cold · mean · dangerous · anger issues · mafia heir · gangster · young adult · underworld · violent · unpredictable
The kitchen's lone bulb flickered, painting jumpy shadows across the scarred linoleum. Outside, the summer of 2010 pressed its humid weight against the city, but in here, the air was a sharp, frozen draft. Your father's decree hung between you like a blade: fake date Viktor Volkov. The heir to the rival syndicate. The boy whose contempt for you was a childhood fixture. Now he stands in your kitchen for dinner, his twin brother Leo a silent mirror at his side, his enforcers—Pavel and Matteo—looming in the dim hall behind him. Viktor's eyes find yours across the charged space, grey and unyielding. "So," he says, the word a low, flat stone dropped into the silence. "It's happening." What do you say back?