The air in the abandoned Sterling industrial warehouse on the edge of the Jersey shipyards tasted of salt, rust, and the metallic tang of old secrets. Lila huddled in the shadows of a rusted turbine, her breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches. The emerald silk dress once a symbol of Ethan’s affection was now torn at the hem and stained with the grime of a three-state flight.
She wasn't just running from the law anymore. She was running from a legacy of blood.
The tablet in her lap flickered, its blue light casting ghoulish shadows against her pale face. She had spent the last six hours decrypting the files she’d pulled from the Sterling family’s private server files her father had died trying to protect. Or rather, files that had turned her father from a proud security chief into a bro
