Chapter one
It was a bright afternoon in Dusane, the kind where the sky looked almost too clean.
Not a single cloud hovered over the hills.
The sun beamed down on everything—bold, hot, and smug—like it knew the rich preferred their sins well-lit.
And sitting at the edge of the city's northern cliffs, a mansion shimmered like a crown.
White marble. Gold-gilded railings. A garden that smelled like imported jasmine. It wasn't a house. It was a statement.
The people who worked there had already memorized the script—
Walk soft. Speak softer. Don't touch anything that shines. Don't look the boss in the eyes.
Inside the foyer, chilled air floated around velvet walls and glittering chandeliers.
A guard posted at the front adjusted his blazer, wiped sweat from his brow, and shifted his grip on the assault rifle slung across his chest. He didn't like how quiet it was.
From the kitchen: soft humming.
From the upstairs: a child laughing.
From the main lounge: nothing.
Then came the snap.
A single pop—distant, sharp.
The guard flinched, eyes narrowing as his fingers curled around his weapon. He turned toward the sound, his voice breaking the silence.
"...Did you hear that?"
Another guard approached, half-suspicious, half-relaxed.
"Probably just construction across the road, chill—"
Then the second pop came.
And this one wasn't distant.
It was a gunshot.
Then another.
And then—hell opened up.
The front doors exploded off their hinges.
Smoke surged in, thick and gray.
Figures in black flooded the doorway—armed, masked, fast. They didn't hesitate. They didn't shout. They just started firing.
The first guard caught a bullet through the throat before he even squeezed the trigger.
The second dove behind the piano, rolled, fired back.
Gunfire cracked loud and sharp through the luxurious halls—bouncing off expensive stone, ripping through custom walls. One of the intruders caught a shoulder shot, stumbled, and returned fire with twice the anger.
Glass shattered.
Portraits were torn.
Blood painted the hallway floors, mixing with crystal and ash.
Upstairs, the boy's laughter had stopped.
The woman who had been sipping champagne in her robe was now dragging him down the corridor, barefoot, whispering,
"Don't cry—don't cry—shhh—baby, go, go—"
They didn't make it far.
A third gunman rounded the corner.
One second of screaming.
Two flashes.
Both bodies fell where sunlight spilled through the skylight.
Downstairs, the intruders moved like they knew the blueprint.
They weren't robbing this place. They were cleansing it.
One by one, guards fell. Some managed to fire back — the echo of their shots fierce with desperation.
In the dining hall, two men tried to set up a last stand behind the marble table—they were torn apart in seconds.
A chef hid under the counter. A maid in the linen closet held her breath so long she fainted.
And still, the sun poured through the windows like nothing was wrong.
Still bright. Still warm.
Rafe Durov had never looked so pitiful.
Once hailed as the silver-tongued puppeteer of Velvrai's political machine now soaked in blood, coughing, crawling.
His custom loafers were gone.
His jaw was split.
His gold watch had cracked somewhere between the kitchen and the emergency passage under the stairs.
"They weren't supposed to come here," he wheezed to himself. "Not like this—not in daylight—"
Every breath tasted like iron.
He dragged himself past a trail of bodies—his own escorts, riddled with bullets, twitching or still. Flames had started somewhere behind him, eating the corner drapes. The heat rose slowly but steadily.
Then the air shifted again.
Different boots.
Not fast.
Not clumsy.
Not loud.
Just… present.
He turned his head
And there he was.
Silas Moreau.
Not introduced. Not announced. Not explained.
A tall, brutal figure standing in the smoke like he belonged there.
Chest heaving. Shirt half ripped, soaked with blood and sweat, clinging to muscles that looked like they'd been carved with a blade. Sunlight slashed across his face, highlighting the way his jaw locked. The calm in his eyes was almost inhuman.
He didn't raise the gun right away.
He just stared. Watching.
Rafe began to cry.
"Silas. No. Please—listen to me—don't do this. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't flip. I swear on my—my son—"
He shouldn't have said son.
Silas blinked once.
And that was the only mercy he gave.
The gun rose.
Not quick.
Not dramatic.
Just final.
And then—shots.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Each one a punctuation mark.
Each one silencing the sobs, the begging, the lies.
Blood sprayed across the walls. The gold chain around Rafe's neck twisted as his body jerked with each hit, then slumped.
Dead.
Done.
Silas exhaled, rolled his neck, and calmly turned away.
In the distance, more shouting—his boys, still clearing the last rooms.
He pressed two fingers to his earpiece.
"Target's down. Pull out. Clean it."
Then he walked, stepping over the splinters of what once was wealth.
No rush. No guilt. No hesitation.
The smoke curled behind him.
And the fire reached higher.
Outside, the mansion sat in the golden sun, burning like a cursed offering.
From the far road, sirens finally wailed in the distance too late. As always.
And when the smoke cleared...
The mansion's skeleton groaned under its own weight — wood creaking, glass dripping from blackened window frames. The sun above didn't care. It spilled harsh light across the wreckage like truth across a wound.
Sage Marlowe knelt beside the blood-slick floor.
The tiles had cracked — not from fire, but from force.
Close-range. Multiple shooters. No hesitation.
He didn't need the forensics to tell him that.
He could feel it. The violence still lived here — it hadn't had time to fade.
Behind him, two technicians moved carefully around tagged bodies. Their boots whispered against ash. One of them was talking softly into a recorder. The other pointed out casings — one of them still warm. That meant less than an hour ago, this place was alive.
Now? Death hummed through the walls like static.
