“Men like us,” Nico says gently, “we need shadows. If only to point us back toward the light.”
I close my eyes for half a second.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
“You always say that.”
“And you always keep calling.”
“Because you keep being a dickhead,” Nico replies evenly. “I’ll send my updates your way. You’ll know ‘em when you see ‘em.”
It’s a cryptic way to put it, but that’s Nico for you. Never does anything the easy way.
After that, the line goes dead.
I lower the phone and slip it back into my pocket, then start walking again.
Amber is a block ahead of me.
I keep my distance. Always have.
It’s a private indulgence, one I’ve allowed myself since the first night I noticed her behind the bar. A sin without witnesses. I don’t get closer than necessary.
I just watch.
She walks with purpose, keys threaded between her fingers the way women learn to do early. Her shoulders are squared, her steps brisk. Alert, but not enough.
She hasn’t noticed me yet.
That worries me.
For all her suspicion, for all her sharp questions and stubborn defiance, she doesn’t know how easily a man can disappear into the rhythm of a city night. How simple it is to be a shadow if you know where to stand.
I make sure she reaches her building safely. I watch her fumble with the door, curse softly when the lock sticks, then slip inside.
Only then do I turn away.
I’ve taken three steps when I hear it.
Amber, screaming.
13
AMBER
The walk home gives me too much time to think.
The docks are quieter at night. Which doesn’t mean safer, it just means emptier. The streetlights flicker like they’re tired of doing their job, and the water smells sharp and metallic when the wind shifts.
It wasn’t like this when I was growing up. The docks were always a little shifty, but no more dangerous than anywhere else for a woman coming back home at night. Things got worse after Coral’s disappearance, though. As if she was the glue holding the city together as well as my family.
Gangs began seeping in. Russian, mostly. They keep to themselves if you keep to yourself, but lately, they’ve been spreading past the docks. There’s more of them now, even here. It would be smarter for me to move.
But I can’t afford it. Not without selling the apartment.
And I won’t do that. I won’t give up the last solid thing I have—the last place Coral was happy and my family was whole—just because the city decided to rot around it.
So I walk.
