Chapter 7
Scent of Prey
Look at him. Cocky.
Miho studied Apollo as they crossed into The Pitch’s territory—one of the last clubs not yet under Nike’s heel. Bridgeport wasn’t the gleaming Loop. It wore its history on brick and soot: Irish taverns spilling laughter and beer onto Halsted, late-night Chinese and Mexican takeout perfuming the corners, old limestone stoops tattooed with fresh graffiti, the elevated tracks humming like distant thunder.
“Your friend ‘Kate’ has answers?” Miho asked, eyes never leaving the street’s edges.
“We haven’t talked in a year,” Apollo said, ribs tight from Myers’ beating. “And don’t call her Kate. She hates that.” He paused. “Actually… call her that.”
“Don’t get your friend killed.” Miho moved ahead, testing the wind, letting the city’s smells and heat map her nerves. “I’ve heard of Kaitlyn. Sounds as dangerous as me.”
They drifted past a pair of staggering drunks and two women sizing them like marks; Miho filed the details away: exits, sightlines, who was watching. Predators first, prey second. Always.
“Yeah? Call her ‘Kate’ and you’ll be a fire pit in January,” Apollo said, finally matching her pace. He kept one step to her flank—close enough to help, not close enough to trip. Learning.
“If she’s anything like this neighborhood,” Miho said, “she leaves a lot to the imagination.” Her mouth curled. “I can’t believe I’m in a place this… unpolished.”
“You really calling Bridgeport uncivilized?” Apollo snorted. “You’re crazier than I thought.”
“How are the ribs?” she asked, casually. “Be a shame if I took one.”
“What is your deal?”
“Confidence. You should try it.” She tilted her head toward a doorway where a girl with tired eyes watched the street. “Those women use what they have to survive. I don’t do that. I model. Safer. Smarter. Men want what they can’t have. When they try to force it—” She let the sentence hang, frosted.
He slowed. “What happened to the guy who tried with you?”
“What happens to anyone who threatens my family,” she said. “The same thing that will happen to Nike.” She cut him a look. “So your friend better know what to do. Or I’ll do it my way.”
“Didn’t think you cared about others,” Apollo said. “I always knew you were arrogant—sorry, ‘confident’—but this place isn’t beneath you. Kaitlyn talked about this neighborhood with pride. People built this brick by brick.”
“I’m not here to debate a child.”
“You’re like a year older.”
“Physically,” she said. “Mentally? Years.”
They rounded a corner. A man slept crumpled against the wall, snoring as if drowning in air. Urine cut through the night. Miho pinched a breath. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you. Let’s keep it that way and get to your friend.”
“There,” Apollo said, pointing. “The Pitch.”
The corner store’s sign buzzed: THE PITCH—the C flickered dead. Inside: four narrow aisles, hotdog rollers crackling, toothpaste and batteries, a glass case of scratch-offs. Two clerks worked the counter—both thick through the shoulders, one in a Celtics tee and a shamrock cap that read SEAN, the other, TOM, with darker hair and a boxer’s posture.
Sean brightened. “Long way from Chinatown, toots.”
“I’m Japanese,” Miho said flatly.
“I like ’em with some spark!” Sean elbowed Tom, who folded his arms.
“She’s eighteen,” Tom said, dry.
“Exactly,” Miho answered, eyes never leaving theirs.
Sean vaulted the counter with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “My eyes deceive me? Shades? Didn’t you retire? Heard some story about a broken heart.” His grin thinned. “Or is she why you’re back—the Polar Bear of the Streets?”
Tom hopped down, too. “Thought you didn’t recognize her.”
Miho felt the hum build behind her sternum—not fear; pride. Territory testing territory. Guard dogs at the edge of the den. Apollo would fight injured if he had to; she didn’t care either way. She could take both.
“Listen, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum,” Apollo said. “We’re here to see Kaitlyn, not scrap. You know what we can do. You do not want that.”
Tom cocked his head at Apollo, teasing. “I can’t remember the last time I had a young man play hard to get.”
Sean’s jaw jumped. “You’re flirting in front of me now?”
“You were eyeing her two seconds ago.”
“Because she looks like trouble,” Sean snapped, then exhaled through his nose, eyes cutting between them. Possessive. Protective. Good, Miho thought. The pack’s got a pecking order.
Tom shoved through a back door marked STORAGE. “Go. Kaitlyn’s expecting you. And you don’t want to see the conversation we’re about to have.”
“Go on,” Sean said, thumb jerking toward the door. “We’ll remember being… ‘outed’ at our own counter.” He threw a look at Apollo of bruised pride and warning both.
Behind the door, the hum of the store dimmed. Miho’s steps softened on bare concrete. Apollo rolled back a stained rug and revealed a steel hatch married to old floor joists.
“This is the real entrance?” Miho asked.
“Yup,” Apollo said. “Coat check and the dance bar are upstairs for cops and tourists. This leads to the sub-basement. Sean and Tom are the first filter—no ghosts slip past them.”
He knelt, winced, and popped the latch. A ladder angled into blue light. The air coming up smelled like chalk, leather, and disinfectant. Miho listened—bass, distant; whistles; the river of a crowd. Territory humming below ground.
“I suppose I should thank you for correcting that clerk,” she said. “People love to assume.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” he said. “It’s just who I am.”
“Interesting.” She filed the data, as she always did. Names, tells, debts. “Are you ready?”
“Ladies first.”
Miho put a hand on the ladder and glanced back down the corridor. Bridgeport breathed behind them like a large animal at rest—warm brick, cold rail, the city’s pulse. She took the first rung and started down, every sense open, every muscle slow. The scent trail was strongest here—history, sweat, and something sharp as ice.
They’d stalked long enough.
Time to meet the prey.