The Glass Cages
Fifty thousand dollars a month. One condition: Absolute, unquestioning discretion.For former corporate analyst Zain Miller, the job listing seemed like a miracle. After his younger brother’s mysterious death was brushed off by local police, Zain’s life spiraled into poverty and obsession. When he lands a live-in assistant role at the Vance Estate—a brutalist, high-tech fortress anchored to a foggy cliffside in the Pacific Northwest—he thinks he’s finally found his path to answers.His employer is Julian Vance, a brilliant, grieving tech billionaire whose philanthropist wife disappeared a year ago. The house is a masterpiece of modern luxury, entirely controlled by Aegis, an eerie, hyper-predictive AI that tracks Zain's every movement, every breath, and somehow already knows his exact clothing sizes and favorite coffee blend.But Zain isn't there to file paperwork. He's there to hack the system. He knows Julian's corporate empire is connected to his brother's death.The psychological chess match turns lethal when Zain bypasses the AI's firewall and uncovers a hidden partition in the server logs. Julian didn't hire Zain by accident—and the billionaire's missing wife never left the estate. Her body is wrapped in plastic, hidden deep within the mansion's concrete foundations.Caught in the act by an armed and desperate Julian, the confrontation is brutally interrupted when a heavily armed, black-market mercenary squad breaches the estate, cutting the power and locking down the smart house.To survive the night, the corporate spy and the captive billionaire must form a fragile, terrifying alliance. To escape a sitting United States Senator who will burn the mountain down to hide his tracks, Zain and Julian must plunge into a freezing, pitch-black wilderness with nothing but a locked laptop and a three-mile sprint to an abandoned fire lookout.In a world where the AI can predict your next move, how do you run from an enemy who controls the network?