Introduction

The sleek leather of my 50th-floor office chair felt real, the hum of the AC familiar. I was Andrew Scott, Wall Street rising star, not ex-con '734'.

Then, the intercom buzzed. My assistant, voice tight with panic: "Mr. Scott, it's Ryan Clark...about Jenny...an accident."

A physical blow. The exact same words. Fifteen years in a concrete box, the taste of stale bread, followed by the blinding Hamptons sun, Jenny-my dead wife-laughing with Ryan, their son looking exactly like him. The final memory: a dark New Jersey alley, the smell of garbage and my own blood. It wasn't a nightmare; it was my life, and it ended.

But I wasn't dead.

My heart pounded, not with fear for the woman I loved and our unborn child as it had before, but with a cold, hard rage. They had played their game, and I had lost everything.

Now, it was my turn. And this time, I knew all their moves.