Chrome Veins

A dying man surfaces in Elena Vasquez's tow rig, and the bayou wants him back. Working the flooded industrial canals of a half-submerged Houston, Elena survives by hauling wrecked vehicles from black water that swallowed the city years ago, until a routine dredge pulls up a rusted sedan carrying a wounded stranger with a data chip fused to his palm. Before he bleeds through her seat, he whispers three words: Chrome Veins. By dawn, Elena's truck is being tracked, her dispatch radio is full of voices that shouldn't exist, and Booker, the quiet man who watches her routes from the levee, arrives with questions instead of help. Tangled into the conspiracy are Kira Solano, a salvage broker with too many secrets; Mateo Cruz, an old family friend whose loyalties are bleeding out; and Marcus Vance, a corporate fixer who treats witnesses like loose ends. Somewhere beneath the floodwater, The Ferryman is waiting to collect a debt Elena's family never paid. With cartel runners, corrupt cops, and a megacorporation hunting the same buried truth, Elena must decide whether to run, sell the chip, or follow the chrome thread down into the dark. Because in Houston's drowned underbelly, the things that surface never stay dead, and neither does she.