De cara com o mafioso cruel

Nova Quinn

The dream always starts the same.

I’m standing in a field of ash. The ground is scorched black, trees burned down to skeletal stumps. Everything smells like smoke and lightning. Above me, the sky churns in slow motion — red and gold bleeding through bruised clouds — and a moon hangs too close, too heavy, like it’s watching me.

Then I see the fire.

It slithers up from the cracks in the ground, licking around my bare feet like it’s been waiting. It doesn’t burn. It welcomes. And when I open my mouth to scream, the flames pour out like a second voice — loud, ancient, hungry.

I always wake up sweating.

And today was no different.

I bolted upright, sheets twisted around my legs, tank top stuck to my skin. My hair was a frizzy, tangled halo, and my skin felt like it had been lit from the inside out. A bead of sweat rolled down the curve of my throat, and my hands shook as I pushed them through my curls.

“Great,” I muttered, dragging myself out of bed. “We love a good hellfire nightmare to start the day.”

The cracked screen of my phone blinked 5:48 a.m. I didn’t need to be at the garage until seven, but there was no way in hell I was falling back asleep with my pulse still doing the cha-cha.

I showered, dressed in my usual faded jeans and grease-stained tank, and grabbed the half-burnt toast from the kitchen counter. I lived in the upstairs apartment above the body shop, and while it wasn’t exactly glamorous, it was mine. Cheap rent, no nosy neighbours, and the scent of motor oil was a decent upgrade from the foster homes I’d bounced through most of my life.

The walk down the stairs hit me with a wall of humidity — Georgia summer in full, suffocating swing. The heat pressed against my skin like a second layer, and as I crossed the lot to unlock the garage, I felt it again.

The prickle.

That same flutter in my chest that had followed me out of the dream. Like static electricity, curling beneath my skin. My fingers tingled. I flexed them, trying to shake it off, but the sensation only pulsed harder.

Ever since I turned eighteen three weeks ago, weird shit like this had started happening.

Flickers of heat behind my eyes. Shimmering mirages in the corners of my vision. My skin running so hot some nights I thought I’d melt through the mattress.

And the worst part?

No one else noticed a damn thing.

“You okay, Nova?” Travis called as he parked his truck beside the garage.

“Peachy,” I lied.

He squinted at me like he could see through the sarcasm but said nothing. Probably figured I was just moody because I hadn’t gotten laid in a while. And fair — I hadn’t. But lately, I couldn’t even think about dating.

Not when my body felt like it was trying to rewrite its own rules.

By the time I’d popped the hood on the Impala we’d been working on all week, the flashes had mostly faded. My mind slipped back into its rhythm: torque, timing, pressure, spark.

Only when I pressed my palm against the engine block did something happen.

It hissed under my touch — a real, audible hiss — like my body heat was warping the metal. I yanked my hand back, eyes wide.

“What the—”

The skin on my palm was glowing faintly.

Only for a second. Then it was gone.

My stomach twisted. Not in fear, exactly. More like… recognition.

Like some piece of me deep down already knew: this wasn’t the beginning. It was a return.

Later that night, the heat came back with a vengeance.

I couldn’t sleep. Again.

The air in my room was thick, clinging to my skin like syrup. I’d opened a window, turned on a fan, and stripped down to a tank and panties, but it made no difference. My body pulsed with an invisible fire, every inch of me too sensitive — too aware.

Even the sheets felt like too much.

My thighs stuck together. My fingertips buzzed. My lips were dry, parted, like I needed to inhale something I couldn’t name.

And gods help me, I couldn’t stop thinking about someone watching me. A presence. A shadow just outside my window.

I sat up, swung my legs off the bed, and padded across the floor. The mirror caught my reflection and I stopped.

My skin was glowing.

Only faintly — just along my collarbones, across my cheeks, and down the centre of my chest. Like the fire was moving beneath the surface. Not burning me. Becoming me.

I touched my sternum. The warmth intensified.

And then, like a whisper in the back of my mind, I heard it:

“You were never meant to be quiet.”

I staggered back.

“What the hell is happening to me?”

No answer. Just the wind outside. A rustling in the trees.

I didn’t sleep that night.

By sunrise, I’d thrown on my usual work clothes, braided my hair back, and was halfway through my second coffee when I stepped out onto the lot.

And that’s when I felt it.

A shift in the air.

Different from before. Heavier. Thicker. Like something else had woken up.

I didn’t know it then.

But Kael Draven had entered my town.

And the moment our eyes met, that strange fire inside me would finally find its match.