Jimmy Tong was dead. Eddie Cardone had watched the life bleed out of the only man who’d ever taught him the rules of Chinatown, the man who’d pulled him from Columbus Avenue street corner cons into better-paying hustles. And then, when Eddie needed him, Jimmy had tried to save him, driving him out of Chinatown under fire, but the night had eaten him alive.

That left Eddie to run alone, without his closest ally, through streets that felt stranger with every step. He remembered Lillianne as he ran, and why he couldn’t leave Chinatown on his own. He loved her. It was that dumb love where he had nothing to base it on but a belief that, against all odds, she was the one.

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