All Chapters of Shadows and First Blood: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

 New York was a wound that never healed. It smelled of exhaust, wet concrete, and fried food that had been sitting too long. A city that chewed through people, then spit out their bones on the sidewalks. Perfect cover for me.I was hunting a man who thought he was untouchable—a kingpin who traded women like currency, who wore his cruelty like a designer suit. I’d been watching him for weeks. I had his routine memorized down to the minute. At 11:15 he stepped outside to smoke. At 11:28 his runner dropped an envelope. At 11:33 he checked his phone to make sure the alley camera still worked.The notebook Rylen and Kira had given me weighed heavy in my pocket. Pages full of whispers and sightings. It burned against my ribs, reminding me that this city was more dangerous than I could ever map. Tonight wasn’t for maps. Tonight was for blood.

 The rooftop shack creaked every time the wind shifted. Rust ate at the tin walls, pigeons strutted like landlords, and every morning I woke with a thin layer of grit in my mouth. But it was mine, for now, and in New York “for now” was the longest lease anyone got. I’d slept light—never deeply. The kind of rest where every siren folded into the dream, where footsteps on the street below pulled you half-awake with a hand on your knife. Travis didn’t help.“Princess, you snore,” he drawled, smoke curling where no smoke belonged.I rubbed my eyes, refusing to look at him. “You’re not here.” “And yet,” he said, lounging against a vent like he’d paid rent. “Still prettier in the morning than me, so I’ll allow it.”I hated that my lips twitched. “You were never pretty.” “Lies,” he said, gri

 The bell over the bookstore door rang like it was announcing mercy. Morning light filtered through warped glass, catching dust motes that drifted like secrets no one bothered to keep. O’Rourke & Finch smelled of tea, paper, and the kind of safety I didn’t trust but wanted anyway.Moira had me shelving in the back while Finn argued with the register. He swore it sang in three keys, and today it had chosen to croak in D minor. I smirked as he coaxed it with a screwdriver and a muttered prayer. “You treat machines like people,” I said. Finn grinned without looking up. “And I treat people like machines. The trick is knowing which one won’t bite you back.” From beside me, Travis leaned lazily against a shelf, smoke curling in phantom loops. “Bet he’d bite if you asked nice.” I ignored him, stacking a row of battered thrillers. Talking back made it worse, made it real. But I still caught myself pressing my lips together to keep from answeri

Sammi had Jay propped against the edge of the couch, her hands steady even though his shoulder was bleeding through the makeshift bandage. She worked with surprising patience, dabbing, tightening, tying.“Hold still,” she muttered.“I am still,” Jay grumbled, jaw tense.“You’re twitching.”“That’s called breathing.”Sammi shot him a look that should have cut him clean open. He smirked despite the pain, lips twitching like he enjoyed testing her temper.“Breathing’s optional,” she said, tugging the bandage tighter.Jay hissed. “Sad

Sammi drove like the city owed her the road. Dawn cut the sky into pale ribs, the streets thin and empty while the rest of the world pressed snooze. We slipped through the hospital’s back corridors the way we always did—hoods up, footsteps soft, pockets rehearsed.“No incidents,” Sammi whispered, like saying it out loud might jinx the calm.“No witnesses,” I answered.We moved smooth. The worker entrance clicked, the hallway lights hummed tired and yellow, a vending machine rattled like a cough. We knew the shifts, the blind corners, which cameras were dummies and which blinked for real. The storage room at the end of Radiology was our mark. Sammi palmed the latch and I slid inside, the cold hitting my face like a wet hand.The cooler door lif