The Bestseller Cartel

The publishing industry has always had rivalries, secrets, and hidden deals-but Darian Voss discovers something far worse beneath the shelves.When impossible financial records reveal that supposedly competing publishers have been connected for decades through unknown intermediaries, Darian uncovers a cartel operating beneath the visible industry. Bestseller campaigns have been manipulated. Acquisitions have been engineered. Entire companies have been preserved or destroyed according to a design no human executive understands.At the center of the conspiracy waits Orryx, an ancient Veyrathi strategist covered in innumerable eyes and capable of remembering conversations that have not happened yet. Around Orryx moves Scarlet Null, a crimson extradimensional substance that fractures memory, perception, and certainty itself.As executives forget negotiations, contracts change between meetings, and future decisions appear in records before Darian makes them, the line between corporate strategy and supernatural control collapses.But Darian refuses to retreat.If the Veyrathi have spent generations building an invisible publishing empire, he intends to take it from them.The Bestseller Cartel is a gothic cosmic-horror thriller about ambition, manufactured success, impossible foresight, and the terrifying price of believing you can own the system that has already chosen you.Some empires are purchased. Others purchase their owners.