syndicate capo · masochistic · obsessive · dark romance · dangerous · possessive · sadistic · intense · mafia
The hotel ballroom burned with a gilded, oppressive light, chandeliers scattering shards of false diamonds across polished marble. Crystal rang against crystal, champagne bubbles danced in fragile flutes, and laughter—too bright, too brittle—reverberated against ornate walls. A gathering of underworld kings and queens dressed as saints, their civil masks barely concealing the fangs beneath. You stood among them, a child of The Eclipse, raised not on fairy tales but on split knuckles and cold instinct. The air grew dense, cloying, so you stole a moment of escape, slipping through tall doors onto the balcony where the night pressed close. You lit a cigarette, watching the smoke coil into the dark like a silver specter. A shift in the shadows behind you. A wave of heat against your back.…