The Bronx never really slept. Even past midnight, the hum of life carried through the streets: trains rattling on the elevated tracks, music leaking from corner stores, sirens crying out somewhere in the distance. It was a city alive, restless, always moving. Jayia knew how to disappear into it.

At twenty-two, she’d perfected the art of blending in. She wore simple jeans, sneakers, and hoodies. She kept her nails short and clean instead of long and flashy. She didn’t need people’s eyes on her. In fact, the less they noticed, the better.

To most of the neighborhood — and especially to her boyfriend Jon — she was just another hardworking young woman. She clocked shifts at the warehouse, she came home tired, she laughed easily at Jon’s corny jokes, and sometimes she fell asleep on the couch with her head against his chest while he scrolled through TV channels.

Because when the warehouse lights shut down and the clock-out w clicked, Jayia stepped into her second life.

The blinds closed in her apartment. The kitchen table became her office. Rubber-banded stacks of cash lay spread across it, each neat and organized. A black duffel bag sat half-zipped on the floor, the weight of its contents obvious to anyone who knew. Her phone buzzed with coded texts, names, and numbers. Her handwriting filled a slim black notebook: routes, drops, re-ups.

Jayia wasn’t working for someone else. She wasn’t a pawn. She was the one running it. Quietly. Carefully. Smarter than most of the men who thought they ran the Bronx. Her rule was simple: keep her two worlds separate.

Jon didn’t know. He couldn’t know. And as long as Jayia had control, he never would. Or so she believed.