The rain had washed the city clean, or at least that’s what it looked like on the surface. Elara knew better. Filth always seeped back through the cracks.
She’d been following them for days — a pair of crooked bail bondsmen who made a second income selling fugitives to violent debt collectors. Their greed was a sickness, and tonight, she was the cure.
They met in the back office of a dingy pool hall, arguing over a stack of cash. Elara slipped inside through the rear, silent as the dripping water from the gutter.
The first man didn’t even hear her. She drove the blade in clean between his ribs, a swift puncture under the heart. His eyes went wide, but no sound came — just a wet gasp. She held him there until the life drained out.
The second lunged for a drawer — a gun, maybe — but she
