A man in a suit that costs more than a car tries to buy her a drink. She lets him. His eyes trace the ink on her collarbone—a constellation of old regrets and sharper victories. He asks what a girl like her is doing in a place like this.

Lexi doesn’t correct him on the word "girl." She just smiles, slow and dangerous, like a blade being drawn.

The neon hum of the city at 2 a.m. is a frequency most people never learn to hear. But Lexi Sindel knows it by heart.

She steps out of the back of the town car, the click of her heels a metronome against the wet asphalt. The rain has just stopped, leaving the streets slick as glass, reflecting the fractured lights of closed pawn shops and 24-hour diners. She doesn’t look at the reflection. She becomes it.