Part 2
I clutched my stomach, the iron skillet rattling against the floorboards as Margaret let out an exaggerated sigh from the adjacent dining room. “Really, Emma? Must you be so clumsy? The kids are hungry!” she called out.
I didn’t answer. I couldn't. I stumbled to the downstairs half-bath, locking the door behind me with trembling fingers. When I lifted...
PART 2
I woke on the kitchen floor with Walter holding a clean towel against my abdomen.
“Call an ambulance,” he ordered.
Ryan stood frozen with my phone in his hand.
I snatched it from him and called the surgical clinic myself. The nurse told me not to wait for an ambulance unless I became faint again. Walter drove me while Ryan remained...
Part 1
Bleach was burning through the raw skin of my knuckles as my future mother-in-law poured a fresh glass of Dom Pérignon directly onto my head.
"Scrub harder, Catherine," Victoria Caldwell hissed, her diamond rings catching the morning light inside the grand ballroom of Newport’s Rosecliffe Mansion. "You’re a penniless orphan marrying into Wall Street royalty. If you want our...
Part 1
My name is Catherine Pembroke, and five minutes ago, I was kneeling on the freezing marble floor of Newport’s grandest mansion, scrubbing industrial bleach into my chemical-burned hands.
“Scrub harder, you worthless orphan,” Victoria Caldwell sneered from her velvet armchair, sipping champagne as the toxic fumes burned my throat. “My son’s wedding floor needs to shine, and since you...
Part 2
I didn't turn around. I kept my fingers locked like a vice on the dying Ranger's carotid artery, feeling the frantic, weakening thrum of his pulse beneath my grip.
"Put the gun down, Marcus," I ordered, my voice cutting through the blaring klaxons. "If I move my hand, this kid bleeds out in exactly forty seconds. You shoot me,...
PART 2
The alarms were not for the storage rooms.
A special-operations convoy had overturned on a mountain access road, and the first casualties were already coming through the ambulance bay.
Colonel Hale released Tyler.
“Get Bennett out of here,” he ordered.
Then a medic shouted from the corridor, “We need every available provider!”
I pulled away from the escorting officer. “How many patients?”
“Seven. Two...
Part 2
SMASH.
The sharp, violent sound of shattering crystal echoed through the opulent ballroom like a gunshot. The ambient chatter of the elite guests died instantly. The string quartet in the corner fumbled to a painful, screeching halt. Hundreds of eyes snapped toward us, drawn by the sudden disruption in the otherwise flawless evening.
Chloe gasped, her face flushing a deep,...
PART 2
“I didn’t die,” I said. “I was missing for thirty-six hours.”
Luke caught the back of a chair.
Brianna looked between us. “What is he talking about?”
Luke held up the photograph. “Three years ago, my team was trapped after an avalanche during a classified recovery mission in Alaska. Our beacon failed. Two men were badly injured, and the temperature was...
Part 2
Chloe stared at me like I was a hallucination. A twelve-year-old girl in a pink hoodie, ordering a commercial pilot to surrender control of a plummeting aircraft.
"Are you out of your mind?!" Chloe screamed, her knuckles white as she fought the yoke. "If I let go, we nose-dive!"
"You’re fighting the trim, not just his weight!" I yelled back,...
PART 2
My father’s voice came through a second later.
“Sophie, stay beside the first officer. Do not touch anything she does not ask you to touch.”
Hearing him almost broke me.
“Dad, Captain Hale is unconscious.”
“I know. The fighters are checking you from outside.”
The lead jet belonged to Commander Aaron Blake, my father’s former wingman. His aircraft held position beyond our right...
