Marina appeared at the edge of the roof, breathing a little hard from the climb. Her red hair was wild, clothes damp, knuckles freshly split.
She stopped when she saw him.
"You look like shit," she said.
Shupto turned his head, offering a small, gentle smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Funny. I was about to say the same thing, but with more blood."
Marina snorted and sat down a few feet away, legs dangling beside his.
"Rough night?"
"Desmond's dead," Shupto said quietly. "New drug. Nightrain. He tried it for the pain in his knees." He let out a soft, sarcastic laugh. "Brilliant plan. Ten out of ten. Would recommend to all my friends."
Marina went still. "Shit. I'm sorry."
He shrugged, gentle even in grief. "City's full of brilliant plans that end with people on the ground."
They sat in silence for a moment, rain pattering around them.
Marina finally spoke. "I did a job tonight. Solo. Took down four of Kalumba's runners at the docks. Got their product."
Shupto glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. "Alone? Bold. Or stupid. I'm still deciding which."
"Both," she admitted with a reckless grin. "Felt good though."
He studied her for a long moment—the wild energy, the blood on her hands, the way she seemed almost high on the violence.
"Careful, Red," he said softly, sarcasm threading through the gentleness. "Keep smiling like that and the city might start smiling back. And trust me… its teeth are sharper than yours."
Marina laughed—bright, unhinged, carefree.
"I'm counting on it."
Shupto looked out over the neon sprawl, the ache in his chest hardening into something quieter and more dangerous.
He stood up, looking down at her.
"I got a job," he said. "From a man named Michael Vado. Spanish guy, fifties. He knows who gave Desmond the Nightrain. Pay is ten grand."
Marina's eyes sharpened. "What's the job?"
"Starwave Island Yacht Club. Need to get photos of a rich businessman named John Anderson cheating on his wife. Before midnight." He glanced at his watch. "It's eight now."
Marina stood, brushing rain from her arms. "What's the problem?"
Shupto met her eyes. "I need a partner to get in. Someone who can play a part." He let the implication hang.
Marina's grin returned. "Let's go."
She stepped closer, her energy shifting from fighter to co-conspirator. "We need to buy tuxedos. And a dress. Something that screams 'I belong on Starwave Island.'"
Shupto smiled—small, but real this time. "Verenza Sachs. Twenty minutes."
---
The shop was quiet when they arrived, the kind of place where the salespeople looked at you first to calculate your worth. Marina didn't give them time to judge. She walked in like she owned the block, pointed at a black evening dress with a slit up the side, and disappeared into the changing room.
Shupto found a charcoal tuxedo that fit his shoulders without adjustment—a small miracle in a city where nothing ever seemed built for his frame. He emerged to find Marina already dressed, the red of her hair spilling over black silk, her split knuckles the only thing that didn't belong in a society page photograph.
They paid. Shupto's wallet was lighter by more than he'd planned.
"I've got one thousand left," he said as they walked back to the car. "So if this goes sideways, I'm eating noodles for a month."
Marina slid into the passenger seat, arranging the bag that held the camera—disguised as an evening purse, just big enough for what they needed. "Then don't let it go sideways."
The bridge to Starwave Island stretched ahead of them, a string of lights across the black water. On either side, the bay glittered with reflected neon from the mainland. Ahead, the island sat in its own private darkness, the mansions and clubs glowing like embers.
Marina glanced at Shupto. In the dashboard light, his profile was sharp, his grey hair catching the glow. He looked—she moved her eyes back to the road. Distraction, she told herself. Focus on the goal.
He was devastatingly handsome. She didn't need that right now.
---
The Starwave Island Yacht Club was everything Vex City pretended to be: elegant, exclusive, untouchable. White columns, crystal chandeliers, the kind of money that didn't talk about itself because it didn't need to.
Shupto parked the blue Sabre in a row of cars that probably cost more than everything he owned. Heads turned when they walked in—not with suspicion, but with the automatic assessment of people who rated everything by its price tag. Marina felt their eyes on her dress, on her hair, on the way Shupto's hand found the small of her back as they moved through the entrance.
They pressed together as they walked, her shoulder against his chest, the bag with the camera tucked close. Like they belonged here. Like they'd done this a hundred times.
At the bar, Marina ordered a Bloody Mary with a whiskey shot on the side. Shupto scanned the menu and said, "Something sweet. No bitterness."
The bartender raised an eyebrow but didn't comment.
Shupto spotted him first. John Anderson, mid-forties, the kind of handsome that came from good genetics and better tailoring. He was in a corner booth with a woman young enough to be his daughter, his hand on her thigh, his wedding ring catching the light as he laughed at something she said.
Marina followed his gaze. Her fingers found the camera.
She raised the bag, aimed through the small opening they'd cut in the fabric, and clicked. Once. Twice. Three times. The man's face, the woman's smile, the angle that made everything unmistakable.
