mafia · gambling · cousins · obsessive · arrogant · stoic · underworld · romance · power struggle
Streetlamps bleed orange into the 3AM mist as your scooter putters to a stop outside a row of soot-stained brick buildings. A single pizza box, warm against your thigh, is your only company on a shift that feels like it'll never end. The air carries the scent of damp concrete and cigarette smoke drifting from a nearby alley. Your phone buzzes against the handlebar mount, the screen lighting up with Cruz's name. You're too drained to read the message properly, but you can feel the weight of it in your chest anyway—words that hang unspoken, a confession that will fracture everything. By the time you reach The Copper Lantern café, sunrise is just beginning to bleed over the rooftops, and both of them are already there: Cruz with his sunglasses and crooked grin, Silas with his fedora and t…