The sky over the South Dock was a bruised, sickly purple, choked by industrial smog and a relentless drizzle of oily rain.
Lu Xingcheng stood at the edge of the pier, a silhouette of charcoal wool and cold intent. He didn't look like a man; he looked like a predator made of shadows.
Between his leather-gloved fingers, a cigarette burned, the red ember the only spark of warmth in the freezing night.
He didn't care about the rain. He didn't care about the cold. He only cared about the velvet-lined box sitting on a wooden crate inside Warehouse 7.
Inside that box lay the "Night Star." A black diamond so dark it seemed to swallow the halogen lights of the warehouse. It was worth ten million dollars on paper—but in the underworld, its price was measured in blood.
"The witness," Xingcheng's voice drifted through the warehouse, a low, vibrating silk that made his men shiver. "If she spoke to the authorities, I don't want to see her face. Wrap her in lead and drop her in the harbor. If she's clean... I'll decide her fate."
He flicked the ash onto the concrete, his eyes never leaving the diamond.
Two enforcers, Lao K and a nameless goon, dragged a heavy, mud-stained burlap sack into the center of the room. The sack was thrashing violently.
Muffled, high-pitched swearing erupted from the fabric, sounding more like a frustrated kitten than a government spy.
"Boss, we found her hiding behind the fuel tanks," Lao K grunted, his hand hovering near his holster. "She saw the whole hand-off."
With a rough jerk, Lao K sliced the zip-tie on the bag and dumped its contents onto the cold floor.
Xingcheng expected a professional. An assassin in tactical gear. A femme fatale with a hidden blade.
Instead, a girl rolled out.
She was wearing an oversized, mustard-yellow t-shirt with a cartoon bee on it that said "Save the Bees." Her denim shorts were patched with iron-on daisies, and she was wearing scuffed sneakers with mismatched laces.
But the most offensive part? In her right hand, she was still clutching a bamboo skewer with a single, cold, half-eaten fishball.
"Jerks!" the girl shouted, spitting a strand of hair out of her mouth. She didn't look at the MP5s leveled at her head.
She looked at her knees. "Who drives a bag like that? You guys need to work on your suspension! My kidneys are in my throat!"
The warehouse went deathly silent. Six safeties clicked off simultaneously—a sound like a thunderclap.
Lu Xingcheng's cigarette froze halfway to his lips. For the first time in three years, the Shadow Emperor of the underworld was... confused.
He scanned the girl from her messy ponytail down to the sauce-stained t-shirt.
"Is this..." Xingcheng's voice was dangerously quiet, "the 'Special Agent' the Lin family sent to intercept my diamond?"
The girl, Joey, stood up, her knees popping loudly in the silence. She dusted off her shorts with her free hand, still holding the fishball skewer like a scepter.
"Special Agent?" Joey snorted, looking at Xingcheng as if he was the crazy one.
"Mister, I don't even have a library card. I was looking for my cat, Mingming! He's a tabby, about this big, hates the rain, loves drama—kind of like you guys!"
She waved her fishball at the armed guards. One guard actually flinched, thinking the bamboo stick was a poisoned dart.
"Is this an audition?" Joey asked, squinting through the industrial smoke. "You guys spent way too much on the smoke machine budget. I can barely breathe."
She did the one thing no one in the history of the Lu Syndicate had ever dared to do. She stepped forward. Directly into Lu Xingcheng's personal space.
The guards lunged to restrain her, but Xingcheng raised a sharp, gloved hand. He was paralyzed by the sheer audacity of this creature.
She smelled of cheap street food, rain, and something sweet—like vanilla.
Joey looked up at him. She didn't see the man who controlled the city's docks. She saw a man with a crooked tie.
"And this?" Joey reached out.
Her bare, warm fingers touched the silk of his two-thousand-dollar tie. Xingcheng's jaw muscles rippled. His heart, usually a block of permafrost, gave a singular, violent thud against his ribs.
"If you're going to be the 'Bad Guy,'" Joey muttered, her brow furrowed in concentration as she straightened the silk knot with focused precision, "at least be symmetrical. It's ruining the aesthetic. There. Now you look like a proper nightmare."
Xingcheng stared down at her. He looked like he was deciding between strangling her or dragging her into the shadows for a very different reason.
Suddenly, the world outside exploded.
*Wail. Wail. Wail.*
Blue and red police strobes bounced off the corrugated metal walls. The high-pitched scream of sirens approached at a terrifying speed.
"Boss! The feds!" Lao K shouted, panicked. "They must have tracked the girl's phone! We have to move!"
Xingcheng's eyes never left Joey's. He reached down and grabbed her wrist. His grip was iron, but strangely, he didn't squeeze hard enough to bruise.
"Hey! Let go!" Joey yelped. "I still haven't found Mingming!"
Xingcheng leaned down, his lips brushing against the shell of her ear. His voice was like a cold blade.
"You saw my face, Peppercorn. In my world, that makes you mine. Whether you're a witness or a pet... you're coming with me."
The roar of a helicopter's rotor blades began to drown out the sirens as a spotlight from the roof hit them, blinding the warehouse in white light.
Joey looked up at the "Shadow Emperor," her mouth open in shock. She had just wanted a snack and her cat. Instead, she had just become the most expensive mistake in Lu Xingcheng's life.