Look at him. Cocky.
Miho watched 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 mixing into the night, limestone stoops tagged with fresh graffiti, the elevated tracks humming like distant thunder.
“Your friend ‘Kate’ has answers?” Miho asked, eyes flicking to the street’s edges.
“We haven’t talked in a year,” Apollo said, ribs still tight from Myers’ beating. “And don’t call her Kate. She hates it.” He hesitated, then shrugged. “Actually… call her that.”
“Don’t get your friend killed.” Miho moved ahead a few paces, 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 drunks and two women sizing them like marks. Miho filed the details by instinct—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 just off her flank—close enough to help, not close enough to be in the way. 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 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?” Apollo shot back.
“Confidence. You should try it.” She tilted her head toward a doorway where a tired girl 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 and threatening.
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,” Miho replied.
“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. The smell of urine cut the air. Miho pinched her nose and kept moving. “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 neon buzzed: THE PITCH—the C sputtered dead. Inside: four narrow aisles, hotdog rollers crackling, toothpaste and batteries stacked on metal shelves, a glass case of scratch-offs behind the counter. Two clerks loitered—both thick-shouldered. One wore a Celtics tee and a shamrock cap that read SEAN; the other, TOM, had 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, never taking her eyes off them.
Sean vaulted the counter with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “My eyes deceive me — Shades? Didn’t you retire? Heard about a broken heart.” The grin thinned. “Or is she why you’re back—the Polar Bear of the Streets?”
Tom hopped down, shoulder loose with readiness. “Thought you wouldn’t recognize her.”
Miho felt the hum behind her sternum—not fear, but a steady, satisfied pride. Territory testing territory. Guard dogs at the den’s edge. Apollo would fight injured if it came to that; 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 don’t want that.”
Tom cocked his head, teasing. “Can’t remember the last time someone tried to play hard to get.”
Sean’s jaw jumped. “You flirting in front of me now?”
“You were eyeing her two seconds ago.”
“Because she looks like trouble,” Sean snapped, eyes flicking possessive between them. Good—Miho thought. The pack’s pecking order was intact.
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 shot a warning look at Apollo.
Behind the storage door, the shop’s hum dimmed. Miho’s steps softened on bare concrete. Apollo rolled back a stained rug and revealed a steel hatch bolted into old joists.
“This the real entrance?” Miho asked.
“Yup,” Apollo said. “Coat check and the dance bar’s 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 a blue-lit drop. Air rose from below smelling like chalk, leather, and disinfectant. Miho listened—bass, distant; whistles; the low river of bodies. Territory humming beneath the street.
“I suppose I should thank you for correcting that clerk,” she said.
“I didn’t do it for you,” he said. “It’s just who I am.”
“Interesting.” She logged it—names, tells, debts—exact as she always did. “You ready?”
“Ladies first,” Apollo said.
Miho put a hand on the ladder and glanced back at Bridgeport. The neighborhood drew breath behind them like a tired animal—warm brick, cold rail, the city’s pulse. She took the first rung and started down, senses open, muscles controlled. The scent trail was strong here—history, sweat, and something sharp as ice.
They’d stalked long enough.
Time to meet the prey.