CHAPTER 2

Vespera "Vesper" Ashford

Forty-eight hours. That’s how long I’d been living like a rat in the underbelly of Manhattan.

The freezing October rain had finally stopped, leaving behind a bitter, bone-chilling fog that rolled off the Hudson River. I crouched behind a row of rusted dumpsters in a Chinatown alley, my arms wrapped tightly around my chest. I had managed to steal an oversized black hoodie and a pair of worn-out sneakers from a laundromat basket yesterday, but they did little to keep out the damp cold.

My stomach let out a sharp, painful growl. I hadn't eaten a solid meal since the night Marcus died.

Think, Vesper. There has to be a way out of this.

I pulled my knees to my chest, trying to stop my body from shaking. Every bank account registered under my name was frozen—I’d checked at an ATM down on Canal Street using my primary debit card, only for the machine to swallow the plastic whole and display a red ACCOUNT SUSPENDED notice. My emergency stash, my backup fake IDs, my hard drives—everything had gone up in flames with my brownstone.

I was completely, utterly wiped out. A literal ghost with zero dollars to my name.

Worse, my face was everywhere.

An electronic billboard overlooking the main avenue flashed bright blue and red, interrupting its usual rotation of luxury watch ads to display my mugshot. It was an old corporate ID picture where I was actually smiling, now stamped with heavy red bold letters: WANTED FOR ARSON AND FIRST-DEGREE MURDER.

They were offering a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to my arrest. High-society financial elites really don't mess around when they want someone dead or caged. They had painted me as a greedy, unhinged accountant who slaughtered her own mentor to cover up a multi-million-dollar embezzlement scheme.

"Bastards," I whispered, the word bitter on my tongue as I stared at the screen.

The noise of neon signs buzzing overhead mixed with the distant sound of police sirens, keeping my nerves stretched to the breaking point. Every time a passerby glanced in my direction, my heart leaped into my throat. Every shadow felt like an agent or a hitman waiting to put a bullet in the back of my head.

I needed to get out of the city, but leaving required cash and fake credentials—two things I currently had zero access to. My only play was to reach my old informant, an underground coder who operated out of a subterranean internet café near the Lower East Side. If anyone could help me bypass the federal freeze on my offshore burner fund, it was him.

I waited until the foot traffic slowed down past midnight before slipping out of the alley. Hood pulled low over my face, I kept my eyes on the wet pavement, weaving through the dimly lit side streets.

The city felt different when you were the one being hunted. Every alley looked like a trap; every passing headlight felt like a spotlight pinning me to the wall.

As I turned the corner into an industrial block lined with abandoned warehouses, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Someone's following me.

It wasn't the slow, casual pace of a late-night pedestrian. It was synchronized. Soft, heavy footsteps echoing about twenty paces behind me.

I didn't turn around. Instead, I picked up my pace, slipping past a row of parked delivery vans. The footsteps behind me sped up too.

Shit.

I took a sharp left into a narrow passage between two brick buildings. It was a dead end—a wall of chain-link fence topped with barbed wire blocking the far side.

Before I could turn back, two tall figures filled the entrance of the passage, cutting off my only escape route. They weren't cops. They didn't have badges, flashlights, or federal windbreakers. They wore tailored black tactical coats, and the low streetlights caught the metallic glint of suppressed handguns pulled from beneath their jackets.

Professional hitmen. The same people who killed Marcus.

"Vesper Ashford," one of them said. His voice was flat, devoid of any accent or emotion. "You're making this surprisingly difficult."

"Who sent you?" I rasped, backing up until my spine hit the cold links of the fence. "Was it Kensington's people? Or the syndicate?"

"Doesn't matter," the second man said, raising his weapon with terrifying efficiency. "You're a loose end."

Panicked adrenaline slammed into my system, drowning out the hunger and exhaustion. My hand blindly searched the ground behind me and wrapped around a heavy, rusted iron pipe leaning against the fence.

The first shooter stepped forward to take a clear shot.

Now or never.

I lunged forward, swinging the iron pipe with everything I had. It struck the first man's wrist with a sickening crack. He grunted, dropping his gun onto the damp asphalt.

"Bitch!" the second guy yelled, pivoting his barrel toward my chest.

I dove sideways behind a stack of wooden pallets just as a suppressed gunshot coughed through the alley—thwip! Wood splinters exploded into the air, grazing my cheek.

I scrambled on my hands and knees toward the dropped handgun, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard it was deafening. My fingers brushed the cold steel frame, but a heavy tactical boot slammed down onto my hand, pinning my fingers to the pavement.

A sharp scream tore from my throat as pain shot up my arm.

The first man leaned down, his face twisted in anger, blood dripping from his broken wrist. He pressed the cold muzzle of his gun directly against my forehead. The stench of gunpowder and cheap cologne filled my nose.

"End of the line, sweetheart," he grunted, his finger tightening around the trigger.

I closed my eyes, my breath catching in my chest.

A deafening BANG echoed through the narrow alleyway, blinding light ripping through the dark.