01 THE NOVEL
Someone is deciding
what the world believes.
One suspicious contract.
Two investigators.
A world built on dangerous assumptions.
Ryder Blake has spent his life protecting secrets. A former Army intelligence officer and the head of a Huntsville defense technology company, he knows what belongs inside a secured office. An anonymous threat does not.
The warning follows his scrutiny of Draconis SRL, a Romanian subcontractor whose records are almost too convincing. In London, MI6 analyst Asha Darzi is following the same fractured symbol through files that someone would rather leave closed.
Their investigations converge on a hidden struggle over intelligence, influence, and the machinery of national security. As the trail stretches from Alabama to Europe, the evidence grows harder to trust. So do the people offering answers.
Ryder and Asha must learn to rely on each other, even as professional suspicion gives way to a more personal connection. Because in a world where perception can be engineered, the most dangerous decision may be believing the wrong thing.
ESPIONAGEARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCEROMANTIC TENSION
