Shadow Work: A Marti Starova Erotic Thriller

Shadow Work – Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

“Who the fuck is screaming?” Marti shouted out the bedroom window, eyes bleary, voice hoarse, cigarette dangling from her lips though she hadn’t lit the damn thing yet.

“Fuck you, bitch!” someone hollered back. Laughter followed: drunken and stupid, like gravel scraping down bone in a blender.

Marti leaned out far enough to consider how many floors it would take to kill a man with gravity and spite. Three stories wasn’t enough. She sighed and slammed the pane shut hard enough to rattle the cracked glass.

Sleep? In Falls City? That was a fucking fantasy.

She turned back into the apartment, toes catching on a half-crushed beer can that wasn’t hers. Neon from the strip club across the street blinked through her blinds, painting the walls in migraine pink and hellish green. It made her peeling wallpaper look as if it were flaking skin. The air stank of wet concrete and fried grease, the city’s own cologne, and it had seeped into everything she owned. Even her favorite hoodie smelled like mildew and regret.

Once upon a time she had a badge and a name that meant something. Now she had rust stains in her sink and a stack of cheating spouse files collecting dust on her coffee table as if waiting for someone who gave a shit.

She ran a hand through her cropped black hair and hissed when her fingers caught on a knot. “Assholes,” she muttered to the ceiling. A siren wailed nearby: either an ambulance or another cop beating someone to death over a traffic stop. Marti didn’t care which.

Another burst of laughter floated up from the street. She kicked at a laundry pile on her way to the kitchen nook, stepping over a half-eaten takeout box that might’ve been noodles or possibly boiled rat. Hard to tell anymore.

“Falls City,” she muttered, “where dreams go to overdose.”

The faucet groaned when she cranked it, coughing up chalky water as if it resented being useful this late. She let it run over her hand but didn’t bother drinking any. Her mouth tasted like cotton.

She turned away from the sink and grabbed the cigarette pack off her bedside table: a crumpled mess of receipts, empty pill bottles, lint, and one half-loaded Glock that liked to whisper things when she was high enough to listen.

“Fuck it.”

She lit up and let that first drag kiss her insides like an old lover who smelled of danger and disappointment. Her lungs burned. It felt honest.

The gun sat beside an open case file: missing girl, seventeen, probably dead but no one had found her body. Marti stared at it before wrapping her fingers around the grip.

Too easy.

She could hear what they’d say: “Washed-up PI loses it,” or “Former detective guns down teenagers in drug-fueled rage.” Clickbait headlines wrote themselves these days.

And none of them would mention how tired she was.

She dropped onto the couch like week-old meat hitting linoleum. She took another drag, eyes fixed on nothing while sirens wailed somewhere distant; not distant enough.

“Get it together,” she muttered between clenched teeth, tapping ash into an overflowing tray where old filters stuck together like little corpses holding hands.

But even as she said it, that familiar whisper curled around her spine again; soft and sticky as tar: You’re better when you’re worse. You know that.

Marti sat there surrounded by old coffee cups and unslept nights. Laughter floated in through broken blinds as if some cruel serenade from a city that never stopped taking things.

She wondered if maybe Shadow wasn’t killing her fast enough.

Marti crawled into bed and yanked the blanket over her head as if it could smother the entire goddamn city: Falls City and its noise, its bullshit, its never-ending parade of broken glass and testosterone-drenched dickwads playing king of the block at two in the morning. Tomorrow, she’d deal with it. Tonight was supposed to be hers.

Then came the crash: bottle against concrete, or maybe a skull. Hard to tell from up here.

Voices rose in a chorus of fuck-yous and manic laughter. A shout. The pop of something metal. Then glass again, louder this time. Windows or bottles? She didn’t care.

She stared at her ceiling for six seconds. That was generous.

“Fuck this.” She kicked off the blanket, rolled out of bed, and grabbed the gun from the table. Cold steel, old comfort. Better than a fuck buddy, less needy than a girlfriend. The weight settled into her hand like it belonged there.

