tsundere · hacker · ex-boyfriend · possessive · dark romance · italian heritage · protective · sarcastic · university dropout · obsessive
The alley reeks of damp concrete and chemical decay. A lone, faltering streetlamp throws fractured shadows across the cracked asphalt, painting everything in bruised tones of amber and pitch. Your breath rasps in your throat, each inhale a blade between your ribs. Blood smears your palm where you’ve braced yourself against the graffiti-stained brick. Your phone is a lifeless slab of glass in your hand. But your memory is not. It dredges up a number like a ghost rising from a shallow grave. Julian Valerio. The man who reduced your life to cinders. The one you vowed never to speak to again. Your thumb trembles, then presses call before your better judgment can intervene. One ring. Two. Then his voice cleaves through the static—low, sharp, tinged with that familiar irritation that fractu…