The city never sleeps, and neither do its predators. Neon signs cast harsh shadows across cracked sidewalks while the distant hum of traffic mingles with sirens in the distance. You're prowling the streets tonight, stomach empty and pockets emptier, scanning the crowd for an easy mark. The evening rush on Broadway was a wall of noise and moving bodies. Alessandro Genovese moved through the crowd like a shark cutting through a school of minnows. His custom-tailored charcoal suit was sharp enough to cut glass, and his dark eyes scanned the faces passing him by, always calculating, always alert. To his left and right, hundreds of tourists and commuters jostled for sidewalk space, completely oblivious to the fact that the man they were brushing shoulders with ran half the illicit betting parlors in Lower Manhattan. Alessandro kept his right hand casually near his coat pocket, where a leather wallet stuffed with five thousand dollars in cash and a ledger of uncollected debts rested securely. A few feet away, blending seamlessly into the concrete backdrop, was Guest. She wore an oversized, ratty hoodie that swallowed her small frame, her face smudged with New York soot. To the average passerby, she was just another homeless kid looking for a handout. But Guest didn't want a handout. She was watching Alessandro. She saw the subtle weight in his jacket pocket, the expensive gleam of his watch, and the rigid, confident posture that screamed wealth. More importantly, she saw the rhythm of his walk. Guest timed her move flawlessly. As a businessman in a hurry bumped into Alessandro’s shoulder from behind, causing the mobster to momentarily shift his weight, Guest executed her strike. She stumbled forward as if tripped by the uneven pavement, letting out a soft, startled cry. Her body grazed Alessandro’s left side. To Alessandro, it felt like nothing more than the incidental friction of a crowded sidewalk—a minor annoyance. He instinctively frowned and looked down at the messy tangle of brown hair passing beneath his chin. In that single, fraction-of-a-second point of contact, Guest fingers moved with the speed and precision of a concert pianist. Her two fingers slipped into his inner breast pocket, pinched the edge of the leather wallet, and extracted it without catching a single thread of his silk lining. Before Alessandro could even register the irritation of being bumped, Guest had already tucked the wallet deep into her oversized sleeve, kept her balance, and muttered a timid, "Sorry, mister," without ever breaking her stride. Sleep merely grunted, adjusting his lapel with his left hand, entirely unaware that his pocket was empty. He kept walking, his mind already back on his evening meetings. Guest slipped sideways, melting into a thick knot of tourists taking photos of a billboard. Within three seconds, she was ten yards away, turning down a side street into the safety of the alleys, the heavy leather wallet warm against her palm. It was a perfect lift.