Lockpick Stories

"Don't you think its a bit bold of you to be questioning me when you're clearly at a disadvantage, little thief?" "Presumptuous of you to assume I don't have a fistful of knives hidden within my garments, my lord." When a borderline bandit finds a peculiar note, she finds herself stained with the truth. Renei must go back to the heart of her former self, and uncover the lies that have been concealed for years. Digging through her past to perceive their plots, Renei forces herself to meddle with the thing she loathes most: her identity. However, when a stranger who lurks within the shadows and travels through walls makes an appearance, the stakes seem higher than they did before. The convict finds herself drowning deep within the silks of nobility, striving to redeem herself by finding what had once killed her; and what had connated her to who she is now. Renei can't place her trust in anyone, but as the locks to her door begin to click, she must answer the most important question of all: Can she place her trust in herself?

New York, 2018. Liam Gray is an 18-year-old lockpick prodigy from Boston, funny, handsome, and completely off the grid. He lives alone in a cramped Brooklyn apartment, breaking into things for fun and never taking a dime. But when he opens a forgotten WWII-era safe in an abandoned antique shop, he doesn't just find history-he wakes it up. Within hours, Liam is recruited by Cass Ward, a former intelligence officer turned shadowy strategist. Cass is assembling a crew-each member hand-picked for a global operation that begins with a dusty vault in Manhattan and ends across oceans, chasing a war-era treasure hidden beneath layers of betrayal, murder, and history no one wants unearthed. They're not the only ones looking. International kingpin Viktor Sarin wants the prize for himself-and he's willing to kill for it. With the FBI and Homeland Security closing in from one side, and a rival criminal empire on the other, Liam and the crew must outwit everyone in a game where the keys aren't just metal-they're names, codes, and blood.

Did you think this world was empty of magic? You were wrong. So was Ben, who didn't believe in anything out of the ordinary until he got sucked right into it. Literally.

A collection of one-shot short stories and poems.