Carson never asked to survive. He was sculpted in silence, sharpened in fire — the byproduct of a forgotten war and a father who sang lullabies in the language of betrayal. At fourteen, he was already a weapon. At seventeen, he’s a ghost in plain sight, haunting the hallways of a prestigious school by day, while dismantling criminal empires by night.

But even ghosts bleed.

When a chance reunion with Elise — the girl he once protected, then abandoned — throws him back into the chaos of memory, Carson’s world fractures. Elise is no longer the shy girl from the compound. She’s powerful. Untouchable. And unknowingly standing in the line of fire.

Together with a group of outcasts held together by trauma, genius, and vengeance, Carson uncovers a sprawling conspiracy buried beneath glamour and blood: a secret organization that traffics in pain, memory, and forgotten children. The deeper he digs, the more he unravels — about them, about himself, about the horrors he buried in Morocco, in Berlin, in the sound of a lullaby that now drives him to the brink of madness.

As old enemies rise and alliances fracture, Carson is forced to confront the brutal question he’s been avoiding all his life:

Can someone so broken still choose love over violence?

Or is he already too far gone?

You taught me how to smile with a knife in my back.


You are my everything-I'm sorry I wont be there for you


And to those who said I'd never survive—


Chapter 1 - beginning