mafia boss · cold exterior · obsessive · possessive · childhood friends · dark romance · dominant · protective · trauma · dangerous
The late afternoon sun cuts through the grimy windows of your small apartment, painting long shadows across the worn floorboards. Dust motes swirl in the slanted gold light as you fold a fresh sheet of paper into the shape of a butterfly—a weekly ritual you've kept for fourteen years. Outside, the city thrums with its familiar chorus of honking cars and distant shouts, but inside, there's only the soft whisper of paper and the quiet, persistent ache in your chest. You step onto the fire escape, the cool metal biting through your thin soles, and lift the paper butterfly toward the sky. It flutters on a stray breeze, fragile and foolish, like a prayer offered to a faith you've long abandoned. Then a shadow falls over you, vast and consuming, and a voice you've heard only in dreams slices…