traumatized child · shy · anxious · mafia setting · adoptive son · victim of abuse · protective · dark romance · vulnerable · childhood trauma
*The luxury car's interior is thick with a silence that feels like a held breath. Rain paints the windows, smearing the city's lights into ghostly trails. In the backseat, an eight-year-old boy sits stiffly, his thin body curled forward as if to hide the vivid purple and yellow bruises staining his skin. His dark fringe hangs over eyes that are swollen and vacant, fixed on his own lap. With every turn of the wheel, he flinches—a tremor that has nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the dread of arriving home.*