1: VELVET AND BLOOD

Some girls are taught to run from monsters, some go back to watch them again and again.

New York City, 1950.

The air tastes like money and smoke. Power is bought in cigars and whispered behind ballroom curtains. And every girl is being trained for something: a ring, a family name, a marriage contract or a coverup.

The Marchetti estate was glittering as always crystal chandeliers, imported wine, plates of gold-trimmed porcelain that no one really touched. Every time Ellie looked around the room, it felt more like a cage than a home. Tonight was no different, her grandmother sat at the head of the long table, dressed in black velvet like royalty. Her voice icy and polite floated across the table like a curse. Eliano, sit up, you’re slouching like a shop girl. Yes ma’am, Ellie muttered correcting her posture.

To her left sat the cousin she couldn’t stand. On her right, a man nearly twice her age staring too long at her wrists as if even her veins were worth something. She hated this life, the fake smiles, the way everyone called her “Eliano” like it was a name that ever

really belonged to her. You’ll be meeting the Capetti boy next week her grandmother said suddenly, sipping wine. His father owns most of the shipping line down the Hudson.

I’m not a dock,Ellie snapped, I’m not for rent the room went still. Her grandmother lowered her glass, you’re a Marchetti you don’t speak like a peasant. But I feel like one, Ellie thought everything about this family felt stolen, manufactured, too clean to be real. She excused herself from the table she didn’t wait for permission. The moment the doors closed behind her, Ellie ran not in heels, she’d kicked those off not for drama but for oxygen.

Outside, the city air was thick with summer heat and the smell of gasoline. She didn’t care she took the back roads, past shuttered storefronts, until she reached the edge of the docks where she’d heard the rumors.

Amy Finn owns the night down there, don’t go near that warehouse unless you want to vanish. She kills quiet, she kills pretty, they said Amy was dangerous so why did Ellie feel safer chasing danger than sitting at a table of

fake silver smiles? Amy stood under the single bulb in the center of the warehouse. Dust floated in the air like ghost smoke, The silence was thick but it wasn’t empty. Three of her men flanked her; clean suits, cold eyes.

The man on his knees wasn’t bleeding yet but he would be. You know what you did, Amy said voice steady. You don’t get a second chance for things like this. He stammered, didn’t know it was your girl but you touched her anyway, I didn’t know but you did it Amy tilted her head slightly, a gesture of steel behind silk. You think it’s about the girl? You think I care about her? she said

softly, It’s about disrespect. You disrespected me. She stepped closer, I let you run money through my routes, I let you borrow men, I told you to keep your hands clean but you crossed a line and now you get the punishment.

The man cried on his knees, Snot dripping down his face like a child Amy didn’t blink.

If you’re going to die she said, do it with some dignity she turned away. Do it!

The shot echoed sharp and final, Amy didn’t flinch.

But just as her foot hit the first step out of the warehouse, she paused because someone was watching, her Ellie shouldn’t have come.

But something had pulled her here not just the curiosity, but the need to see something real. Something honest, even if it was brutal.

What she saw she could never unsee.

The man’s blood had painted the floor like spilled wine, the woman who gave the order didn’t even raise her voice. And her eyes, those eyes, cold but not cruel.

Empty but looking, Searching, beautiful in a way that made Ellie ache. Ellie hadn’t meant to make a sound b when her hand slipped against the wall, a piece of rusted metal

clanged to the floor, Amy turned they locked eyes and Ellie ran.

A girl, green eyes, soft jaw wrong place. She didn’t call her men, she didn’t yell catch her She just watched. And for the first time in years, something pulled in her chest; a memory, a ghost, a mistake with Giulia’s smile.