The morning sun poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the kitchen, casting bright, cheerful beams across the white marble countertops. It was a beautiful, crisp morning, the kind of day Clara’s son would have begged to spend in the garden, searching for earthworms and building forts in the

The ballroom of the St. Regis was a sea of crystal chandeliers, cascading white orchids, and the clinking of champagne flutes. The annual Vance Real Estate Charity Gala was usually Clara’s favorite event of the year, a night where she could leverage her family’s generational influence to raise milli

The rain was falling in thick, heavy sheets, drumming a relentless, chaotic rhythm against the roof of Detective Thorne’s unmarked sedan. They were parked in the shadowy, deserted back lot of an abandoned strip mall on the outskirts of the city, miles away from the prying eyes of Julian’s private se