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Ashes on the Tongue
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2025-08-29 04:14:40
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Way Out: Owned by the Mafia Boss Ashes of Trust
(Dante’s POV)I knew Luca had lied the moment he walked into the penthouse.He tried to stand tall, jaw set, his eyes too sharp, too alive for a man who had just run through the city with Santoro’s hounds at his heels. But his hands betrayed him. They shook—not violently, not like a man gripped by panic, but with the subtle tremor of someone who had carried too much, too fast, too far.The blood on his shirt was not his. I could smell it before I saw it. The copper tang carried across the room like incense in a cathedral, announcing sin before confession.“You’re late,” I said. My tone was even, the kind of cold that makes men forget if you’re human at all.Luca—Ethan, though he had buried that name so deep even I almost forgot it—dropped the duffel on the floor. His voice was sandpaper. “We got her out.”He didn’t need to name Mira. I saw her in the shadow behind his words. Safe, somewhere beyond my reach, beyond Santoro’s claws—for now. A victory, but a hollow one.“What else?” I as
Way Out: Owned by the Mafia Boss The Courier’s Wake
(Luca’s POV)My throat went dry. I had a thousand contingency plans, but none for the cold knowledge that Santoro’s men had been closer than we’d thought. I picked up my burner and sent the abort tone: a single chime that was enough. Marcus’s phone should get it and act. Silence was a razor. I waited.The Civic’s driver wore a face I’d seen before in close-ups: a Santoro motor, with the impatient look of men who’d been paid to make a life end. He tilted his head like a vulture smelling carrion.Marcus’s reply came bright as a flare: Civic tailing. Detour now. The van idled and turned; the courier, caught mid-exchange, cursed under his breath and kept moving. I watched the sedan close the gap, and the hairs at my neck bristled.The world contracted. The courier’s passenger door clicked open a second too long when he hesitated, and a man jumped out from nowhere—too trained, too clean. The courier turned; a scuffle. The Civic’s driver moved forward like a man about to harvest. I could se
Way Out: Owned by the Mafia Boss The Drop
(Luca’s POV)Night smells different when you’re about to do something that matters. It’s sharper, full of oil and hot concrete, the scent of engines idling and neon overheating. The laundromat at the corner smelled like bleach and old coins and the faint perfume of someone’s life that keeps spinning. I waited in the shadow of the awning, the bandage at my side riding tight beneath my jacket, a reminder that every breath could be the last I had taken yesterday.Marcus arrived like a man who had practiced slinking for decades: no flourish, no adrenaline, just the quiet competence of someone who’d been asked to do a favor and knew better than to ask why. He was older than me, hands weathered, eyes the color of spare change. He folded into the slot behind the van’s wheel without fuss. Two men in the passenger seats watched the street like hawks.“You sure about the time?” Marcus asked. His voice was low, a rasp as seasoned as the upholstery. He had a face that kept secrets because the sec
Way Out: Owned by the Mafia Boss An Offer of Inclusion
(Dante’s POV)I considered the cost: the men will mobilize, there will be eyes on the road, Santoro will learn that someone has a whisper of our movement and he will react. But Marcus was clean, old-world enough to move ghosts and quiet enough to make parts of the city disappear for a night. He had a reputation for being practical, like a man who traded lives, not drama. If Luca wanted Mira moved, we’d move her. That meant dredging Santoro’s network and flushing rats. It meant a game of knives in the dark and the possibility that a man I had been building something with would walk away before I could say I wanted him.I made a choice I had long forbidden myself. “Yes,” I said. “Tonight.”Relief cracked his face in a dangerous, childlike way. He wanted to smile and almost did. “Thank you.”“Don’t thank me yet,” I warned. “You will owe me an explanation you cannot sing into a lullaby. You will owe me steps and names and a cut of your pride. You will owe me something that keeps me from b
Way Out: Owned by the Mafia Boss Start Telling Me
(Dante’s POV)“Who is this for?” I asked.He swallowed. “Marcus. He watches out for me. He’ll… he’ll move her if I say the word. If I can’t get out clean, he’ll take her.” The words came out fracturing, each one a shard.Marcus. Marcus had no patience for drama and even less fondness for men who played with lives. I knew the man; he’d once taken a bullet for a bartender who’d given him a sandwich and a grin. Marcus moved like an honest clock — slow hands, steady tick. If Luca had breathed that name into a strip of paper, he had chosen the right kind of ally for extraction.But use and trust are not the same. I studied the folded square the way a man might stare at a jagged blade and measure whether it could cut his palm. “You passed my men already?”“No,” he said quickly. “I—no. I hid it before they came. I was going to send it out tonight.” His mouth dried. “I thought to wait for dark but—”“But you came here instead,” I finished. The arc was small and neatly self-inflicted. “You tho
Way Out: Owned by the Mafia Boss The Measure of a Man
(Dante’s POV)There are measurements you learn to make by muscle memory—distance to the next cover, how long a pistol’s cartridge will burn, the time it takes for a man to draw a knife and regret it. There are other measurements a lifetime in this city teaches you more slowly: the angle of a guilt-hardened lie, the pause between someone’s words and what they mean, the weight of a promise when it’s dressed in fear.This morning my measure was simple: Luca moved like a man with an agenda, and agendas do not come free.He’d been quiet all night, sleeping in the north wing while I ordered the city’s perimeters tightened to a whisper. My men swept the avenues where Matteo’s people liked to breathe; my eyes were on the cameras and the ledger. I expected him to wake and find me ready with a schedule, a list of rules framed in threats and mercy. Expectations are tools, not prisons, and mine are always sharp.Instead, he surprised me. Not because he tried something dramatic—he was smarter than
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