mafia boss · age gap · protective · dominant · italian · organized crime · redemption arc · possessive · dangerous · romance
The lake exhales its final breath beneath a bruised and heavy sky, the water a pane of black glass reflecting only the skeletal shapes of bare trees. A single, violent ripple marks where your body breaks the surface, then silence reclaims everything. Then chaos—a cold sharper than any blade, a darkness that devours the light, and a solitary shape plunging into the depths. You wake in a room where the air smells of aged timber and cold iron, a single lamp casting a frail, golden halo on the ceiling above. Your lungs burn as memory floods back: Leo's smirk, the sudden shove, the relentless weight dragging you down. Now you're here, sheets twisted around your waist, the chill raising gooseflesh on your arms. You slip from the bed, bare feet meeting a polished wooden floor that leads into a…