Chapter 1 – Elara
I push through the back door with my hip. It slams shut behind me like it’s mad too. Rain taps lightly on the rusted awning above the exit, and the breeze hits like a wet slap to the chest. It’s not cold. Just damp. The kind of damp that sticks to everything and never really dries.
I light up before my boots finish hitting the concrete.
This alley’s a dump. Smells like piss, seawater, and someone’s long-forgotten regret behind the dumpster. Perfect place to clear my head. The neon sign above the club pulses red, leaking through the cracks in the bricks like the building’s bleeding.
I take a long drag.
There’s a trick to this—smoking with purpose. Not in that fake, performative way like the girls who try to look like tragic dolls out front. Out here, I’m not part of the scenery. I’m just trying to get my heart rate down and feel like I’m in my body again.
The chain around my neck swings when I lean back against the wall. I adjust it out of habit. The padlock clinks dully against my collarbone. Still broken. Still mine.
My ribs ache. Same place they always do. It’s a phantom pain, mostly. Tommy’s greatest hit, lingering like the bastard’s cologne. I press two fingers into the muscle just beneath my bra line and breathe through it.
That set had me wired harder than usual. Maybe it was the look that guy gave me. Maybe it was just the cage itself. I don’t know. But I felt eyes on me long after I climbed down.
Footsteps crunch across gravel.
I go still. Not scared. Just… ready.
I angle my body toward the sound, free hand dropping to the switchblade tucked under my waistband. Some girls carry pepper spray. I’m not some girls.
The figure rounds the edge of the dumpster—no rush, no hesitation.
It’s him.
Same calm face. He walks like he doesn’t need to check behind him. Like if anything came at him, it wouldn’t matter.
He stops a few feet away. Doesn’t say anything.
I exhale, flick ash toward the puddle near my boot.
“You always walk up to strangers in dark alleys,” I say, “or am I just lucky tonight?”
“Neither,” he says. “I already know who you are.”
He says it like a statement, not a pickup line. My spine straightens, instincts flaring.
“Elara Ricci,” he adds.
Hearing my name from his mouth makes me grind my teeth. I’ve made a point of being just a body in a cage. Not a person. Not a name.
“Congrats,” I say, voice flat. “You know how to ask bartenders questions.”
“I’m not here to flirt.”
“Good,” I say. “Because you’re bad at it.”
The alley goes quiet again, except for the buzz of that flickering boardwalk sign and the rain hitting a loose tin sheet behind the dumpster. He steps closer—not enough to crowd me, just enough that I can see his eyes clearly now. They're dark, sharp, steady. Not the kind that flinch easy.
“I need something real,” he says.
I laugh once, hard. Not because it’s funny, but because that line? That line belongs in a therapist’s office. Not here. Not to me.
“Well,” I say, flicking ash again, “I’m out of favors. Try the next girl with glitter on her thighs.”
“She won’t survive,” he says.
I narrow my eyes.
“This city’s rotting,” he continues. “The Brotherhood’s bleeding out. I think you know how to survive rot.”
“Wow,” I mutter. “Is that supposed to be flattery? Because I’ve heard better insults.”
His face doesn’t twitch.
“I'm not looking to insult you,” he says. “I’m offering you something.”
“I’ve had men offer me a lot,” I say. “Drinks. Deals. Leashes.”
“This isn’t that.”
“No?” I drop the cigarette, crush it with my heel. “Then what is it?”
“I want to rebuild,” he says. “The Drago name used to mean something in this city. It doesn’t anymore. My brothers are either dead or working with people who should be.”
“And you think I care because…?”
“Because you understand power,” he says simply. “And what happens when the wrong people have it.”
I stare at him for a beat. He’s not selling this with charm. He’s not buttering me up. It’s almost worse—because he believes what he’s saying.
“You think being kicked around makes me qualified for your mafia rehab project?” I ask. “Pass.”
His brow lifts slightly. Not dramatic. Just enough to show he’s registering that answer and filing it away.
“I think surviving men like Lucetti,” he says, “means you already understand more than most.”
My stomach knots. I push off the wall.
“Don’t say his name.”
He doesn’t back down. He just tilts his head slightly.
“Everyone’s already saying it,” he says. “They just don’t say it around you.”
My eyes narrow. “Is this your plan? Dig up my past so I owe you my future?”
“No,” he says. “I’m offering you a choice.”
I snort. “Sure. And what does that choice look like? Me in a cage again, just a bigger one with better pay?”
“No cage,” he says. “No leash. Just a seat at the table.”
“I don’t need a table. I need to not get stabbed walking home.”
