The game was supposed to go down tonight. That’s what the note said. No time, no place, just tonight—like the city itself was supposed to whisper it in my ear when the moment was right.I stepped out of the corner café with smoke in my lungs and nothing in my eyes. Nobody new, nobody twitchy, nobody who didn’t belong. Just the usual ghosts nursing their regrets under the neon.So I went looking for trouble the old-fashioned way: deeper into the concrete canyons where the suits had all fled hours ago. The business district after midnight is a tomb with streetlights—quiet enough to hear your own pulse, dark enough to hide the knife.I’d barely slipped between two shadows when he showed up. A slab of muscle in cracked leather, moving like he owned the night and everyone in it. Biker jacket, scarred knuckles, the kind of face that never learned how to smile without meaning it.He saw me.I saw him see me.And the alley suddenly felt a lot narrower than it had a heartbeat ago.