Chapter 1 - Welcome to my fucked-up fairytale.

Adriano

⫘☠︎︎⫘

The air stank of gasoline and gunpowder. Concrete dust clung to my tongue. Somewhere in the distance, a car alarm howled like a dying animal.

I ducked behind the hood of a burned-out Cadillac, reloading with blood-slick fingers. My breath came ragged, fire scraping up my ribs.

“Arturo?” I barked, twisting to look over my shoulder.

Nothing but a dying wheeze and then silence.

Fuck.

A shadow moved to my left. I popped out, squeezed the trigger... click.

Empty, it was fucking empty.

“You’ve gotta be fuckin kidding me.”

The last mag was dry. My knuckles were bleeding, my ribs were cracked. One eye was already swelling shut.

Across the alley, some masked asshole with a knife stepped forward, and I gave him a smile that tasted like blood.

“Hold this, stronzo,” I muttered and whipped the empty piece of metal straight at his face.

It hit him right in the eye and he let out a howl. And I did what any mobster would do in this situation if he wanted to survive—I ran.

I didn’t limp, didn’t crawl. I ran, my legs were buckling with every step because my body was wrecked. My shirt was torn open, sticky with blood. My shoulder was hanging by the grace of God or maybe just rage.

But adrenaline was still pumping, whispering in my ear, more like yelling... Move, motherfucker. Move.

I wasn't even supposed to be out here tonight. I just came to get a quick recon but nooo, I had to walk into an ambush like a dumbass.

There’d been some noise in this part of town and I came to sniff around, not step in a pile of shit.

Vince told me to bring more men. Said I’d need backup. I laughed in his face because I always thought overkill was for amateurs.

Now look at me, two dead soldiers, a Glock jamming in my hand, and some bastard car alarm wailing like it's mourning the whole scene.

So yeah, maybe next time I'll listen to the guy who triple-majored in war, murder, and paranoia.

Judging by the accent and designer boots of the men ordering around, he was definitely Italian. Probably that third-gen Napolitano knockoff crew trying to play big dog.

My boots pounded the pavement. Behind me, bullets chewed through the air. One hit my shoulder and burned like someone had poured lava into my veins. I didn’t stop. Pain is just noise for me. I’ve heard worse screams coming out of my basement.

I rounded the corner of a loading dock and came face to face with three of them. Black masks. Kevlar. Military stance. Not fucking amateurs.

“You boys lost?” I cracked my knuckles. “Wrong side of Chicago.”

One charged. I sidestepped, grabbed his arm, twisted till it cracked like a wishbone, and shoved his body in front of mine just as the bullets flew to use him as a meat shield. The other two hesitated just long enough for me to draw the knife from my boot and sink it into the second guy’s thigh, I pushed it deep and upward.

That was my last weapon. Funny. I never thought I’d live long enough to actually run out.

But then the third came in, his mask falling off as he slammed me against the steel wall. I headbutted him. He blinked and looked dazed for a second then smiled at me through bloodied teeth like a fucking lunatic. So I did it again harder this time. I felt his nose explode, bone slicing skin as blood sprayed across my face. He snarled, reeled back and drove a fist into my gut. I felt something tear and muffled a groan.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” I grunted, “Hit me like you mean it.”

He did. A left hook opened my eyebrow. Blood poured down into my eye. I stumbled and barely caught myself on the edge of a crate.

Arturo's body was crumpled ten feet away, his neck bent wrong. Dario was sprawled near the alley exit, his gun by his fingertips and his fingers were no longer moving.

Fuck, I'm gonna fucking die.

The masked man lunged forward, I caught his arm, and twisted it before slamming his face into my knee. I kept doing it until his mask cracked.

He tackled me into the ground. My head bounced off the concrete. A flash of white. Then red. I saw stars and then I saw my mother’s face briefly and thought, it's too early for that reunion.

He got on top of me, punching, and I jammed my thumb into his eye socket. He screamed and I threw him off. I scrambled to my knees, blood dripping from my mouth. My shoulder burned where the bullet wound sting.

I got up, slowly, wobbling, half-dead, half-mad.

He was crawling for his gun. I stomped on his hand and his bones snapped.

“Wrong city,” I whispered, kicking the piece away. “Wrong fucking guy.”

Then I drove the heel of my boot into his temple.

Five more.

I didn’t hear them at first but I felt them. Their boots slapped against the wet pavement, and I bolted across the alley.