“I can give you that.”
“And what do you want in return?”
He doesn’t hesitate.
“Loyalty.”
I let that sit between us. Loyalty. It’s a word people throw around like confetti. Like it doesn’t come with chains.
“I’m not loyal,” I say. “Not anymore. That gets you dead.”
“Not with me.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you’ve kept yourself breathing without backup. That tells me everything.”
“You know what it tells me?” I say, stepping closer now, eyes locked on his. “That I’m done being used. I dance to keep my lights on. I fight to keep men like you from thinking I’m weak. I don’t want your war.”
His voice drops.
“This isn’t a war. Not yet.”
“And when it is?”
He meets my stare evenly.
“Then I hope you're on my side.”
I laugh again, but this time it’s quieter. Tired.
“I don’t take sides anymore,” I say.
He nods once. “Fair.”
We stand there, just breathing. Rain still patters down, soft and steady. My shirt sticks to my back now. I don’t care.
He finally breaks the moment.
“If you change your mind,” he says, pulling something from his back pocket.
A card. Plain. White. Just a number.
He holds it out.
I take it, mostly so he’ll leave.
He turns without another word and walks away, back into the dark.
I look down at the card.
A number and a name.
Nico Drago.
I don’t pocket it. I don’t throw it away either.
I press my back to the wall again and light another cigarette with hands that aren’t quite steady.
Men like him always come with promises. Promises turn to cages. I’ve been in enough of those.
I barely get two drags into my second cigarette before I hear the shuffle.
It’s not Nico this time. It’s heavier, sloppier. The wet drag of soles on concrete. I flick the ash and don’t move. My body tightens—not out of panic, just habit.
A shape stumbles into the alley from the side near the dumpsters. Tall, broad, belly-first. One of the drunk assholes from earlier. His shirt’s stained, his eyes glassy. His mouth already working around spit and venom.
He sees me and grins with the kind of confidence only cheap whiskey can buy.
“Hey!” he slurs. “Slut!”
I straighten.
“You think you’re too good to dance for me?”
I don’t answer. I don’t feed it.
He lurches forward, close enough that I can smell what’s fermenting in his stomach. One hand reaches out, fingers swiping at my arm.
Contact.
Wrong move.
I twist.
My elbow drives back hard and clean into his face. Bone cracks under it—probably the nose, maybe the cheek. He screams, hand flying to his mouth. Blood leaks between his fingers.
“Touch me again,” I say, voice flat, “and you’ll find your teeth on the ground.”
He stumbles back, but not far. Not enough.
“You bitch!” he growls, stepping toward me again, eyes wild now. “You think you can—”
I get ready for another hit. But I don’t get the chance to land it.
Nico moves like a shadow peeling off the wall.
He’s in front of me before I register the blur of black. No words. No pause. Just movement.
His hand flashes, low and fast.
A blade arcs through the space between them. One clean sweep.
The thug jerks like someone cut his strings.
Then he folds.
His knees hit first, then his hands, then his face.
He tries to speak, but all that comes out is wet gurgling.
Blood pours out in a fast, horrifying gush. It soaks into the alley grime, winding past my boot.
The man doesn’t scream again.
He doesn’t have the throat left for it.
I stare at what used to be a threat. Now just a mess on the concrete.
Nico crouches beside the body, wipes the blade on the guy’s ruined shirt, and stands. Calm. Clean. Like it’s nothing.
My lungs finally pull in air, but not deep.
That wasn’t just muscle memory.
That was precision.
That was a message.
He looks at me.
“Safe,” he says.
Like that explains anything.
I take a step back. Not fear. Just… distance. Space to think.
“You don’t get to say that,” I snap. “Not to me.”
He doesn’t argue.
I shove my cigarette back in my mouth and drag in smoke like it’s going to settle the tremor in my gut.
It doesn’t.
“You okay?” Nico asks.
I laugh, sharp and humorless. “You don’t get to ask me that either.”
He watches me.
I don’t give him more.
“You want something from me,” I say, stepping around the mess on the ground. “So does everyone. Get in line.”
He doesn’t follow. He stays with the body, half in shadow, like he belongs there more than he belongs with the living.
I pass the dumpster, the door, the flickering neon.
His voice carries after me, low and steady.
“Just think about it.”
I keep walking, chain swinging.
My head’s buzzing now, not from adrenaline this time—but from the look in his eyes when the knife went in.
That wasn’t anger. That wasn’t defense.
That was purpose.
If he thinks a corpse and a calm voice are enough to win me over, he hasn’t been paying attention.