Owned By The Don: Dark Mafia Romance

*POV: Aliyah*

The clock above the Brew & Bloom timecard reader said 10:00 PM when I punched out.

My heel snapped at 10:15 PM.

Of course it did. Because the universe has a sense of humor and it hates my shoes. I was in the alley behind Brew, cutting through to Amsterdam because the main street had three drunk NYU frat boys who’d been asking about my “availability” since 9:30. I chose the alley. I chose wrong.

The air back there smelled like wet concrete and whatever was rotting in the dumpster. Sweet rot. Lettuce, maybe. There was a dead plant in a macrame holder hanging from the fire escape. Someone tried. Then they didn’t.

That’s when I heard it.

Not footsteps. Breathing. Wet. Like someone was drowning on dry land.

I should have run. Mom always said: Don’t stop. Don’t look. Don’t get involved. New York Rules. But the breathing was bad. It was the kind of sound that makes your body move before your brain catches up.

He was on the ground by the dumpster. Black suit. White shirt. Both ruined. The shirt was open, soaked through. Too dark to be water. Too much to be anything but blood.

He was still alive. His chest moved. Barely.

Then I saw the tattoo. _Memento mori_ across his ribs in black script. Remember you die. Under it, fresh blood. The wound was right under the letters. Like someone had punctuation to make.

He opened his eyes. Blue. Not gray, not green. Blue like the deepest part of the lake upstate where the water goes black. He looked at me and his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. Cold. His hand was cold like my dad’s hand was in the hospital, August fourteenth, when the machines stopped beeping and I kept holding on anyway.

“No cops,” he said. His voice was scraped raw. “No hospital.”

“Like hell,” I said. “You’re bleeding out.”

“Better.”

That was all he said. _Better._ Like dying in an alley was preferable to whatever the alternative was.

I kicked off my broken heels. One good shoe, one useless. I dropped to my knees and pulled the cashmere scarf from my neck. Dad’s. The last thing he gave me before he went in for surgery. He said it would keep me warm. He said I’d need it. He didn’t say I’d use it to pack a stranger’s stab wound.

I pressed it against his side. He hissed but didn’t let go of my wrist. His grip was wrong. Too tight for a dying man. Too sure.

“Stay with me,” I said. I didn’t know why I said it. He wasn’t mine to keep.

His eyes focused on my face. “You’re—”

“I’m Aliyah. You’re not dying tonight.”

I said it like I could make it true. Like my name and a sentence could override blood loss and shock. I didn’t know his name. He didn’t offer it. Names get you killed, right? That’s what the true crime podcasts say.

I fumbled my phone out with my free hand. Dialed 911 with my thumb while his blood soaked through cashmere and into my jeans. The dispatcher picked up.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Alley behind Brew & Bloom, Amsterdam and 108th. Man down. Stab wound. He’s losing a lot of blood.”

“Are you safe, ma’am?”

No. I was in an alley at 10:15 PM with a man who looked like he killed people for a living, holding his wrist while he held mine. But I said, “Yes.”

“Help is on the way. Stay on the line.”

The man’s eyes were closing.

“Hey,” I said. “No. Look at me. What’s your name?”

He didn’t answer.

“Fine. Don’t tell me. But you stay awake. You hear me? You don’t get to die in my scarf. It’s my dad’s.”

His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Then he said it again. “Better.”

“You keep saying that,” I told him. “What’s better? This? Bleeding out by a dumpster?”

“Than… them… finding me… alive.”

Great. That was great. So he had _them_ and _them_ was worse than death. I was pressing on a chest wound for a man with enemies who might finish the job if they saw him breathing.

Sirens. Far off, then closer. St. Michael’s was six blocks away. I knew because I walked past it every day on my way to class. NYU. Journalism major. Six weeks to graduation. Six weeks to being an adult with a degree and a plan. The plan was not alley, blood, cashmere.

“Aliyah,” he said. My name. He remembered it.

“Yeah?”

“Shouldn’t… have…”

“Shouldn’t have what? Saved you? Too late.”

He made a sound. Could have been a laugh. Could have been a death rattle. I didn’t know.

The ambulance turned into the mouth of the alley. Lights swept over us. Made the blood black. Made his face white. EMTs were out and moving before the vehicle fully stopped.

One of them, a woman with short hair and a tattoo of a caduceus on her forearm, took one look and said, “Jesus. Pressure. How long?”

“Since I found him,” I said. “10:15. Maybe. I didn’t check.”

She checked his pulse while her partner cut the shirt away. The _memento mori_ tattoo was clear now. Under it, the wound. Clean cut. Professional. Not a mugger. A message.

“He say who did it?” she asked me.

I shook my head. “He said no cops. No hospital.”

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t get a vote,” she said. “You did good. Scarf was smart.”

They got him on a board. He didn’t let go of my wrist until they had to pry his fingers off. When they did, he grabbed for me again. Missed. His hand dropped.

“Wait,” I said to the EMT. “His name. Do you know his name?”

She looked at me like I was stupid. “No ID. No wallet. Just blood.”

They loaded him. Doors started to close.

“Aliyah,” he said. From the stretcher. Eyes open. Looking right at me. “Better.”

Then the doors slammed.

The ambulance took him. Left me in the alley. One shoe. Blood on my hands that wasn’t mine. The sirens faded.

I stood there for a minute. Maybe more. The church bells from St. Michael’s started. They vibrate through the ground back here. I counted them. Ten. Then fifteen. 10:15 PM.

The time I found him. The time everything changed.

I walked out of the alley. My feet were cold on the concrete. One heel, one bare foot. Someone honked when they saw me. I didn’t look. Don’t stop. Don’t look. Don’t get involved. Mom’s rules.

I broke all three.