It was a sunny day when Peter got out of bed. After spending so much time on a prison bunk, this was the first time he had slept in a bed at home. He had already met his new roommates.

Charlotte Winston, the head of communications at AKS (Advanced Knowledge Solutions)—a remote IT support company helping users with internet and computer issues—sat across from him. Charlotte had once been imprisoned for stealing laptops from a store, a past she rarely spoke about.

Another roommate, Olga Hemsworth, had served time for a major car theft that had landed her in prison.

Arthur Vellancer, on the other hand, had been released early on good behavior. He had been arrested and sent to prison for robbing a jewelry store.

Then there was Kevin Russell, who had started stealing at fifteen with something as small as a bottle of soda, only to escalate into bigger crimes. Before his arrest, he had even attempted to steal a private jet belonging to a Russian millionaire.

Peter himself—Peter Gray Hudson-Kerch—had been arrested after a failed street robbery.

Now, in this sunlit room, all of them shared the quiet tension of people who had once walked on the wrong side of the law—and had survived.