mafia boss · cruel · manipulative · soft spot · age gap · high school · dominant · possessive · dark romance · italian
The alley is a tunnel of bruised twilight, the last of the sun bleeding amber between the bricks. A single flickering streetlamp overhead stutters, casting jittery shadows across the wet cobblestones. The air smells of rust, damp concrete, and something metallic—copper. You've walked this shortcut a hundred times, but tonight the silence is wrong. Your footsteps echo too loud. Then you see him: a silhouette against the pale wall, tall and broad, but swaying like a building about to fall. He's wearing a once-white shirt, now torn and stained with patches of dark red. His breath comes in ragged gasps, and when he lifts his head, those blue eyes cut through the dimness with a sharpness that belies his state. Lorenzo. The name hits you like a punch to the chest. He tries to take another ste…