`”IS CURRENTLY SITTING IN YOUR LIVING ROOM IN LAKEWOOD.”
The room seemed to lose its gravitational center in a fraction of a second.
The blood on my shirt cuff grew cold as mountain ice.
My phone in my coat pocket began to vibrate—a frantic, continuous, violent pulse that rattled against my ribs:
*BZZZZT.
BZZZZT.
BZZZZT.
*
I pulled out the phone.
The caller identifier on the glowing screen was not a corporate extension.
It was my home landline in Lakewood.
I swiped the screen.
I brought the phone to my ear.
A voice answered—smooth, cultured, terrifyingly reasonable, accompanied by the faint, background sound of my seven-year-old daughter Chloe practicing her scales on our upright piano:
*”Sebastian, my dear boy,”* the man said through the earpiece.
The voice of **Vice Admiral Arthur Sterling (Retired)**.
Nick’s father.
Eleanor’s oldest brother.
*”You have caused an exceptional amount of administrative friction for eleven o’clock on a Friday morning.”
