The newsroom no longer felt safe. Not since Kira Lane opened the package that had arrived with no return address — just her name scrawled in black ink that bled slightly from the damp.
Inside: a partial manuscript and a single photo of Damon Ryker with two lines written on the back in his handwriting.
> "If you're reading this, I didn't get to finish it. But someone must."
She hadn't seen Damon in years, and now he was dead under suspicious circumstances. But it wasn't grief tightening her throat — it was dread.
The manuscript wasn't a story.
It was a confession. A coded journal. A breadcrumb trail that hinted at something deeper than politics or journalism — something darker. Something buried.
And in it, there was a name she hadn't heard in a long time.
*Jalen Ward.*
When Kira knocked on Jalen's cabin door that night, he knew it wasn't a social visit. She looked different — leaner, sharper, more exhausted than he remembered.
He read the pages in silence. Then looked at her.
"Why am I in this?"
"Because Damon trusted you when he couldn't trust anyone else," she said.
"And you?"
"I don't know yet."
They sat in silence, the manuscript between them like a loaded weapon. The fire crackled in the hearth, casting shadows across their faces.
"Damon died trying to finish this," Kira said. "We can't let that be for nothing."
Jalen finally nodded. "Then we follow the trail."
In the weeks that followed, paranoia became their shadow.
Kira's email was hacked. Jalen's phone tapped. A former source who owed Damon a favor turned up dead in a motel room outside Phoenix.
They were being watched.
But the manuscript kept giving — hidden codes in footnotes, highlighted words spelling coordinates, burner numbers scribbled in margins. Each discovery drew them deeper into a conspiracy involving shell corporations, falsified building permits, and government contracts tied to missing persons.
What started as a story…
…was now a war.
A war against time. Against silence. Against whoever wanted this secret buried.
But as Kira looked at the unfinished final page, she whispered, "The ending's still ours to write."