John Anderson looked up.
For a moment, his eyes met Marina's. Then his expression shifted from pleasure to something colder.
"Go," Shupto breathed.
They moved together, cutting through the crowd toward the exit. Behind them, they heard Anderson's voice—sharp, commanding—and the heavy footsteps of men who got paid to move fast.
Marina's dress slowed her. The slit was fashionable, not functional. She could hear the bouncers closing in, four of them blocking the main gate ahead.
She stopped. Grabbed Shupto by the lapels. Pulled him close.
She kissed him.
It was hungry, desperate, the kind of kiss that made people look away instead of look closer. Her fingers twisted in his shirt, his hands found her waist, and for a moment—just a moment—the mission disappeared and there was only the heat of his mouth, the surprise in his eyes, the way his body pressed against hers like they were the only two people in the room.
The bouncers reached them. One cleared his throat.
"You two the ones causing trouble inside?"
Marina pulled back just far enough to speak, her lips still brushing Shupto's.
"I need to get wrecked by my man," she said, her voice loud enough to carry. "If you don't let us go, I'll wreck this whole place. Starting with you."
The bouncers exchanged looks. One of them—the oldest, the one who'd probably seen too much to be surprised by anything anymore—stepped aside.
"Get out of here."
They walked, not ran, through the gate. Marina's heels clicked on the pavement, steady and unhurried. She didn't look back.
The blue Sabre was twenty feet away. They were ten feet away. Five.
Behind them, John Anderson burst through the club entrance, screaming.
"Stop them! Those two—stop them!"
The bouncers turned. Started moving.
Marina hit the gas before Shupto had the door fully closed. The Sabre screamed out of the parking lot, tires catching on wet asphalt, and behind them the lights of the yacht club shrank to a smear in the rearview mirror.
---
The police lights appeared two blocks later.
Marina's jaw tightened. She wove through side streets, cutting corners, riding the edge of control. The Sabre's engine roared. The sirens followed, distant but persistent.
She spotted the parking lot behind the NubRarban clothing store—tight, dark, full of cars arranged in the particular chaos of people who didn't care where they parked. She swung the wheel, slid into a space between a delivery van and a rusted pickup, and killed the engine.
The police cruiser passed the entrance without slowing.
Marina let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She looked at Shupto. His face was calm, but his hands were still braced against the dashboard.
"That was—" he started.
"Not done yet." She opened the door, grabbed the bag with their street clothes from the back seat. "We change. Now."
The clothing store was closed, but the back door was unlocked—one of those small mercies Vex City offered when you needed it. They found the bathroom, changed in silence, stuffed the tuxedo and dress into the bag. Marina pulled her hood up, let her hair fall forward to hide her face.
They walked out of the store together, slow, casual, two people who'd just finished a late-night shopping trip.
A police cruiser sat at the corner, engine idling. The officer inside looked at them, looked away.
Marina's heart was a drum in her chest. She kept walking. Shupto matched her pace, unhurried, his hand finding the small of her back again—steadying her, or maybe himself.
They reached the Sabre. Got in. Drove.
---
The lights of Downtown blurred past, neon bleeding into the wet streets. Marina's hands were steady on the wheel, but her mind wasn't.
The kiss. The way his mouth had fit against hers. The way he'd pulled her closer instead of pushing her away.
Her real first kiss. Not the fumbling teenage thing behind the bleachers, not the drunken press of lips at some party she barely remembered. This—urgent, electric, a lie that had felt more true than anything in months.
She couldn't stop thinking about it.
She hadn't thought about the job, about Kalumba, about anything. Just his mouth. His hands. The way his breath had caught when she pulled him close.
Beside her, Shupto was quiet. The city lights moved across his face, lighting the grey in his hair, the line of his jaw.
"That was your first kiss," he said. Not a question.
Marina's grip tightened on the wheel. "Shut up."
He was quiet for a moment. Then, softly: "Your lips taste sweet."
She could feel the heat rising in her face, grateful for the darkness of the car.
"I said shut up." She cleared her throat, forcing her voice into something steadier. "I want half your ten grand."
She heard him smile before she saw it.
"No problem."
They drove in silence after that, the Sabre cutting through the neon night, the city humming around them like a living thing. Marina's lips still tingled. She didn't touch them, didn't acknowledge it, but she felt it there—a warmth that had nothing to do with the whiskey shot she'd downed at the bar.
Desmond was gone.
And for the first time in five years, Shupto Malik wasn't sure he wanted to stay invisible anymore. He looked at the woman beside him—the red hair, the split knuckles, the way she drove like she was daring the city to stop her—and something in his chest shifted.
Marina would make sure he saw the world. Whether he wanted to or not.
The car moved toward the docks, toward the rooftop, toward whatever came next. Behind them, the yacht club's lights faded into the sprawl of the city. Ahead, the neon pulsed on—hungry, bright, waiting.