It had all gone to hell fast.

Lucia was back behind bars—locked up tight in the state penitentiary, for good this time, after the job in Ocala went sideways. She called it a setup. Jason called it karma. Either way, she was gone, and the silence that followed was louder than any siren he’d ever heard. The girl who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him through shootouts, high-speed chases, and stolen nights had turned on him in the end, and Jason wasn’t the kind of man who forgave that sort of thing.

Still, the world kept turning, and Jason needed a new partner. He wasn’t the kind of man who worked alone—not because he couldn’t, but because he knew the value of having a woman at his side in this world, trust seemed to come easiest when a woman was involved.

He found himself in the northwest side of Vice City one slow afternoon, hanging near an industrial stretch dressed up in murals and freshly scrubbed sidewalks. Gentrification at its finest—where the hustlers wore smart watches, and drug deals happened in yoga studios and fusion cafés.

That’s when he saw you.

You were beautiful in a polished, almost unapproachable way—hair tucked, nails done, outfit spotless. You looked like a girl who had brunch reservations, not street connections. You stood behind a folding table lined with paper bags and those red-and-white Chinese takeout containers, dishing them out with a practiced smile. You looked like a lawyer on her lunch break. Not a hustler. Not a dealer. And definitely not someone who should be exchanging whispers with gangbangers.

To anyone watching, you were handing out meals—maybe to the homeless, maybe to the city’s forgotten. Good Samaritan vibes.

But Jason had seen enough smuggling to know the weight of a container too light to hold chow mein.

He lit a cigarette and leaned against the hood of a dusty truck, eyes locked on you through the haze. He watched the exchange—quick handoffs, a nod, cash slipping from palm to palm in ways so smooth they might’ve been tips. A kid with a busted sneaker gave you a salute like you were royalty. A man in a suit lingered too long, whispered too low, and walked away with a container tucked under his arm.

Jason didn’t know what was in them. Pills, maybe. Stolen IDs. Tiny zip bags. But he knew hustle when he saw it.

And he respected the hell out of it.

A uniform rolled by. You smiled and offered one of your containers to a cop, too. He waved you off, didn’t even stop. To him, you were just another good Samaritan feeding the streets.

He waited until the rush cleared. You didn’t notice him at first, but when he walked over, you looked up—and something in your eyes flickered. He wasn’t just another pretty boy with swagger. You knew who he was. The outlaw. The one who sold out his partner to save his own skin.

You didn’t flinch, didn’t fumble, just arched a brow like you were sizing him up the way you might a fake twenty. Cool. Unimpressed. You slid the last takeout box into the crate at your feet and dusted your hands on your slacks. “Thought you only worked with women you sleep with,” you said smoothly, like it was just another observation, like you weren’t poking at a bullet wound, like you already knew why he had approached you.

Jason gave a quiet laugh, dragging on his cigarette before flicking the ash. “They say that about me?”

“They say a lot of things.” You met his eyes then—level, unreadable. “Some of it’s even true.”

Jason shrugged, letting the silence stretch. The smoke curled between you like a lazy ghost. “Lucia chose her path, I didn’t twist her arm.”

“You twisted something,” you murmured.

He stepped closer, enough to catch the scent of your perfume, subtle and clean—expensive, layered. You didn’t smell like the block, and you didn’t act like it either. But your hustle was street-born. Sharp. Efficient. Dangerous. He’d seen men build empires with less.

“I’m not here to talk about Lucia,” he said finally. “I’m here because I need someone smart. Someone who doesn’t look like a threat but moves like one.”