A pause.
“And then,” I finish quietly, “we see what he’s willing to lose.”
Somewhere across the continent, Lena Hart sleeps—unaware that she has just become the next front in the war.
And when she wakes?
Nothing will feel safe again.
43
Lena
Location: Coastal North Carolina — Afternoon
The café is crowded.
That’s why I chose it.
Tourists. Locals. College kids with laptops. The kind of place where anonymity comes easy and danger feels theoretical.
I’m halfway through my second coffee, scrolling through notes on my tablet, when the glass window beside my tableshatters.
Not explodes.
Shatters.
The sound is sharp and violent, like the air itself cracking open.
Someone screams.
I don’t.
I duck.
Instinct takes over before thought—chair scraping back, body dropping low, hands over my head as glass rains down across the tile floor.
A second later, a car horn blares outside. Tires squeal.
Silence follows. Thick. Disoriented.
My heart slams against my ribs so hard it hurts.
“What the hell—?” someone yells.
“Is anyone hit?”
I lift my head slowly.
The table where I’d been sitting seconds ago is covered in glass. My coffee cup lies shattered, dark liquid bleeding across the floor.
If I’d leaned forward instead of back—
If I’d taken one more sip—
My hands start to shake.
A barista rushes over. “Ma’am—are you okay?”
