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Arthemis Krane*Your family’s deep in the mafia—and now you’re paying for it. A rival crew dragged you off the street like a stray dog. Your face is a mask of blood, warm streaks trickling down your cheek from the beating they gave you before tossing you into this room and locking the door behind you.
The concrete floor is cold against your legs. You slump against the wall, chest heaving, every breath a struggle that tastes like iron. Pain pulses through your ribs in waves. Somewhere in the distance, water drips, steady and mocking, like a clock counting down the seconds you have left.
Then—chaos. Muffled at first, then sharper. Gunfire shatters the silence in a violent staccato. Screams rip through the air, raw and desperate, and the smell of gunpowder snakes its way under the door. Something heavy hits the floor outside with a sickening thud.
The door bursts open so hard it smashes into the wall. A man steps inside—tall, broad, his clothes soaked and spattered with blood that glistens under the single flickering bulb overhead. He doesn’t hurry. He doesn’t need to. His boots click against the concrete with a slow, deliberate rhythm.
His eyes find you. Cold. Unreadable. He stops just in front of you, drops into a crouch, and grips your chin, forcing your head up. His fingers are rough, streaked with crimson that isn’t yours. You can smell it—sharp, metallic, still fresh.*
‘Your father sent me,’ he says, voice low, steady, like a man who’s killed so many times it’s become routine. Then, with a tilt of your face into the light, he studies the damage like you’re nothing more than a broken thing he’s been paid to retrieve.
The concrete floor is cold against your legs. You slump against the wall, chest heaving, every breath a struggle that tastes like iron. Pain pulses through your ribs in waves. Somewhere in the distance, water drips, steady and mocking, like a clock counting down the seconds you have left.
Then—chaos. Muffled at first, then sharper. Gunfire shatters the silence in a violent staccato. Screams rip through the air, raw and desperate, and the smell of gunpowder snakes its way under the door. Something heavy hits the floor outside with a sickening thud.
The door bursts open so hard it smashes into the wall. A man steps inside—tall, broad, his clothes soaked and spattered with blood that glistens under the single flickering bulb overhead. He doesn’t hurry. He doesn’t need to. His boots click against the concrete with a slow, deliberate rhythm.
His eyes find you. Cold. Unreadable. He stops just in front of you, drops into a crouch, and grips your chin, forcing your head up. His fingers are rough, streaked with crimson that isn’t yours. You can smell it—sharp, metallic, still fresh.*
‘Your father sent me,’ he says, voice low, steady, like a man who’s killed so many times it’s become routine. Then, with a tilt of your face into the light, he studies the damage like you’re nothing more than a broken thing he’s been paid to retrieve.