Barefoot and pissed, she padded toward the window.

“You wanna screw with my sleep?” she muttered, thumb brushing safety off. “Let’s fucking dance.”

She shouldered past moth-eaten curtains and cranked the window open with a screech loud enough to qualify as its own warning shot. Leaned out far enough to get an angle on the chaos below.

Four assholes circled a hatchback as if it could fight back. One had a bat. Two had attitude. All of them had that untouchable swagger that came with youth, testosterone, and no working brain cells between them.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Shut the fuck up or I’ll put holes in your stupid little bodies!”

One of them looked up and flipped her off. “Fuck you, cunt!”

“Cool,” Marti said, then pulled the trigger three times.

The flash lit up their faces like camera bulbs at an execution: wide eyes, frozen mid-laugh. A beer can dropped and rolled across pavement.

“Holy shit!” one screamed as they bolted down the alley like rats spotting fire.

Marti leaned on the sill and watched them scatter with all the dignity of wet cats hit by a hose.

She smiled. “Sleep tight, dipshits.”

The window slammed shut behind her as she turned back toward bed: gun on nightstand, shoulder cracking as she flopped face-down onto damp sheets that still smelled like frustration and cheap detergent.

Her heart thumped like someone else’s bad decision echoing in her ribcage. Satisfaction didn’t even begin to cover it.

Was it legal? Probably not. Definitely not.

Did she give a shit? Less than zero.

She exhaled into her pillow and whispered: “Sweet dreams, assholes.”

* * *

Two hours later:

A pounding knock tore through whatever half-dream she’d managed to assemble in the dark.

Marti groaned against cotton sheets that now felt like sandpaper soaked in regret.

“Open up! Police!”

Of course it was.

She swung her legs out from under the covers and shuffled across splintered floorboards as if someone dragging their soul behind them on a leash. Hoodie over tank top. Gun tucked under mattress this time; not smart to flaunt evidence when badge-wielding morons came knocking.

She cracked open the door to find exactly what she’d expected: Officers Driver and Davidson in matching scowls and state-issued leather jackets three years out of style.

“Morning, boys,” Marti said around a yawn, leaning against the doorframe just enough to show she hadn’t brushed her teeth or given a damn in quite some time. “You here about my fireworks show?”

Driver didn’t smile. Davidson looked constipated with authority.

“We got multiple calls about shots fired near this building,” Davidson said through clenched teeth. “Witnesses say someone fitting your description was seen firing from their window.”

“Oh no,” Marti deadpanned. “Someone with tits and insomnia? Must’ve been me.”

“You wanna try again?”

“I mean…” She swept an arm behind her in mock presentation of her shitty apartment: unmade bed, flickering kitchen lightbulb threatening suicide every five seconds, ashtray overflowing beside an empty bottle of rot gut. “Do I look like someone who’d waste bullets on dumbasses breaking windows?”

Driver stepped forward until his badge tried to intimidate its way into her space.

“You’ve got priors,” he said, too calm, and Marti considered spitting directly onto his boots just to see if he’d flinch.

“And you’ve got bad breath,” she replied.

Davidson rubbed his temples as if Marti’s existence gave him migraines by default. “Listen closely: if you’re caught discharging a weapon again.”

“Allegedly.”

“Without cause.”

“Oh I had cause,” she grinned. “You ever try sleeping through four junkies beating up a car?”

Driver pulled out his notepad but didn’t write anything down. He just held it as if tension meant business.

Marti folded her arms under hoodie sleeves gone threadbare at the cuffs and sighed loud enough for half the hallway to hear it echo back down the stairwell.

“Well,” she said, “if you’re done scolding me for allegedly defending myself from noise pollution, I’ve got dreams of peace and quiet calling my name.”

Neither cop moved, which was annoying but not unexpected.