Sage stood slowly, his gaze dragging up to the grand staircase — or what was left of it. The gold banister was melted, one step sagging like a broken jaw. Blood trailed halfway down before stopping. No body there. Just the trail.
He was already calculating when the engine purred behind him.
Sage didn't turn.
He heard the tires first — soft on gravel. Then heels, confident and even. The rhythm was familiar. Expensive.
> Draya.
He turned only when the perfume cut through smoke. Expensive. Icy. Intentional.
Draya Castillo walked toward him like she ran the scene — because she did.
A tailored charcoal suit hugged her figure, dark shades perched sharp on her face. Behind her trailed two shadows:
Tina Rodrigo, tight bun, tighter blazer, lips pursed in passive judgment.
Trent Argo, taller, broader, scanning the wreckage like he thought it might be impressed by him.
Sage exhaled and shut his eyes for half a beat.
Draya didn't waste time.
"Detective Marlowe," she said, her voice smooth, "you're supposed to be home."
Sage turned fully to face her now. "Suspension ends today."
"You were expected back tomorrow. Your desk's still collecting dust."
"I figured I'd start where it matters." His tone was calm, almost casual. "This seemed like a decent welcome back."
Draya's jaw tensed — barely. She didn't argue.
Instead, she turned to Tina and Trent, nodding once.
They peeled off like eager vultures, stalking toward the body bags and charred curtains.
"You're not on this one, Sage," she said.
"Not yet."
"You won't be. Not this case."
She paused. "Go home. Rest. Come in tomorrow. That's an order."
He looked past her — just for a second — at Tina, snapping photos like she knew what she was doing, and Trent pretending he could read bullet patterns. Both of them glancing back at him with matching smirks.
He met their eyes, expression unreadable.
Draya checked her phone. "Your ride's outside."
Of course it was.
She didn't ask — she called it. Already.
Sage gave one last look at the blood on the floor. The hallway. The upstairs landing with the missing body.
So many questions hanging in the smoke.
He stepped past Draya without a word.
As he walked toward the waiting car, Tina's voice behind him was just loud enough:
"Try not to get suspended again, princess."
Sage didn't break stride.
Didn't flip her off.
Didn't say a word.
But as the car door shut behind him, the tension followed.
Pressed up against his spine like a promise.
The city was still loud behind him — sirens fading, engines coughing, a baby crying somewhere down the block. But in front of him stood silence.
Brooks Library.
Modest, ivy-veiled, nestled between a bakery and an old florist like it'd always been there, surviving off dust and secrets. The kind of place people walk past a hundred times without ever stepping in.
The Uber rolled off.
Sage Marlowe stood still for a second, eyes skimming the carved wooden sign above the door.
"Brooks Library."
It had always looked too peaceful for the kind of shit they cooked beneath it.
He exhaled — slow — and pushed the door open.
A bell chimed overhead.
The air inside smelled like aged paper, bourbon, and something faintly metallic. Jazz spilled softly from a speaker near the counter, something old and crackling, maybe Miles. The lighting was dim, golden, like the library had been dipped in honey.
Behind the counter, Devon Hart sat leaned back in a cracked leather chair — one boot on the desk, a half-full whiskey bottle within arm's reach. His eyes were glued to the TV bolted above the bookshelf, where the news anchor's voice cracked through static.
> "…again, Rage Durov — former Senator, real estate tycoon, and long-time political disruptor — was found murdered this afternoon in what investigators are calling an 'unprecedented breach of security.'"
> "...no known witnesses, no camera footage, no surviving guards. Local authorities say the killer left no trace. None. This, paired with other recent high-profile murders, is beginning to suggest the emergence of a signature assassin…"
Devon didn't look up. "You're late."
Sage smirked faintly. "You're drunk."
Now Devon looked. His entire face lit up with that devil-may-care charm.
"My man's finally free," he grinned, standing up and opening his arms. "Suspension over, reputation still messy. Just how I like you."
They hugged — one of those quick, heavy ones that said a lot more than it looked like. Then they both pulled back, trading tired smiles.
"You know," Devon said, grabbing the bottle and pouring another glass, "you walking into crime scenes before your badge is officially reactivated is bold. Real bold."
Sage shrugged, eyes still on the news broadcast. "They gave me tomorrow. I chose today."
Devon handed him a glass. "Yeah, well. Word is, you chose a real bloody one."
Sage watched the screen.
Footage from a chopper showed smoke still lifting from the politician's scorched mansion.
"Whoever did it," he murmured, "wanted to make a statement."
Devon sipped. "He made it loud."
There was a pause — not awkward, just… dense.
Then Sage asked, low: "You hold it down while I was gone?"
Devon didn't answer right away. He walked back behind the counter, setting the bottle down with a quiet clink.
"I didn't let them tear anything down," he said. "That's all that matters."
There was more behind those words.
Something in his jaw. Something in his silence.
Sage didn't press.
"Quinn in?" he asked instead.
Devon nodded toward the history section. "Tinkering. She's been restless since the Garrison case blew up. You know how she gets when bodies start stacking."
Sage moved past the front desk, brushing a hand along the spines of well-worn books. He stopped in front of an old wooden shelf — second row, third column — and pulled out two books in rapid succession.
Click. Whirrrr.
The mechanism inside the wall groaned awake, releasing a quiet hiss of pressurized air. The bookshelf slid aside with smooth precision, revealing a narrow hallway bathed in sterile blue light.
The door closed behind him.
And just like that, the quiet library was gone.