Permission Granted

She Was born into a life she never chose.

Nineteen-year-old Nora Veyne lives quietly. She works long hours at a small factory, keeps to herself, and dreams of ordinary things. A tiny apartment filled with plants. Children's laughter drifting through an open window. A future she was never meant to have.

Then the red thread around her wrist breaks.

By the next morning, a kind woman is dead.

FBI Special Agent Reid Kessler knows the scene is wrong. A victim's eyes have been gently covered. A single red thread has been left behind. The killer appears to have mourned the life they took. As the murders continue, every answer leads him back to one fragile young woman who seems far more afraid than dangerous.

Nora is hiding a secret older than the law itself. It is enforced by a powerful Circle that never forgives disobedience. Every life they demand steals another piece of her soul, and every clue she leaves behind is a desperate pleas of someone to stop what she cannot.

But saving Nora may cost Reid everything.

Some people kill because they want to.

Others kill because they were never given permission to live.