เข้าสู่ระบบEmma is waiting at the bottom of the steps with her bag clutched to her chest and the expression of someone who has been rehearsing an apology for the last two hours and is now unsure which version to lead with. Beside her, Priya is on her phone, and Chloe is eating from a bag of chips with the unbothered energy of someone who was not, in fact, the one who spent the afternoon in detention. "How bad was it?" Priya asks without looking up from her phone. "Two weeks of detention." Chloe stops chewing. "Two weeks?" "Yup. Every day starting today, so technically I've already served my first sentence." I start walking and they fall in around me the way they always do, Priya tucking her phone away, Chloe folding her chip bag closed, Emma falling into step beside me with that guilt still written all over her face. "It's fine, I handled it, Mercer and I came to a civilized understanding. Can we go eat now?" "Lucia," Emma says quietly, an
He knows. I don’t know how he knows, I don’t know who in this building has a death wish severe enough to gossip to Elias Arden about my business, but he knows, and he’s sitting there with that barely-there smile like he’s already won something and we haven’t even been in this room for five minutes. I turn back to my notebook and write absolutely nothing on the clean page in front of me because I can’t remember what class this notebook is even for and my brain is too busy formulating ways to make the next two weeks survivable. The proctor, whose name tag reads Ms. Finch and who has not looked up from her paperback once, clears her throat at the front of the room for no apparent reason and then goes back to reading. The fluorescent light buzzes faintly overhead. Someone two rows ahead is clicking a pen in a rhythm that I am going to need them to stop immediately. “You’re not going to ask me how I know?” Elias says, without looking up from his book. “I’m not going to do anything you
The thing about stealing is that the hard part was never the taking. It was the getting away with it. "Left, left, left!" Emma hisses beside me, her ponytail whipping across my face as we round the corner. "I heard you the first time!" I snap back, tucking the folded test papers tighter against my chest as we sprint. The manila envelope crinkles with every stride and I want to scream at it to be quiet, but that would require slowing down, and slowing down is not something I can afford right now because two of Westbridge Academy's finest security personnel are thundering behind us and they are, unfortunately, more athletic than their faces suggested. "They're gaining!" Emma breathes. "Thank you, Emma, I would never have figured that out on my own." She ignores my sarcasm, which honestly, after four years of friendship, she's gotten very good at. We skid around another corner and I catch the exit sign at the end of the hallway, green and glowing and beautiful, and for exactly t
So.You thought Lucia was going to be easy, huh?You sat through David Reid terrorizing grown men in tailored suits, watched Nora survive things that would break most people twice over, closed that last book feeling like you understood this family... and you thought the daughter was going to be the simple one.Adorable.Lucia Reid didn't inherit her father's patience or her mother's grace. What she got was the stubbornness of both of them wrapped in a pretty face and a mouth that has never once known when to stop. And the boy she is about to meet did not come looking for love. He came looking for something else entirely.I'll let you find out what.So here we are... back in the SIR universe. But this time, we're trading polished power games for sharp tongues, stolen glances, family wars, reckless decisions, and two people who would rather choke than admit they’re obsessed with each other.This book is messy.It is addictive.It is arrogant.It is emotional damage in designer shoes.An
The bedroom door is barely closed before David's hands are on me, sliding up under the thin silk of my robe as he backs me against the wall. I tilt my head back against the cool plaster, letting him kiss down the column of my throat while my fingers work the buttons of his shirt open. His skin is still firm under my palms, though the muscle has softened slightly with the years, the hair on his chest is more silver than dark now. I love every change. Every line around his eyes when he smiles, every grey at his temples, every scar from nights we almost didn't survive. I trace them with my fingertips as I push the shirt off his shoulders. "You smell like trouble," he murmurs against my collarbone, voice low and rough the way it gets when he's already half-gone on me. "Good trouble?" I ask, sliding my hand down his stomach, feeling the way his muscles jump under my touch. "The best kind." He catches my wrist, brings my palm to his mouth and kisses the centre before guiding it lower
Wow. I can’t believe I’m writing this. Two chapters and one epilogue ago, we were still holding our breath. Now here we are… at the end of SIR. For good this time. I don’t even know where to begin. Thank you. Truly. Thank you for stepping into this world with David and Nora. Thank you for riding every high, surviving every heartbreak, arguing with me in the comments when I stressed you out, and loving these characters as fiercely as I do. What started as an idea became something so much bigger because of you. Writing this book breathed life into my lungs in ways I can’t even explain. There were days when this story carried me just as much as I carried it. David and Nora’s journey wasn’t just ink on a page for me. It was healing, it was cathartic, and most importantly... it was home. And now… BOOK THREE! After so many debates with my editor and so many passionate discussions with you all, I’ve finally made the decision. Book 3 of SIR will follow Lucia. Yes. Our little Lucy
The pounding on the motel door stops for half a second, then starts again, heavier this time. David’s hand tightens around the phone. Maya’s voice spills out urgently from the speaker. “David, you need to get out now. They’re already–” He ends the call with his thumb and tosses the phone onto the
Sel paces the length of the living room while Marcus stands by the window watching the street below like he expects trouble to drive right up to the curb. David sits beside me on the sofa, close enough that our thighs touch, with his hand resting on my knee.I haven’t moved in twenty minutes. The l
I sit on the edge of Lucy's bed long after she falls back asleep, her small hand still curled around mine. The room is dark except for the faint glow of the nightlight shaped like a crescent moon. I stare at it, thinking about how everything I thought I could control is slipping through my finger
The fluorescent lights hum above me as I crouch behind the row of parked ambulances, watching the side entrance of the lab like it might blink first. “Camera feed looped,” Nico murmurs through my earpiece. “You’ve got exactly eleven minutes before the system runs a checksum and realizes something’







