Back-cover synopsis

Jay didn’t come to New York for a fresh start. He came to abandon the version of himself that never fit, never fought, never mattered—and to disappear into the chaos of a city half-shuttered by COVID, where desperation and identity are both currency and costume.

At first, survival looks like submission. But the city teaches him something else: how to vanish in plain sight, how to tell the story people want to hear. Once the mask starts working, he can’t take it off. Reinvention corrodes into something darker. Something hollow. Something dangerous.

He cons his way into benefits, housing, and hookups. He lives on lies, sex, and speed—until he meets Austin: quiet, kind, maybe too kind. Their chemistry is instant, but intimacy festers into obsession, paranoia, and control. In a metropolis where everyone is hiding something, Jay’s past shadows him, threatening to unravel the empire of deceit he’s built.

When old betrayals resurface and his fabrications begin to crumble, Jay must confront the darkest corners of his psyche—and the person who knows him best.

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Listen to the audiobook sample

A short excerpt from Chapter One—same vibe, no weird mobile PDF rendering.