Novels by Allison zee

The tip came through Lennox's old contact inside the prison a guard he'd once paid for small favors, back before Julian's arrest made every favor exponentially more valuable.Something changed with Ward today. He made a call. Different tone than usual. Scared, almost.Lennox read it twice before showing it to Rowan."Scared isn't a word people use about Julian," he said."No," Rowan agreed. "It isn't."They met at Rowan's apartment within the hour Taryn arriving last, still in her work clothes, a folder tucked under one arm like she'd grabbed it on her way out the door without stopping to think."I couldn't focus at the office anyway," she said, by way of explanation, dropping the folder on the kitchen table. "Not after what happened at the estate."Rowan pulled out a chair for her without comment. The three of them settled around the table the way they had a dozen times before, except tonight felt different  

Julian didn't get many visitors.That was by design, mostly a reputation carefully maintained even from inside a cell, the kind that made most people think twice before requesting a slot on his list. But the man who sat across from him now wasn't on any official visitor log. He'd come through the same channel everything important came through: quietly, expensively, and off the books entirely."You look like you didn't sleep," Julian said, studying him.The man's hands were still faintly scraped, a bruise blooming dark along one side of his jaw. He hadn't bothered to hide it, which told Julian something on its own a man that rattled didn't usually care about appearances anymore."I didn't," the man said."Tell me."The man's throat worked once before he spoke, like the words themselves were difficult to get out."Someone was already at the property," he said. "Before I could get anywhere near the house. I didn't even hear h

Preston hadn't panicked once in thirty years.That fact had become something close to identity the kind of thing people said about him at dinners he barely remembered attending. Preston Wexley doesn't rattle. He'd built an empire on that reputation as much as on the accounts hidden three shells deep, because control, real control, wasn't about what you did when things went well.It was about what people saw when things didn't.Which was why, standing at his study window at six in the morning, staring down at a garden his own security team couldn't explain, Preston made absolutely certain his hands stayed still.Behind him, the head of security shifted his weight, waiting."Say it again," Preston said, without turning."Two sets of impressions in the grass. Signs consistent with a physical struggle. No entry into the residence. Nothing taken." A pause. "We don't have a clean explanation, sir.""Then find one.""We

The call came just after five in the morning.Rowan was already awake he hadn't slept properly since the garden, since Sloane's voice dropping low enough to mean it's coming from inside something Preston thought he'd buried so the phone lighting up on the nightstand didn't startle him the way it should have.Taryn's name on the screen did."It's early," he said, answering."Security called the office line an hour ago." Taryn's voice was clipped, awake in the specific way people get when adrenaline substitutes for sleep. "Something happened at the estate last night. Preston's already there. He wants it contained before it gets out."Rowan was already reaching for his jacket. "Contained how?""That's the thing." A pause, like she was choosing the words carefully. "Nobody's saying exactly what happened. Just that there was a disturbance near the perimeter. No theft. No damage to the house.""Then what.""Signs

Cassian hadn't planned on going back.That was the truth of it, the part he'd have to admit to himself eventually even if he never said it to Adrian. He'd told himself the drive past his mother's street was reconnaissance. Confirmation that the extra security was holding. Nothing more.But he'd been sitting in the car for forty minutes now, engine off, watching a house he wasn't supposed to care about anymore.His phone buzzed.Adrian.You're not where you're supposed to be.Cassian's jaw tightened. He hadn't told Adrian where he was. Which meant Adrian was tracking him still, after everything, after the pact, after every conversation that was supposed to mean they were equals in this instead of handler and asset.I needed to see she was safe, Cassian typed back.The reply came fast, the way it always did when Adrian was more rattled than he wanted to sound.Seeing isn't the same as protecting

Rowan's apartment felt different when he walked in.Not louder. Not busier. Just charged the particular stillness of people who'd been staring at the same screen long enough to stop noticing time passing.Lennox was hunched over his laptop at the kitchen table, sleeves pushed up, three empty coffee cups lined up beside the keyboard like a countdown he'd stopped tracking. Taryn stood behind him, arms crossed, reading over his shoulder with the focused stillness of someone who'd already seen whatever this was once and was still deciding how to feel about it."Tell me," Rowan said, dropping his jacket over the back of a chair.Lennox didn't look up right away. "You're not going to like it.""I haven't liked anything in weeks. Keep going."Lennox turned the laptop slightly, angling the screen so Rowan could see it. Rows of transaction records, dense and technical, the kind of financial paperwork designed to be skimmed past rather than read