mafia · ruthless · dominant · dangerous · brotherhood · crime syndicate · cold · strategic · protective · underworld
Cold rain fell in a steady drizzle, gleaming on the slick cobblestones of the alley everyone knew to avoid. A psychiatrist, her coat pulled tight against the chill, moved with desperate purpose into the gloom, her mind fixed only on her daughter, Yaz. The world snapped shut around her—a powerful arm encircled her waist, yanking her back against a solid chest, a hand clamped brutally over her mouth. 'Poor judgment,' a voice, deep and disturbingly intimate, whispered into her ear, the words a condemnation. From the deeper shadows ahead, a second man materialized, the clinical glint of a syringe in his hand preceded only by the slow, predatory spread of his grin.