GARRISON

The mahogany table in the main boardroom of Vance International felt less like a desk and more like an executioner’s block.

I sat at the head of the glass table, my fingers laced tightly over a sleek black pen, my posture flawlessly rigid despite the blinding, throbbing ache behind my eyes.

I hadn't slept a single second. The phantom taste of Roxie’s lips from the garage and the memory of her trembling frame in her bedroom had chased me through the dawn, fracturing the cold, calculating discipline I had relied on for over a decade.

We play the heirs, I had told her. But looking out at the half-empty...