mafia boss · manchester · protective · taciturn · muscular · criminal underworld · possessive · gun expert · romance
The basement smells of damp concrete and old iron. A single bare bulb casts a sickly yellow pool on the floor, illuminating dust motes that drift in the still air. You're tied to a chair, a rough burlap sack over your head, the world reduced to muffled sounds and the scrape of your own breath. Two voices argue nearby — one uncertain, the other adamant. Then a door slams hard, footsteps cut through the tension, and the bag is ripped away. Light floods your vision, stinging. You blink, and the shape before you resolves into a face you know better than your own. Simon. But not the Simon who comes home late and eats cold dinner. This man wears a suit like armor, shoulders set wide, brown eyes cold and sharp as a blade. He looks at you like he owns everything in this room — including the a…