Chapter 1: The Day the World Ended

On the day our country fell apart, my older sister shoved me into a linen closet, yanking off every last scrap of clothing until I was bare, then dashed out to face the rebel leader, Charles Long, herself.

She lifted her chin, voice steady but her eyes swimming with fear. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him from hurting us.”

Charles Long laughed, wild and sharp, the sound ricocheting off the marble walls. He seized Rachel by the arm and strutted through the shattered doors of the capitol, swaggering as if he’d already claimed victory.

And so Rachel Thompson—once the governor’s daughter and darling of every society column from D.C. to Charleston—walked away to trade her body for our lives, bargaining with the man who had burned our world to ashes.

My sister and I survived. But the price of that survival was written in every haunted glance she gave me after that day.

Ten years later, her letter came—heavy White House stationery, her graceful handwriting clipped and businesslike. She summoned me to the capital, determined to arrange my marriage as a secondary wife to Senator Paul—Jason Long.

Becoming the wife of a minor senator was a hard-won mercy, a safety net Rachel had stitched together from her own pain and sacrifice, thread by agonizing thread.

She sat across from me in her parlor, her hands twisting the pearls at her throat. The pearls clicked together, sharp and nervous, as if they could shield her from the world. Her eyes glittered with tears she refused to let fall.

“Anna, go with Senator Paul to his district. He’ll protect you, keep you safe for life.”

I dropped my gaze, my jaw set and voice cold as January. No promise of safety could melt the frost in my heart.

So-called peace was never what I wanted.

The hatred for my ruined homeland, the pain of my murdered family, the humiliation Rachel had endured for so many years—I could never forget.

I wanted to plant chaos in the heart of this government. I wanted to bring the Long regime crashing down.