They stared each other down another five seconds before Davidson grunted something about checking security cams across the street and Driver snapped his notebook closed hard.

“Don’t test us again,” he said over his shoulder as they walked away down hall tiles sticky with years of other people’s problems.

“I would never dream of it,” Marti called after them before slamming her door shut just loud enough to count as punctuation on the whole conversation.

She leaned back against it for one long breath before pushing off toward bed once more.

Tonight she’d almost gotten sleep between gunfire and threats of arrest: a personal best lately. Falls City didn’t scare easily, but neither did she.

The black case hit the counter with a thud that echoed. Marti’s hand lingered on the latch, her knuckles pale and tight. She stared at it for a second, as if maybe it would apologize for not being full enough. She flipped it open. Slim metal inhalers gleamed inside, nestled like bullets in an assassin’s kit.

She grabbed one and pressed it to her lips. She never knew if she was going to hit the jackpot or lose it all.

Inhale. Hold. Wait.

Shadow hit her bloodstream like a back-alley kiss: too fast, too familiar, too perfect. The warmth unspooled through her chest and spine, smoothing over the jagged edges Dunstone and Driver had left behind. Useless cops. No sense of nuance, no instinct, no fight. They were what happened when bureaucrats dressed up like soldiers.

“Fuck them,” she whispered, voice hoarse from the cigarette she lit without thinking. First drag scraped up her throat like sandpaper dipped in tar. Second one tasted like bitterness she didn’t want to name.

The combo: Shadow’s chemical lullaby and nicotine’s throat-punch nostalgia, wrapped around her skull until everything outside her kitchen faded to static. Anger? Still there, sure. But distant now. Like a dog barking in another room.

She flicked ash into an empty mug, turned on the rattling coffee maker with her elbow. Liquid bitterness dribbled into a stained cup, the same shade as despair but somehow more comforting. She took a sip and popped two slices of bread into the toaster with force. The appliance groaned in protest. So did she.

By the time breakfast materialized: a piece of toast as if it begged for mercy, Marti was through her cigarette and committed to finishing both out of spite.

Cigarette: dead. Sink: full of gray water that hadn’t moved in three days. She dropped the butt in and watched it sizzle as if from a noir short film nobody watched.

None of it mattered.

The memory of those badge-wearing idiots kept circling back like acid reflux, no matter how high she got or how much caffeine she threw at it. Once upon a time, she’d worn the badge too; a younger Marti who still gave a shit about rules and justice and all that bedtime-story crap.

Now?

Now she burned bridges before they were built.

She muttered “jerks” like it was a curse and prayer rolled into one word, then set down her mug hard enough to crack porcelain. The anger hadn’t left. It had changed shape, gone cold around the edges like old soup or fresh corpses.

And beneath that cold? Purpose.

Martina fucking Starova didn’t sulk when things went sideways. She adapted, recalibrated, rearmed. This day wouldn’t be different.

The Shadow was fading; the stuff never lasted long enough, but its whisper stayed behind: You need more. You always do.

Yeah, she did.

Not just to level out but to get ahead, to stay faster than whatever was trying to catch her: guilt, memory, someone with a badge and a vendetta.

“Kransten Park,” she said, testing the name in her mouth as if expecting it to bite back.

It didn’t.

Kransten Park meant product: quiet deals traded under burned-out streetlamps by men with smiles too wide to be honest.

For Marti, she’d rented this shithole for its proximity to that particular brand of salvation.

Her knees cracked as she stood, aching joints reminding her this body came with mileage and scars paid for in cash and consequence, and headed over to where yesterday’s wardrobe lay abandoned on the floor like battlefield remnants nobody claimed after the war ended.

Pajama pants hit the laundry pile. Her jeans were next: ripped at the knee from something she couldn’t remember, involving running or fighting or falling down while too high to care. T-shirt followed, black once but now faded enough to look blue under harsh light, and clung to her ribs as if no fabric should unless it had consent first.

