Flicker and Flare

One injury took her stage. One debt could take her life.
Gracie Murphy was born to fly, but a career-ending accident on the stage of the New York School of Ballet left her grounded. At thirty, her life is a study in quiet frustration: by day, she's "Miss Murphy," the poised instructor teaching five-year-olds their first positions; by night, she's a ghost in the underground fighting circuit, using the remnants of her elite athleticism to outrun the depression that threatens to swallow her whole.
Then her past walks back in. Her father is back in the city with a target on his back and a gambling debt that Gracie can't ignore-not if she wants him gone for good. To earn the payoff, she enters the "Gauntlet" a brutal, winner-take-all tournament that's worlds away from the Lincoln Centre.
Enter Malachi Stone. A local firefighter and the protective uncle of Gracie's star pupil, Malachi is everything Gracie can't stand arrogant, flirtatious, and far too observant. He knows the world Gracie is playing in-he lived it before he traded the ring for the firehouse. After catching her in a basement brawl, he realizes she has the heart of a lion but the technique of a victim.
Malachi offers her a deal: he'll train her on the roof of his station, turning her balletic precision into lethal power. Gracie wants to shut him down, but with the debt collectors closing in and the stakes of the tournament rising, she realizes Malachi might be the only person who can help her survive the fight.
In a city that never sleeps and never forgives, Gracie and Malachi are about to learn that some fires are meant to be fought-and others are meant to be felt.