flash
The glass paperweight had missed Luke’s head by an inch, shattering against the mahogany bookshelf and raining razor-sharp crystal shards across the Persian rug. I sat in my custom, leather-upholstered titanium wheelchair, chest heaving, the phantom pain in my shins flaring like a blowtorch. / Chapter 1 / 20

Chapter 1 - The Silver Shard

The glass paperweight had missed Luke’s head by an inch, shattering against the mahogany bookshelf and raining razor-sharp crystal shards across the Persian rug. I sat in my custom, leather-upholstered titanium wheelchair, chest heaving, the phantom pain in my shins flaring like a blowtorch.

"Clean it up," I snapped, my voice a gravel-rough rasp that usually made grown men scramble.

Emma didn't flinch. She stood in the doorway of my private study, holding a bucket and a mop, her shoulders sagging under the weight of an exhaustion so profound it seemed physical. She looked at the glittering mess, then up at me. Her eyes—a startling, clear amber—held no fear, only a bitter, bone-deep weariness.

"Do you want me to stop working?" she asked, her voice steady and flat. "Because if I stop, I don't get paid. And if I don't get paid, my mother gets kicked out of her memory-care facility by Friday."

Silence slammed into the room. Luke stiffened, his hand instinctively dropping toward the 9mm Glock holstered under his tailored suit jacket. For two years, nobody spoke to Daniel Vance this way. Not capos, not politicians, not the terrified medical professionals who fled my estate in tears.

I stared at her. Really stared at her. The cheap cotton of her oversized sweater, the scuffed sneakers, the raw skin on her knuckles from too much dish soap.

"You're new," I said quietly, the fury in my chest suddenly replaced by a strange, sharp curiosity.

"First night. The agency said you were difficult," she replied, dropping to her knees right there among the glass shards. She didn't wait for permission. She began picking up the larger pieces with her bare hands.

"Watch the glass, it'll cut you," I muttered, leaning forward.

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