She didn’t care about flattering angles or fashion statements; this wasn’t about hot looks or handsy club stares. This was about efficiency and availability: could she reach her gun without snagging on denim? Yes? Good enough.

Gray hoodie, fraying at the cuffs, and leather jacket layered overtop until she looked street-level dangerous instead of vulnerable or broken or whatever else Lori might’ve said during one of those therapy-inspired heart-to-heart ambushes over lunch breaks Marti pretended not to enjoy.

Gun slid into place against the small of her back like a familiar itch. Cigarettes vanished into hoodie pockets beside fingers that trembled when idle too long.

“Let’s do this,” she said, tired, and pulled on boots scarred from years of chasing things that never wanted rescuing.

The key turned behind her with a metallic finality as Marti stepped into the hallway’s gloom. Unlike earlier that morning, now there was direction behind her walk and fire simmering behind every step.

She needed Shadow, and anything standing between her and Kransten Park better believe she’d walk straight through them if they tried slowing her down.

The air outside slapped her like a wet glove. Rain came down in sheets, soaking through Marti’s jacket in seconds and gluing her shirt to skin that wasn’t in the mood for this kind of intimacy. One of these days she’d buy a raincoat; maybe the same day she started flossing or believing people didn’t deserve what they got.

Falls City looked like hell’s waiting room: neon signs smeared across the puddled sidewalks, flickering pinks and greens bleeding into storm drains too clogged to swallow anything but dreams. The gutters had more color than most funerals. Fitting.

She lit a cigarette with shaking fingers, glanced back at her apartment building, and squinted at the sidewalk. No blood. No splash pattern. No body sprawled in a dramatic pose under broken streetlight glow. Just water and disappointment pooling in all the wrong places.

“Well gut me with a rusty switchblade,” she muttered, letting smoke curl between her teeth. “Not even a goddamn splatter.”

She shoved her hands deeper into damp pockets and moved fast, boots slapping rain-slick pavement with purpose if not grace. Around her, Falls City groaned; sirens wailed distant, traffic hummed like an exhausted lover trying to finish anyway. Voices shouted somewhere behind her as if it could’ve been a drug deal or somebody losing their lunch over bad sushi and worse decisions.

Didn’t matter. It was all white noise now.

Her brain played reruns: the itch behind her eyes pulsing to the beat of Shadow withdrawal. Twenty hours since her last hit and counting. Her nerves? Shot to hell. Her muscles? Tense enough to snap steel cables. Her next dose wasn’t just a craving; it was survival.

Another cigarette burned down to filter before she noticed. She flicked it away without ceremony. Hit someone in the leg? Oops.

She turned the corner and spotted the bodega at the end of the block, Carlos’s place, a flickering OPEN sign buzzing as if it wanted out just as badly as she did. She had a craving for citrus, something sharp and sweet, to stave off the craving for Shadow for just a bit longer.

The man himself waved from inside: gray-bearded, wearing that battered Raiders hoodie he claimed was lucky, despite all visible evidence to the contrary.

“Hey, Marti!” Carlos called through the cracked door as if nothing was burning inside her head. “Long time no see!”

She pushed the door open hard enough to rattle the bell above it.

“Can’t talk,” she snapped, voice sharp. Soft edges were for people who didn’t have corpses on delay.

Carlos raised both hands as if she’d pulled a gun instead of words. “Easy there! I know that face: you’re on a mission.”

Marti didn’t respond. What was there to say? Yeah, I’m jonesing for Shadow so bad I’d suck dick in an alley if someone hinted they knew a guy?

Instead of probing further (thank God), Carlos ducked below the counter and came up holding an orange. He knew the cravings.

He tossed it underhand toward her as if they were playing catch instead of flirting with narcotics dependency.

Marti caught it mid-air without looking; reflexes still sharp even if everything else was fraying. The fruit felt warm in her cold fingers. Soft skin under calloused palms made her stomach lurch with something close to feeling.

