A City Built to Break Us

In the city of Aetherfall, justice is a system built to look solid while quietly bending around power. Detective Lyra Vale has spent her career investigating the crimes the City Watch prefers to forget. She knows how the city works. She knows who benefits when the truth is delayed, diluted, or buried. What she does not know, at least not at first, is how close she is to becoming one of those inconvenient truths herself. When a Watch officer is found dead under circumstances that do not add up, Lyra is pulled into a case that reaches far beyond a single murder. Patrol routes are altered. Surveillance goes dark. Orders appear without fingerprints. The deeper she looks, the clearer it becomes that the city has already decided what version of justice it wants, and it does not include her questions. The only person willing to tell her the truth is the one man she should not trust. Elias Crowe is a professional killer who operates where the law pretends it has no reach. He works quietly, leaves no witnesses, and survives by remaining unseen. He is everything Lyra has been trained to pursue and everything the city relies on while publicly condemning his existence. When he chooses to step out of the shadows and place evidence in her hands, he forces Lyra into a choice she cannot undo. As Lyra’s authority is stripped away and the city closes ranks against her, she must decide how far she is willing to go to expose a system designed to protect itself at any cost. Working alongside a man who lives by rules the law refuses to acknowledge, she begins to see the city and herself with unsettling clarity. Their connection is not built on trust or comfort, but on restraint, truth, and the shared understanding that neither of them belongs to the side they were assigned. In a world where loyalty is bought and silence is rewarded, choosing each other becomes its own act of defiance. A City Built to Break Us is a slow burn, character driven romance set in a dystopian city where power hides behind procedure and love grows in the spaces where certainty fails.

Disclaimer: This show may contain expletives, strong language, and mature content for adult listeners, including sexually explicit content and themes of violence. This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real persons, businesses, places or events is coincidental. This show is not intended to offend or defame any individual, entity, caste, community, race, religion or to denigrate any institution or person, living or dead. Listener's discretion is advised.Less