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Cole Innovations,Downtown Virginia Beach, Virginia,
Quinn Cole ran her finger along the crisp edge of the court petition that would change her life, and his forever. She imagined his reaction when he got served. It was everything she had envisioned. Everything she had clawed her way back from hell to create.
Kade “Dagger” Hollis, Quinn’s brother-in-law, Navy SEAL, and the man who had ruined her life, wouldn’t be blindsided. He was too sharp for that. But he sure as hell wouldn’t have expected her to make the first move.
A part of her had wanted to be there when he read the papers. To watch his expressive, unreadable face shift. His jaw go tight.
To see him angry.
She exhaled slowly, running a hand down the front of her blouse. Brian had always said angry people made mistakes.
Brian’s last words to her,No matter what happens, don’t forget me,had been offhand, sweet at the time, but they had settled in her heart like a vow. Forgetting him would be a betrayal of her husband’s memory, and if she let go, then who was left to remember him?
Deep down, she wanted Kade Hollis to make a mistake.
Because he had taken everything from her.
But that was about to change; the days got better, especially when she was working, and her hard work had paid off. She stood in the heart her office, her design, her resurrection. Sunlight poured through floor-to-ceiling windows, bouncing off polished steel and warm oak. The architectural firm she’d built from nothing was alive around her, employees moving with purpose, clients in and out, the hum of industry filling the space.
She’d clawed her way through Cornell’s architecture program, brutal, unrelenting, the kind of crucible that broke most before their second year, and she hadn’t just survived it. She’dthrived. Fifteen-hour studio marathons, collapse-then-repeat weeks, the endless churn of critique and revision until the work was more than good. It was visionary.
On her desk, another thick pile of paperwork sat next to the court petition. The large black letters spelled out:US Embassy, Caracas—Final Contract Documents. Cole Innovations had beaten out several bigger, better-established competitors to land the job of designing the new embassy in Venezuela.
Piper McDonald, from the Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings, had notified her she had won the bid. That was a monumental day for her firm’s reputation, securing a high-profile international project. It was an even bigger day for Quinn herself, because it was proof that she could stand on her own two feet again.
Yet it carried a weight she couldn’t ignore. Caracas. The city where Brian had died. The city that still made her hands shake if she thought about it too long. Dagger had been part of the mission, though he never told her much. Just enough to haunt her.
Her desk phone chirped, snapping her out of her thoughts. She pushed the speaker button. “Yes, Diane?”
Her receptionist’s voice came through bright and clear. “Mrs. Cole, your ten o’clock called. They need to push the meeting to ten-thirty.”
Quinn exhaled slowly. “Thanks, Diane.” She hung up, brushing her fingertips over the court petition again. She had one goal. Get her children back, and she’d taken steps the day before to start that ball rolling. It had been six months of AA of trying to heal, of mending broken relationships, and the first amends she’d made were to them. Elijah and Ezra. Her stoic, sweet, honest, and beloved twin boys whom she loved beyond reason. But she’d failed them. She took a hard breath. She couldn’t go back and fix the past. The only thing she could do was fight to reclaim her future with them.
She felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes, a creature forged in fire, stronger for the burn, but not untouched. Some feathers still hadn’t caught. The heaviest, most flame-resistant of all was the loss of her children. That one never left her.
Work gave her purpose. A goal to reach. A place where people could belong, expand, build. Her firm gave the receptionist a way to feed her family. But for Quinn, it was something more, an extension of wonder. Like a child, she had always dreamed in structures, knowing even a single line could shape a world. When her friends played with paper dolls, Quinn was designing their houses.
She couldn’t be proud of her company without thinking about what it had taken to get here. Without her husband and children, she’d had so much time to fill, not like when she’d been married, and Brian had not exactly disapproved. In fact, he would smile when she spoke about her dreams for her firm, but there was always a quiet skepticism in his eyes, like he was waiting for her to grow out of them. He told her he admired her ambition, but his actions never quite matched his words. Hecalled her dream, a little company.You’re incredible, but you don’t have to prove anything. You’ve got me.
She heaved a breath, and in that hushed space, resentment crawled in.Not anymore, Brian. You left me alone. Who am I now?
Then there was Dagger. The thoughts came to her before she could shut them down. He had never looked at her with doubt. Never told her to slow down. Never suggested she was reaching too high.You built this from nothing. No one gets to tell you it’s not enough.She clenched her hands around her chair arms, pushing back that thought. They were barely on speaking terms now…all because of you.
While the days were tolerable, there were the nights, those silent, aching hours when memories turned from bittersweet to suffocating. Evenings had become a battleground she waged against herself. In the witching hour, the pull of the bottle felt like a siren’s call. Slipping into its numbing embrace would be so effortless, an escape from the wave of memories. But she clung to sobriety with desperate ferocity. She would not let the ghosts claim her.
The phone beeped once more. Diane’s voice returned. “Piper’s on the line, says she’s got a quick update.”
“Put her through,” Quinn said, forcing a calm she didn’t entirely feel. She picked up the phone. “Piper. How’s your day going?”
“It’s nuts,” Piper said with a tired laugh. “I just wanted to thank you for being such a dream to work with. I owe you a drink.” Quinn stiffened at those words, but she released a breath. “I’m heading out to Caracas tomorrow to get everything situated. I have a lead on a great resident project director. It was a job just getting that nailed down. When will you be arriving again? I have it in my notes, but they’re buried.” There was an apologetic laugh.
This trip was going to be hard. Caracas still echoed with loss, but she wasn’t going there to mourn. She was here to build something out of the ruins of the life she’d lost, and the woman she used to be.
I love how determined you are, baby, but don’t burn yourself out.
She had burned herself out, day after day, to get where she was, and if he was still alive, she wouldn’t have this contract. Brian was a good man, respected, trusted. He was steady, intelligent and devoted to his job. She had loved him, truly. But love and support weren’t always the same thing. He had been trying to protect her from disappointment, from failure. But Dagger had dared her to rise above it. When she’d been working for a small three-man firm, she’d gone for a big contract and Brian had thought she should scale back, but Dagger had said,That’s not who you are.