Novels by Onenu

Felix POV:Sunlight hit my face like an insult.I groaned, cracking one eye open just enough to confirm the world had, in fact, progressed into daytime without asking my permission first. The laptop screen had gone dark somewhere in the hours I'd apparently fallen asleep sitting up, my neck stiff from the angle I'd left it at, my back aching from a chair that had clearly never been designed for actual human comfort.‘Looks like I've got a lot to do.’I dragged myself upright, rubbing at my eyes, and pulled the laptop closer to check the code I'd left running overnight. Still processing. Still nowhere near confirming what I already suspected in my gut. I closed the lid without pushing it further, deciding my brain needed something other than tracker signatures before it would function properly again.I went to shower first. Standing under water hot enough to actually wake me up, I let my mind wander over everything that had piled up in the last seventy two hours from the bar, the dock

Felix POVI hit the gap in the fence at a full sprint, metal scraping against my jacket as I forced myself through the narrow tear, and didn't stop moving until I felt open pavement under my boots again.Eleven fifty three.Seven minutes. Seven minutes to find whatever was supposed to be waiting for me on this dock, because if it wasn't here, I was as good as caught.The shouting behind me hadn't stopped. If anything it got closer.Fuck. I could feel them closing in.I ducked between two containers, chest heaving, blood drying sticky across my knuckles. My eyes scanned the water ahead, desperate for anything that looked like a way out.There. A single boat, engine idling low, lights dimmed almost to nothing. A man stood at the helm, watching the dock with a patience that said he'd been waiting exactly for someone like me to come tearing out of the dark.I didn't slow down until I was close enough to see his face."You Felix?" he asked, voice low, already reaching out to haul me over t

Felix POV:The city looked different at night when you were trying to disappear from it.I moved through backstreets instead of main roads, hood up, bag slung low across one shoulder. Every sense stayed tuned to the kind of alertness that had kept me breathing through worse nights than this. No car. Cars left records. I had called a cab from a burner number three blocks from my apartment and had it drop me two blocks short of the docks. The rest of the distance I covered on foot, past shuttered storefronts and alleys that smelled like rust and last week’s rain.The air changed the closer I got to the water. Salt first, then diesel, then something colder underneath both. The specific stillness that came with places nobody wanted to be caught lingering in after dark. Warehouses lined the waterfront, most of them dark, a few with lights still burning behind windows too grime-streaked to see through. Dock 14 sat at the far end, past a chain link fence with a gap someone had clearly cut th

FELIX POV:I woke up slowly, no spinning room this time, no confusion about where my hands had been. Just a dull throb behind my eyes and the heavy stillness of a body that had actually rested for once.Right. Hangover. The normal kind, no strange heat under my skin, no missing hours. Just whiskey and a headache with an honest explanation for once.I lay there a few seconds, staring at a ceiling that felt unfamiliar and familiar at the same time, letting the pieces settle into place on their own. The sheets. That faint, clean smell clinging to the pillow.I didn't need two heads to know I was back in Renato's apartment. Again.I sat up carefully, bracing myself for some new ache to announce itself, the way my body had the first morning I woke up here. Nothing came. No fresh soreness, nothing new written into me overnight. Just the faint, healing traces from that first night, quieter now, fading into memory instead of pain.Whatever last night had actually been, it hadn't been that.Do

Renato's POV:I caught him on instinct more than intention, one arm hooking under his shoulders before his skull could meet the floor, and for a second I just stood there with him slack against me, blood on his knuckles staining my sleeve, that ridiculous grin still ghosting at the corner of his mouth even unconscious.So my kitten had teeths, and a temper. And absolutely no sense of self-preservation.I looked down at the men scattered across my floor and decided none of it was urgent enough to interrupt what I was currently holding."Clean this up," I told the manager, without looking away from Felix's face. "Whatever they want to say happened, let them say it. Just get them out before he wakes up.""And the one who's not moving?""Ambulance, if he needs it. Quietly." I adjusted my grip, pulling Felix more securely against me. "I'll deal with the rest of it tomorrow."Nobody argued with me. Nobody ever did.I carried him out through the side entrance, past the valet who had my car

Felix POVI don't know when the needle hit reserve. The red warning light just showed up out of nowhere, and looking around, I doubted I'd find a gas station anywhere close. Great. Just great.But it looked like I had some luck left in me, because right there was a fancy looking place called “Freni e Frizioni”, the sign said. I pulled in, handed my keys to the valet without really looking at him, and walked in like I belonged there.I made my way to the bar and sat down.Each glass I ordered reminded me of my father's words, the way he said them like there was no room to argue. And somewhere in between the drinks, my mind kept drifting to that motherfucker too, the same one who left my ass throbbing every time I moved.I kept drinking.A fresh glass appeared without me asking.I looked up. Two men. One already too close, smile practiced, eyes dragging over the open collar of my shirt where a dark mark showed."Looks like you could use some company.""I'm fine."He sat anyway. His frie