All Chapters of VELVET GUN: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

If you keep coming back to the fire, eventually you’re going to burn Maybe that’s the point. The days are hot, the nights are hotter, power lives in shadows. Love is an unspeakable danger and obsession; obsession begins quietly. Eliano didn’t sleep not that night, not the one after, not really. Her body still moved like it belonged to someone else sitting through forced brunches, nodding at her grandmother’s political guests, slipping into her carefully steamed dresses like a doll being dressed for auction, but her mind? Her mind was stuck, back in that warehouse back with her. Amy Finn. She didn’t even know the woman’s name until she started listening, really listening. Whispers at the dinner table, Mutters from passing drivers. A quiet tremor in the butler’s voice when he said, There are places a Marchetti girl shouldn’t be, Miss Eliano. That name, that woman in the suit the one with the eyes like carved marble and a voice that dripped low and slow like molasses. That woman hau

“ She had Giulia eyes but she didn’t know what they’d seen” The rain hadn’t stopped, but Amy barely noticed. She sat in the back of the black car, the leather interior cool against her spine. The window fogged slowly as she stared out at the passing streets of the Lower West Side half empty, half rotting. The city never slept, but some parts of it knew how to go quiet. Ellie Marchetti, Eliano. That name shouldn’t have shaken her but it had deeply, quietly like a match dropped in gasoline. Amy didn’t move she didn’t blink, she only let the girl’s name echo through her until it turned into something worse. Giulia, the car pulled up in front of her brownstone. Her driver opened the door, but Amy didn’t get out right away she waited until she was the last person in the car with her thoughts. That girl, that girl didn’t even know the name she carried she didn’t know the history sewn into her bones. She was Marchetti blood, yes but she had Giulia’s eyes, Giulia’s stillness, Giulia’s fire

She said come inside and Ellie followed her into hell. Ellie had seen blood before, she’d seen it on her father’s knuckles when he’d beaten a man in their drawing room for talking back. She’d seen it on the back of her cousin’s head after he’d fallen down the marble stairs. She’d even seen it on her mother’s hand once cut open by a shattered wine glass and stitched in silence. But this? This was different, this was raw, the warehouse door creaked open and Amy stepped inside without a second glance. Ellie hesitated for half a second before following her. The moment she crossed the threshold, the world changed, the air was thick, hot, Metallic and the sound low murmurs, faint whimpers, the distant clang of chains, it didn’t sound like New York anymore it sounded like something older, deeper, darker. Amy walked like she was immune to it all, her heels echoed with unbothered rhythm, her coat swinging behind her like a warning. Ellie trailed behind her, heart pounding, every step deeper fe

She’d seen the dark. She’d touched the flame but she still wanted to know what lit the match. She couldn’t sleep, Ellie lay in her bed that night, still dressed, her fingers pressed into the silk of her sheets like they were the only things keeping her grounded. She could still feel the cold metal of that key, still hear the girl’s voice whispering “please...”. Still see Amy’s face in the dark stoic, still, impossibly calm. It should have broken her, It didn’t. What broke her was the silence Amy left her with, the quiet weight of a choice: walk away, or walk deeper and here she was, back. She wasn’t sure if she came to confront Amy or to confess something she hadn’t figured out yet. All she knew was this; she needed to see her again to understand, to ask why? Warehouse, midnight, rain, again. Ellie stood in the center of the room this time no shadows, no hiding. When the black car pulled up, she didn’t flinch, when the heavy boots clicked across the concrete, she didn’t move. Amy step

It wasn’t the kiss that undid her, it was the way she stayed after. She hadn’t slept in two nights; not truly. Every time her eyes closed, she saw Amy, she saw the coldness in her eyes after the kiss, heard the silence she left behind like it had weight. She tossed, turned, sat up, lay down but nothing helped. You look too much like her, that sentence haunted her. Who was her? What did Amy mean? Was she just a substitute for someone else? Ellie sat up in bed, chest tight, enough was enough. She dressed quickly, dark riding pants, high boots, a cloak. She pulled her hair back into a tight bun and crept out of the house like a thief, no one saw her, no one ever did when she didn’t want them to. She rode hard into the night, through the trees, along the forgotten roads. Out toward the outskirts of the city where the smoke of New York gave way to fog and forest. That’s where Amy lived, a towering emerald mansion, half castle, half ruin, draped in ivy and thorns. The iron gate stood open l