“You serious?” she asked.

Carlos shrugged with that shit-eating grin he always wore when he knew he’d won some small battle for humanity today. “Vitamin C builds character.”

Marti stared at him one extra second: a long enough pause that something between them threatened to soften. She rolled the orange against her palm as if it might explode if squeezed too hard.

“Thanks,” she muttered, voice between gratitude and disbelief.

Carlos leaned back against his fridge full of off-brand cola and expired yogurt drinks as if he had all day to wait her out.

“You look like you needed something real,” he said. “Even if it’s just fruit.” Then added: “No strings attached.”

That was probably bullshit, but nice-smelling bullshit at least.

Marti gave him one final look before turning toward the exit: soaked hair dripping onto cracked tile floors, orange cradled against her chest like contraband or confession.

Outside, Falls City hadn’t changed, but for half a second, something inside of her almost had.

Marti stepped out. The rain punched her in the face. Cold, hard, insistent, as if the sky had something personal against her. She ducked under the crooked awning of a rundown bakery that smelled like mold and disappointment, pulled an orange from her coat pocket, and started peeling it with focus usually reserved for disarming bombs.

The skin came off in wet flaps. Juice dripped down her fingers, sticky and sweet, mixing with city grime in a way that was probably biohazardous. She didn’t care. It was the first good thing to touch her mouth in days. She bit into it skin-on like some feral thing, rolling her teeth over the flesh until all that was left was pith and pulp. Not gourmet, but it beat chewing nicotine gum until her jaw clicked.

She tossed the remains into a trash heap that may or may not have been organized by species. Wiped her hand on her jeans. Citrus and diesel clung to her fingers.

Then came the crash: her high slipping away, the orange glow of sweetness replaced by the gnawing black pit at the center of her chest.

Her jacket pocket gaped open. No inhaler. No lifeline.

“Fuck me sideways,” she muttered, patting herself down like a junkie version of a TSA agent.

This was bad. Her stash was gone, burned through two nights ago during a bender that ended with someone else’s blood on her boots and no memory of how it got there. Without Shadow, she’d spiral fast. The edge came back quick without it: jagged thoughts, shaking hands, old ghosts with knives at her throat.

And now she had to walk through this piss storm to meet Boot-Face in Kransten Park before every addict within ten blocks cleaned him out.

Slick sidewalks glared up at her as she moved fast down Delroy, shoes squelching with every step. Her brain did barrel rolls around one thought: get to Shadow before the city chewed you up again.

“Goddamn freezing,” she spat through clenched teeth as wind smacked her in the face as if it had a grudge.

By the time she hit Kransten Park’s west entrance, her clothes were soaked and her nerves tighter than Lori’s ponytail on a court day.

The park greeted her like an open grave: twisted trees clawing toward gray skies, paths littered with broken glass and lost hope. Whatever passed for landscaping hadn’t been touched since before Marti quit whatever passed for normal life.

She spotted him under a busted streetlamp: tall guy, shoulders hunched as if he’d spent his whole life bracing for punches. That boot-shaped face hadn’t gotten prettier since last week, and his hands still looked like they came with felony charges.

“You holding?” Marti asked, voice rough from too many cigarettes and not enough Shadow.

“Three hits,” he grunted without meeting her eyes. “Same price.”

He fished around in his torn coat while Marti pulled out cash; bills damp but still legal tender unless he tried to get fancy about things.

She tossed them at him. He caught them one-handed like he’d done it his whole life. He probably had.

“Here.” He handed over three canisters so small they looked laughable compared to their gravity.

Marti slid them into her coat pocket as if they belonged there more than anything else ever had. She didn’t bother saying thanks, just gave him a nod and turned back toward the exit without looking twice.

She could feel Shadow humming against her ribs: warmth in an inhaler, salvation with a side of self-destruction.

At least now she could make it through another night without stabbing anybody who didn’t deserve it.

Probably.

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