old speaker Daniel insisted was “authentically American,” and a small flag magnet held a dry-cleaning ticket to the stainless-steel fridge. Three days before our wedding, the sky over Manhattan was the kind of clean…

The cold air outside the diner hit me like a physical blow, instantly freezing the sweat on my back. I didn’t have a coat—another casualty of the tight budget Mom and I lived on—so I just hunched my shoulders, shoved my hands into my pockets, and started the three-mile walk back to the edge of…

Part 1 The wind off the Atlantic cut through the morning haze as a silver sedan rolled to a stop at the main gate of Naval Support Base Sentinel Harbor. The floodlights hummed, catching the pale blue in the woman’s eyes as she stepped out, one hand steadying the strap of a heavy duffel. She…

PART 1 My hands were gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles had turned the color of bone. The engine was off to save gas, but the humid Georgia heat still clung to the interior of the car, heavy and suffocating. In the backseat, the rhythmic, soft breathing of three little boys—my boys, our…

PART 1: The Invisible Woman in the Glass Tower If you stand still enough in a room full of people who think they are gods, you cease to be a person. You become a texture. A smudge in the peripheral vision. I learned this art of disappearance three years ago, the day I traded my…

My name is Amara Jenkins, and I am the 28-year-old black sheep of my prominent Atlanta family. Two days ago, we buried my beloved grandparents, Elias and Loretta Bishop. Today, we sat in their lawyer’s office, the air thick with fake grief and real greed. My father, Pastor Marcus Jenkins, adjusted his suit, ready to…

Part 1: The Intruder in Seat 3A The air inside the cabin of Flight 417 didn’t smell like recycled oxygen and stale pretzels. Not in Business Class. Here, it smelled of expensive leather, hints of Bergamot cologne, and the distinct, sterile scent of money. I sat in seat 3A, trying to make myself smaller than…