Chapter 1: The Moment It Broke
The ballroom had been loud only seconds before.
Laughter.
Music.
The soft clinking of expensive glasses.
Then—silence.
Because Victoria Langford had done the one thing no one expected even her to do.
She grabbed the girl’s necklace.
“Enough of this circus,” she hissed.
Maya barely had time to react.
The chain snapped with a sharp metallic sound.
The pendant—tarnished, military-grade, engraved with a faded crest—fell into Victoria’s palm.
For a moment, she just stared at it.
Then she laughed.
“This?” she said loudly, turning toward the guests. “This is what all the panic is about?”
She raised it higher.
And slammed it against the marble table.
CRACK.
The pendant split.
A thin seam of metal opened like a wound.
Maya’s breath stopped.
“No…” she whispered.
But it was too late.
Inside the broken pendant—
Something fell out.
A tiny encrypted microchip.
Black.
Military-issue.
Stamped with a code no one in the room should have recognized.
But one man did.
From the far end of the hall, Colonel Vance went completely still.
His coffee cup slipped from his hand.
And shattered.
“Dear God…” he whispered.
Victoria frowned.
“What is that supposed to be?”
Vance didn’t answer.
Because his eyes had just read the engraving on the chip.
May you like
And the room suddenly felt colder.
Much colder.
