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Stories
60
Chapters
552
Words
904.2 K
Comments
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Reading
3 d, 3 h
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Maeve The harsh blue glare of my laptop screen is the only light in the suffocating darkness of my hotel room. The biometric drive, a sleek silver rectangle still warm from the heat of Irena’s pocket, is plugged into the side port. My lips are still bruised. My pulse is still hammering a frantic, erratic rhythm against my ribs, an intoxicating echo of the tunnel, the shadows, the desperate way she pulled me against the concrete. The vulnerability she handed me was absolute. And that is exactly why I…-
11.0 K • Completed
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Maeve The Zenith Arena's master control room smells of ozone, stale coffee, and the frantic sweat of the production crew I just locked in the hallway. My fingers fly across the massive mixing console, bypassing the broadcast delays and hardwiring the main jumbotron feed directly to my encrypted laptop. Down below, the ice is covered by a sprawling red carpet. The Federation President stands at a lucite podium, flanked by the ethics committee, bathed in the blinding glare of a hundred press cameras. They…
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11.0 K • Completed
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Irena The heavy oak doors of the federal courthouse close behind me, muting the frantic, echoing clamor of the press pool still trapped inside the lobby. I stand on the granite steps, pulling the collar of my wool coat up against the biting November wind. It has been three months since the broadcast at the Zenith Arena. Three months of grueling depositions, subpoenaed hard drives, and watching the seemingly invincible architecture of the skating federation crumble under federal indictment. The board…
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11.0 K • Completed
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Roya The man stepping out of the suffocating shadows of the corridor was a ghost I had buried four years ago. His name was Tariq. He had been my father’s closest confidant, the man who used to slip me stolen candies from the Macau markets, and the very man the coroner’s report claimed had perished in the blaze alongside my family. Yet here he stood, entirely solid, holding a suppressed submachine gun and wearing the tactical insignia of Kian’s elite extraction unit. A jagged, pale burn scar…-
11.4 K • Completed
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Roya I knelt in the spreading pool of Kian’s blood, the heavy silk of my sapphire gown drinking in the crimson. My hands, once trained to tremble on command, were entirely steady as I retrieved the digital drive from the floor. The master biometric terminal on the wall was still flashing its violent, red lockdown warning. I stood, bypassing the security interface and plugging the drive directly into the console’s auxiliary port. I didn't search for answers in Kian's files. I didn't look for…
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11.4 K • Completed
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Roya The gavel’s sharp crack shattered the ambient hum of the underground auction house. It was a heavy, definitive sound, wood striking brass, sealing the fate of a stolen Renaissance oil painting for a price that could buy a small country. I kept my breathing shallow. The air in the grand ballroom was suffocating, thick with the scent of expensive ambergris, sweat masked by Tom Ford cologne, and the metallic undertone of pure, unadulterated greed. I gripped the stem of my champagne flute until my…
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11.4 K • Completed
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Roya The ascent was silent, save for the low, predatory hum of the private elevator pulling us up into the stratosphere of the city. My reflection in the polished steel doors looked pale, a fragile porcelain doll trapped in a steel box with a wolf. Leila stood three feet away, her arms crossed over her tactical vest. She hadn’t spoken a word since she stepped out of the shadows in the auction hall and ordered me into the lift, but the violence rolling off her was a physical pressure in the confined…
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11.4 K • Completed
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Shirin The descent into the subterranean vault was accompanied by the low, industrial hum of heavy machinery keeping the climate in a state of absolute, sterile perfection. The elevator did not have buttons, only a solid state panel that required a sequence of biometric confirmations. I watched Roya in the polished steel reflection. She was hugging her arms, shivering in the sudden sixty-degree chill, her sapphire dress entirely inadequate for the underground bunker. She was trying to memorize the…
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11.4 K • Completed
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Roya Sunlight did not warm the penthouse. It only sharpened the brutalist edges of the steel and glass, illuminating the dust motes dancing over the massive obsidian dining table. I sat at the edge of a leather chair, scrolling through the encrypted tablet Shirin had left for me. The digital ledger contained the inventory of the subterranean vault. But as my eyes tracked the routing numbers and shipping manifests, a cold, cognitive dissonance began to fracture the narrative Kian had hammered into my…
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11.4 K • Completed
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Roya The grand ballroom of the Farahani estate was a cavern of gold leaf and velvet, packed with the city’s elite—parasites in tailored suits and silk gowns. I stood by the champagne tower, my fingers grazing the cold glass, feeling the heavy, suffocating weight of the pistol concealed in my holster. Every laugh sounded like a jagged edge. Every shadow felt like an ambush. I was officially "Roya Tabrizi," Shirin’s new protégé, but beneath the sapphire gown, my skin felt like it was…
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11.4 K • Completed
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