All Chapters of BOUND BY THE VEIN : Chapter 1 - Chapter 4

Shawn took the stairs. Not the elegant marble staircase guests used, but the narrow, fluorescent-lit service stairwell behind the fifth-floor linen closet, smelling of bleach and old carpet. He couldn’t risk the elevator. The thought of those smooth metal doors sliding shut, trapping him in a steel box with nothing but his own heartbeat and the possibility that the pale thing from suite 512 could be waiting on the other side, with its fangs out, eyes glowing and cock still slick from the dead man. Picturing it made bile rise in his throat. Better to sprint down five flights on shaking legs. Better to twist an ankle or crack a kneecap on the concrete steps, than stand motionless while something that ancient, hungry and terrifying decide whether to drain him dry or fuck him to death first. The memory kept flashing: the wet fangs pulling free, blood on lips, trailing down neck, the limp body still impaled, hips twitching in dying rhythm. Shawn’s stomach lurched again. He gripp

Monday morning in New York hit him like a freight train. It was just after eight, and Midtown was already alive with suited commuters hopping over puddles from last night’s drizzle. The air carried the usual mix of exhaust, burnt coffee from street carts, and that sharp, metallic smell that always seemed to hang over the city at the start of a new week.Shawn tightened his grip on his phone in the back of the yellow cab, the cracked vinyl seat squeaking every time the driver hit a pothole on the way toward Fifth Avenue. The tie around his neck wasn’t even his, and it felt more like a leash than part of a professional outfit, but it was what he had.This was the second stage: the in-person interview after his resume and documents had somehow made it through the first round. It was a real corporate firm this time. Glass tower, security badges, daylight hours. If he didn’t mess this up, maybe… just maybe, he could start digging himself out of the mess he’d been drowning in.The call conn