These are men who would rather rot in a cell for crimes they didn't commit than become the criminals the world already believed them to be.
"That same night...the warden came to each of us. Brought us tea. Hot, sweet." His fingers resume their path along my shoulder, slower now. Thoughtful. "We drank it. And when we woke up..."
“You were in Hewhay’s.”
“But it’s not like yours.”
I blink. “What do you mean?”
“Ours...was...is...a grocery store."
Oh.
Four hardened men. Framed for crimes they didn't commit. Survivors of a prison riot. Transported by magic to another world.
And they woke up in agrocery store.
I can only blink again.
Mafia kings...and grocery stores?
I have no idea how to process that.
"We were always hungry in prison," he says quietly. "Used to fantasize about having an entire grocery store to ourselves."
Oh.
Oh, my heart.
The image shifts in my mind. Four starving men, waking up surrounded by abundance. Aisles of food stretching in every direction. More than they'd ever seen. More than they'd ever been allowed to want.
Hewhay's gave them a feast before it gave them a kingdom.
"And in the paperback section," he murmurs, "there were books. One for each of us. With our names on the covers. Our faces." His hand stills on my back. "They detailed our new lives. Who we would be here. What we would have. The kingdoms waiting for us, if we chose to stay."
I think about my own book.Choose Your Own Mafia King.The illustrations that knew my face before I'd ever seen them. The story that was already written, waiting for me to step into it.
"Is there a catch?"
His hand stops moving entirely.
Beneath my ear, his heartbeat shifts. Just slightly. Just enough for me to notice.
"Yes."
The word falls into the silence like a stone into still water.
"What is it?"
He's quiet for so long I think he won't answer. I can feel the tension gathering in his body—the way his muscles have gone tight beneath my cheek, the way his breathing has changed.
Then...
"I had a sister."
His voice has gone rough. Distant. Like he's speaking from somewhere far away, somewhere I can't follow.
"Baby sister. She was..." He stops. Swallows. I watch his throat move in the dim light. "Our parents were not attentive. I tried to—" Another pause, longer this time. "She died."
