Prologue
ISLA
The glass cutter made a sound like a dying cicada, a high-pitched protest that made the hair on my arms stand up. I didn't flinch. In the Hollows, if you flinched, you were already dead.
"Clear," Cassey whispered, her breath hitching as she slid the suction cup off the window of *The Thread & Needle*. It was a high-end vintage shop on the edge of the neutral zone, far enough from the Rossi patrols but expensive enough to have the good leather.
I dropped inside, landing silently in my scuffed boots. The air smelled of cedar and expensive starch.
"Hurry up, Iz. Gnash wants us back by two, and I still need to find that hoodie," Cassey said, her eyes already darting toward the back of the store where the graphic tees were kept.
"Gnash can wait," I muttered, sliding a heavy, silver-buckled belt into my satchel. "He’s a small-time dog barking in a big-time alley. He doesn't own my clock. I'm just helping him that's all."
As Cassey rifled through the racks, I stood still for a moment, catching my reflection in a floor-to-ceiling gilded mirror. I looked like a disaster—dark brown eyes , a bruise blooming like a dark flower on my jaw, my dark brown hair tied up in a even messier ponytail and my favorite leather jacket held together by spite and safety pins. But behind my eyes, there was a thought I never let slip past my teeth.
One day, I wouldn't be breaking into shops. I’d own the street they were built on.
In a city where the "Ghost Mafias" were a boys' club of suits and cigars, I was going to be the first woman to break the table and build a throne from the splinters. Caspian Rossi thought he was the heir to the world? He was just a placeholder.
"Found it!" Cassey hissed, pulling a charcoal-grey sweatshirt from a rack. Her face lit up like she’d found a bar of gold. Printed across the chest was a detailed, vintage schematic of a 1911 semi-automatic.
Cassey had a thing for steel. While other girls were dreaming of boys, she was dreaming of ballistics. "Look at the linework on the barrel, Iz. It’s perfect."
"It’s a shirt, Cas," I said, though I gave her a small, sharp smile. "Don't get romantic with the laundry."
"Whatever. At least my taste is consistent," she retorted, stuffing the shirt into her bag. She paused, her gaze drifting toward a discarded newspaper on the counter. The front page featured a blurry shot of the Rossi inner circle leaving a courthouse. "Speaking of taste... look at Azeck. He’s in the background again. So quiet. So... mysterious."
I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. "He looks like a tax accountant with a scar across the cheek, Cassey. He’s a lapdog for the Rossis."
"No, he’s different," she defended, her voice dropping an octave. "Caspian is all loud and rude, always looking like he wants to punch the sun out of the sky. But Azeck? He just watches. He knows things. He’s like a puzzle you actually want to solve."
I felt a shiver of annoyance. "He’s part of the machine that grinds people like us into dust. Don't go falling for a puzzle that’s designed to trap you."
I didn't know then that Azeck wasn't just a puzzle; he was the one who had shattered the picture. And I didn't know that Caspian’s "loud and rude" persona was the only thing keeping the wolves from his door.
"Let's go," I said, grabbing a sleek black trench coat that looked far too authoritative for a street thief. I threw it over my shoulders, feeling the weight of it.
I looked at the skyline one last time before we slipped out the back. The Rossi lights were bright, but the shadows were mine.
*Just you wait, Caspian,* I thought, my fingers tracing the cold metal of my knife. *You think you’re the king of this town? You’re just keeping the seat warm for me.*
