Leah's POV
Big mistake.
Darryl's touch ignited a white-hot rage. The beast surged, teeth sharpening beneath my gums - rip, rend, feast - but Liam's voice cut through the haze.
"Don't." He met my gaze, blood trickling from his split lip. "Just don't."
I let my shoulders slump, the perfect picture of helplessness. Darryl released me with a sneer.
"Smart boy," he said to Liam. "Now strip."
What followed was a symphony of humiliation. They made him bare his thighs, his hips, the pale map of old scars. Jeers echoed - "Fitting you ended up a whore" - but Liam's face stayed eerily blank. When the first punch landed, he curled into himself, silent.
I memorized each blow.
Rib crack. Nose crunch. Knuckle split on tooth.
Darryl would die slow. They all would.
By the time they left him bleeding in the gutter, my gloves were shredded from clawing my own palms. I hauled him upright, his weight warm and too-human against me.
"Should've…let you…stab them," he wheezed, clutching his side.
"You think knives scare men like that?" I adjusted his arm over my shoulders, steadying him. "They're cockroaches. Thrive in filth."
He laughed, then winced. "You'd know, huh? Being married to a mob boss."
The fiction hung between us, fragile as a spiderweb. I let it stand.
As soon as we got back to his apartment, he collapsed onto the couch, shirt hanging in tatters. Soft morning light carved his bruises into grotesque art.
"You need to go to the hospital," I said.
"Suture kit's under the sink," he mumbled. "Fetch it for me and I'll fix myself. It's just some scratches."
"You can't even lift your arms."
"I can do this." He lit up a cigarette and took a draft. It looked really painful.
He sighed. "Has one of your mob docs taught you needlework by any chance?"
I stared at the gash across his ribs. My body healed itself; his required patience, precision - human frailties. The needle trembled in my grip.
"You know what? I've changed my mind. Let me do it." He reached for the thread.
I batted his hand away. "You'll bleed out first."
The needle pierced his skin. He hissed. My stitches skewed drunkenly, but the wound closed.
"Oh, mine," he muttered. "Your husband used to hire you as a torture specialist or something?"
"He preferred something else." I knotted the thread. Something much, much unglier.
His fingers brushed mine, calloused and startlingly gentle. "You're shaking."
I withdrew. "I'm still mad. You're not supposed to be humiliated like that in front of people."
"I've been through worse," he looked away and took another draft. "You just don't mess up with people like Darryl... They are the real gangsters."
I used antiseptic wipes to clean his wound. He flinched.
"Does it hurt?" I frowned.
"Not really..." His gaze lingered on my shredded gloves on the floor. "You know, I've never asked… Your husband... What exactly did you do to piss him off?"
I fell in love too easily.
"I stabbed him in the chest," I said.
Silence stretched. Somewhere, a pipe dripped. Liam's breathing steadied.
"Well, what had he done to make you so mad?" he looked confused.
"He doesn't have a heart."
Liam looked even more confused.
"Have some sleep. I'll be back when you're awake," I said.
He pulled my sleeves and asked, "Where are you going?"
"I'm taking a walk."
-
The garlic-heavy air of Old Man Russo's hit me like a wall when I pushed through the weathered oak door. Beneath the clatter of Sunday lunch service - silverware dancing on china, waiters gliding between tables like pallbearers at a funeral they couldn't afford to bury - ran an undercurrent of sweat-starched panic. These weren't just harried servers fumbling antipasto plates. Their darting eyes and tremor-stiff smiles reeked of adrenalized fear, the kind that turns lunch specials into last meals.
Upstairs, Persian carpets swallowed sound whole. Brad Russo's office door gleamed with fresh gold leaf - a tombstone for the old man's era. Through the jamb crack, I watched his Rolex-clad hand white-knuckle the desk. That Park Avenue baritone he cultivated for Chamber of Commerce events kept fracturing. "You're certain it's Liam?" Vibrating like a high-tension cable seconds before snap.
Darryl's laugh through the speakerphone carried decades of broken teeth and loyalty oaths. "Checked him myself. Pants down, scar clear as the day we put on him. He's back for a reason."
"Yes. For fish." Brad's silk tie constricted around the words. "Is he alone?"
"He's with a broad."
"So, he wasn't alone."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Darryl's voice sounded impatient.
"We're not street thugs anymore. Those smartphone brats will post clips without the backstory - 'Local Consumer Bullied By Fishmonger Mob' trending by happy hour. It's bad for our business. I've just spoken to the mayor and I'm really tired to put out fire for you everywhere I go..."
"Your problem, consigliere." The click of a Zippo punctuated Darryl's threat. "We clean messes. You count receipts."
The leather chair creaked as Brad leaned into ghosts. "My father's last words mentioned 20 years ago. Specifically."
"That's just deathbed ramblings." Cigarette smoke traveled through the line. "Keep your head low and your mouth shut, or you may one day end up rambling something to your sons in your deathbed."
I left them circling each other's throats. Out back, the refrigerated truck's diesel growl harmonized with the purchaser's tirade - "Third late delivery this week!"
"New climate controls and system upgrades," a driver shrugged. "Goods spoil if we rush."
The purchaser shook his head and walked back into the door. He never saw my elbow drop - a precise rabbit-punch to the C3 vertebra. His keycard felt warm against the cold storage door's frost-sealed handle.
Inside, industrial frost gnawed at exposed pipes. My werewolf biology registered the -20°C chill as someone else's problem. I punched the fire alarm and it wails. 20 seconds later, Brad came running, his Italian loafeds skidded across ice-glazed concrete.
I kicked the vault door and it sealed with a submarine hatch thunk.
"Who the fuck are you?" Brad stared at me. "You don't work for me!"
"I'm about to become your worst nightmare," I said.
He looked terrified with his voice trembling. "Do you know whose place this is? This place is ran by Cosa family..."
"Eighteen minutes," I said, watching his pulse throb at the carotid. "That's how long before hypothermia cracks you. So now, let's quickly discuss what happened 20 years ago before you lose all your fingers and toes."