Atlanta, Georgia – 6:37 AM


The fire crews arrived just as the final wall crumbled.


Talia stood in the middle of the street, wrapped in a foil blanket, her face streaked with ash and blood. Simone leaned against a fire truck nearby, arm bandaged, eyes locked on the smoldering wreckage of the house they had escaped.


The home was unrecognizable—just twisted beams, shattered glass, and blackened earth. But for Talia, it was more than a building that burned.


It was the lie her life had been built on.


“I should be in shock,” she muttered.


“You are,” Simone said. “You just don’t know it yet.”


A plainclothes detective approached. Black woman. Mid-40s. Sharp eyes.


“I’m Detective Rhodes,” she said. “FD says the fire was no accident. You want to tell me what happened?”


Talia looked her in the eye. “Only off the record.”


Rhodes raised a brow. “That’s not how this works.”


Talia reached into her coat and handed over a thumb drive.


“These are copies of files my fiancé was hiding. Surveillance footage. Money transfers. Connections to a series of illegal property deals—including a murder in Miami.”


Rhodes looked at it. “Why give this to me?”


“Because someone warned me not to trust the police,” Talia said, voice low. “Said Marcus had people in the system.”


Rhodes studied her. “And you think I’m clean?”


“No,” Talia said. “I think you're curious. And I think you're tired of men like him thinking they’re untouchable.”


Rhodes smirked. “Keep talking.”


Talia and Simone sat on the back of the fire truck as paramedics cleaned them up. In the background, the wreckage hissed like it was exhaling its final breath.


“So what now?” Simone asked.


Talia stared at the sunrise creeping over the city skyline.


“Now?” she said. “We rebuild. On our terms. No secrets. No lies. No glass walls.”


Simone nodded. “You thinking about pressing charges? Starting a case?”


“I already started one. But the system doesn’t work unless we force it to.”


She pulled out her phone and tapped an encrypted app Isaiah had apparently installed on Marcus’s cloud—one Kenyatta told her about.


It opened a file. A video.


Isaiah, speaking into a camera.


“If you’re watching this, then Marcus got me. Don’t let him win. Expose everything. Burn it down if you have to.”


Talia pressed her lips together and looked out over the ruins.


“I already did.”