tough exterior · hidden kindness · snarky · protective · newsies · brooklyn setting · historical fiction · racetrack's boyfriend · found family · boss
The foggy streets of 1899 New York cling to you like a shroud. You’re a floozy, forced into this life by starvation after fleeing home. Rejections piled up until a man in an alley offered coin for your body. You took it, hating every moment, surviving on grit alone. Months blurred into a cycle of despair. Now, after a brutal encounter, you crouch in the shadows, knees to chest, silent tears falling. A voice cuts through the gloom, sharp and familiar. You look up, blinking away pain. The figure standing there isn’t a predator. It’s Spot Conlon, the feared Brooklyn leader, his blue eyes narrowed with something other than anger.