My ribs were screaming at me, my shoulder throbbed and my legs barely worked but adrenaline’s a hell of a drug.

I took a hard right and launched myself up the back stairwell of some beat-up residential buildings. My vision was going dark but I climbed like the devil was nipping at my heels because he was.

Bullets sparked against the brick just as I hauled myself over the first landing.

“Fucking finally,” one of them growled below.

I kicked the third-floor window and the glass shattered around me, but I didn’t go in, I did it to distract them. I kept climbing.

I reached the stairwell door on the fifth floor, shouldered it open and staggered inside. I pulled myself through a hallway, it reeked of mold and decades of cigarette smoke.

Then I saw a door cracked open, Apartment 3C.

I stumbled toward it, wheezing.

Please be empty.

Please don’t have a dog.

Please don’t have a shotgun behind the couch.

I threw myself carefully against the door, trying not to leave blood behind and slid inside. I slammed the door shut in time, twisted the lock with shaking hands. Chain. Deadbolt. Even wedged a chair under the handle.

My blood smeared the hardwood floor. My vision pulsed black. I didn’t know how I was still breathing.

And then, I heard a small sound, like someone trying to suppress a scream.

The exact same noise Aurelia’s rubber duck makes when you squeeze it too hard.

I turned, slow.

Standing behind me was a woman, barefoot on the hardwood, in shorts that showed off long, tan legs and wearing a thin t-shirt clinging to soft curves.

Eyes wide.

Mouth open.

Frozen like a deer staring down headlights, except the headlights were me, and I looked like hell had spit me back out.

Fuck.

She blinked once.

Twice.

Then she inhaled.

About to scream.

I lunged.

It was not fast, not clean, it was just fucking desperation.

My hand clamped over her mouth as we stumbled backward. Her back hit the wall harder than intended. Too hard. My bad.

“Shh—” I breathed, barely above a whisper, as blood dripped from my jaw, my shoulder seizing. “Please. Don’t scream.”

Her entire body shivered with fear, her breath was hot against my palm, her chest rising too fast. And the next second, tears slid down her cheeks and landed onto my blood riddled hands that were pressed against her lips.

I have never seen a person cry so damn fast.

I held my free hand up, fingers spread like I was coaxing a stray cat.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” I said, trying not to wheeze through broken ribs, “I just need five minutes. Just... five.”

Her eyes snapped to my face and damn, I could see the horror hit her like a truck.

There was a gash splitting my brow, leaking blood down the side of my face. My lip was busted wide open, nose probably fractured, and the bullet hole in my shirt was still trickling. Yeah, I looked like I crawled out of a warzone and into her living room because I did.

Her lips moved beneath my bloodied hand before she nodded but it was so slow and cautious, like I was a wild dog with a grenade in my mouth.

Good girl.

Then I heard them, boots stomping outside. They were just fucking too many men hunting me. They wanted me alive, had to. If they meant to kill me, they would've filled my body with bullets back on that fire escape.

I didn’t move and neither did she.

We just stood there in the glow of her shitty hallway light, me holding her and her staring up at me like she wasn’t sure if I was the devil or his next victim.

She had these big, amber eyes, they were wild and bright, and they looked almost golden in the dim light—like sunshine... Her curls were half covering her face, sticking to her cheek from my blood. Her skin had gone pale as chalk, and there was this tiny little vein on her neck, just under the jaw fluttering.

She looked so soft.

And I knew I was bleeding all over her floor, on her walls and I was definitely bleeding on her.

“Sorry about the mess,” I whispered, I didn’t even know if I meant the blood or the fact I brought hell to her doorstep, “Some really bad people wanna kill me,” I added, eyes barely holding hers, “I swear, I didn’t do anything wrong... this time.”

Her chest rose, and she blinked, tears clinging to her thick lashes.

My knees buckled.

Shit.

The adrenaline was burning off too fast now. The pain was catching up with me, my heartbeat was in my ears and my vision was tunnel shrinking fast.

I looked at her again. The last thing I remember seeing was those sun-soaked eyes, still staring, wide and filled with disbelief and fear.

I tried to smirk and tried to say something clever, "You’re not gonna kill me, are you, sunshine?" I barely got the words out or maybe, I didn't and they only echoed in my head because my body had other plans.

Everything tipped sideways.

And I collapsed, hard, right in her arms.

Lights out.

Curtain dropped.

Welcome to my fucked-up fairytale.