LOGINAdriano slowly lifted his boot, letting the blood drip off the leather onto the concrete as his stare swept across the rest. "Now," he whispered, a terrifying smile finally touching the corners of his lips, "Who else feels like telling me a story?" Morgan started sobbing violently. I shook my h
No, no! "I wasn't even there when they hurt the girl!" Cole yelled, "They brought her to me already bleeding! Brianna was the one who hit her in the head! She used a heavy wooden club from the garage! They carried her in here like a sack of rocks, and I was the one who washed the blood off her fac
Cole’s chest heaved, his eyes turned frantic, like a rat looking for a hole in the wall. "I know how Chicago works. You don't survive in this city by picking a fight with the Capones," he slowly shook his head, "I'm not suicidal." My stomach twisted. No. He was lying. I made a desperate sound
"Move!" Capone guards surged forward with frightening speed. Cole's men reached for their weapons but they never got the chance. One guard twisted a man's arm behind his back before he had even cleared his waistband. Another kicked a pistol across the concrete floor. Boots thundered in every dire
I looked at Cole again. He wasn't even watching us. He was checking his phone. Rage exploded inside me, "MMPH!" I lunged forward as far as the ropes allowed. "If she keeps doing that," he said calmly, "she'll reopen the wound." I wanted to claw his face apart. I wanted to scream. Instead, anoth
Gianna ━⊰ ❦ ⊱━ Pain. That was the first thing I felt. It was a deep, heavy ache that pulsed through the back of my head. It throbbed with every heartbeat, every breath, every tiny movement. A quiet whimper escaped me before I even opened my eyes. The world slowly came into focus. The ceiling a
Gianna ━⊰ ❦ ⊱━ I stared at the man in the center of the room. My brain felt slow, like it was trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces. I looked at him for a long time, but I felt like I didn't even know who he was. I thought about the Raphael I saw at the office. That man wore suits that cos
In the center of the room, there were large glass cages hanging from the ceiling. Inside them, women with painted bodies danced like they had no bones. They wore nothing but thin gold chains. I saw a woman sitting on a marble table, her eyes rolled back into her head while a man pressed a small pi
Gianna ━⊰ ❦ ⊱━ I was bored. Not the normal kind of bored where you scroll through your phone for a few minutes and it goes away. This was the annoying kind. The kind that sat on your chest and made the house feel smaller every hour. Back home I used to leave whenever I felt like it. I’d walk to
The volume of his voice triggered something deep and dark inside me. The conference room started to blur. Read it, Gianna! Read it, goddamn it! His voice screamed in my head, overlapping with Raphael’s. I could almost feel the sting of the wooden ruler hovering over my knuckles, waiting for me to







