Novels by Amanda Dooyum

Aria woke to a morning so bright it felt staged, the city stretched beneath a thin winter sun. The night before still clung to her like smoke: the chase through the pier, the cold burn of rain, Dominic’s unreadable eyes. She made coffee twice as strong as usual and tried to convince herself that the flash drive on her desk was just another assignment.But the apartment felt smaller now. Each creak in the floorboard, each distant siren, sounded amplified, as if the world outside were pressing closer. She left the curtains half-drawn, nervous without knowing why.By early afternoon she’d written nothing. Her notes remained blank, her recorder untouched. She sat cross-legged on the couch, laptop open but screen dark, the flash drive a small, accusing weight beside it. She could almost feel the city breathing under her window: traffic in long sighs, a rhythm too deliberate to ignore.A soft knock broke the hush.Her first thought was that it was a neighbor, maybe a package. The second, sh

Rain drummed harder as Dominic signaled her forward, two fingers slicing the dark. Aria clutched the flash drive until the metal edges bit her palm. Behind them the single set of footsteps crept closer, deliberate, like someone savoring the hunt.Dominic moved with a silent precision that made the massive space feel like his personal map. He didn’t glance back, yet he seemed to know exactly where she was. Lightning caught him in fragments broad shoulders, a face carved in sharp angles, water slicking black hair against his temple. Even in this chaos, the sight hit her low in the stomach.Focus, she scolded herself. Not the time.She kept low, knees brushing splinters, breath hot against the damp air. Every creak of the old floorboards shot a spike through her chest.The footsteps stopped.A sudden hush pressed against her ears. Even the distant tide seemed to pause.Dominic tilted his head. His eyes found hers in the dark, steady and unreadable, then flicked toward a narrow service co

The rain hadn’t stopped by morning. Aria stood at her kitchen sink, watching the gray skyline blur behind streaked glass, the last line of the night’s message replaying in her mind: “Your move”Her laptop glowed on the counter. Every instinct told her to pull the plug, to run a mile from Dominic Valente and the nameless people who could slip through encryption like smoke.Instead she brewed coffee, black and bitter, and began digging.Bank records first. Dock shipments next. Within an hour her screen filled with a lattice of shell companies and flagged transfers, construction firms that never built, charities that never gave. Valente’s empire was a maze of clean fronts and filthy money.A knock broke her focus.“Delivery,” a voice called.Aria’s pulse jumped. She hadn’t ordered anything.She cracked the door. A courier stood in the hall, hood drawn low. “Package for you, Ms. Lane.”“I didn’t…”He pressed a slim black envelope into her hand and turned without waiting for a signature.I

Rain drummed against the fire escape, a restless rhythm outside Aria’s window.She shut the door with her heel, tossed her damp coat across a chair, and went straight for the laptop. The heater rattled awake, but the one-room walk-up stayed cool, carrying the city’s metallic scent.The memory card slid into its slot.Images flickered across the screen: rain-soft frames sharpening until a single figure emerged like a secret finally confessed. Dominic Valente, caught mid-stride under a streetlight, the hard plane of his jaw lit in silver, eyes hidden but unmistakable.After months of leads that died in smoke, she’d found him.Her phone buzzed across the counter.Jordan Hale: “You alive?”She tapped the speaker. “Barely. But I got him.”“You’re kidding.” Jordan’s voice had the dry calm of someone who’d seen too many bad ideas. “Send a shot.”She forwarded the best frame. Silence, then a low whistle.“That’s him. You realize Valente doesn’t just own half the docks, he owns half the cops g

Rain slicked the alley outside club Vesper, turning the neon signs into rivers of pink and blue. Aria Cole pulled her hood tighter and checked the time on her phone, 11:58 p.m. Two minutes to midnight The tip had been maddenly vague:Valente's people meet on Thursdays. Black entrance. Midnight. Vague, but enough to drag her across the city on a night when any sane person would be asleep. She shifted her weight, the camera strap biting into her shoulder. Months of chasing this story had taught her patience. It had also taught her how quickly patience could turn to obsession Back when she was a junior reporter at the Tribune, Aria thought the political beat would be her ticket to the big leagues. She’d dug through campaign finances, city contracts, all the usual paper trails. It was during one of those routine dives, tracing a suspicious development grant, that the name Dominic Valente had first surfaced. At first, it was nothing more than whispers in financial records and redacted m