The screens lit up before dawn.

Alyssa was already awake when the first alert arrived—an encrypted message from her market analyst, followed by three more from different time zones. Red numbers bled across her tablet like an open wound. Stock movements that didn’t make sense. Volumes that were too coordinated to be coincidence.

She didn’t need to ask whose hand was behind it.

“Davin,” she murmured.

The city outside her window was still half-asleep, lights blinking lazily against the gray-blue sky. Inside the room, war had already begun.

Her phone rang.

Ethan.

She answered without greeting. “It’s started.”

“I know,” he said. His voice was tight, stripped of warmth. “He’s...