The town’s waking up fast.People cross streets with coffee cups in hand, school buses flash red, and horns blare in lazy frustration. A mom wrangles two kids into the back of her SUV, and a teenager skateboards past like the world doesn’t even touch him.
It looks normal.Too fucking normal.Like a smile stretched over broken teeth.
They have no idea what’s crawling underneath.No clue about the war simmering just beneath their feet.About the names whispered in bloody alleyways.The blood debts and betrayals that never die.
I step out of the truck, the door clicking shut.Cold air hits my face, sharp and biting.
I drop my head, eyes low, moving through the space—blending in as much as someone wired with danger and scars can in a place that reeks of quiet lives and small talk.
Expensive suit.Crisp lines.The kind of thing that makes people look twice.The kind of thing that doesn’t belong here.
I move through the store fast.Grabbing food, burner phones, bottled water and gloves.Nothing flashy.Nothing stupid.
I don’t linger.Don’t talk.Don’t make eye contact.
But still… Something’s off.
The old man behind the counter glances up at me once, then again, eyes narrowing, unsettled, trying to place whatever it is about me that doesn't sit right.
The girl near the exit pulls out her phone, fingers moving fast across the screen.Her eyes flick to me, then away, pretending it’s nothing.But her body’s tense, shoulders tight.She’s already hit send.I can feel it.
And that weight settles in my gut.The kind that says the clock just started ticking faster.
I pay at the counter and step outside, bag in hand.That’s when I fucking feel it.
The shift.The tension.The way the air thickens, charged and heavy—as if the street knows something I don’t.As though I’ve just stepped into a game already in motion, the pieces moving long before I got here.
People move around me, slow and disconnected.
A mother drags her kid by the wrist, eyes forward.No one looks at me for too long.
A dog barks from somewhere behind a rusted fence.There’s a delivery van parked down the block with no driver in sight.A guy across the street smokes without blinking, like he's watching something.
Maybe me.Maybe it’s nothing.But it sure as fuck doesn’t feel right.
I grip the bag tighter and head toward where I parked the truck, forcing myself to move steady.Not fast.Not paranoid.But every nerve is screaming.This is how it starts.Right before the first blow lands.
And then… the sharp buzz of my phone.
A message.
I yank it from my pocket, thumb swiping the screen.My fucking stomach drops.
Rage detonates in my veins before I even finish reading:
King Prick: You think you can hide her forever, Matteo…
Shit.
The words burn into my skull.
I spin slowly, scanning the street.Looking for every movement.Every shadow.Every corner.
This is how he works, quiet, surgical.You don’t see him coming.You feel it first.
I search for the ripple of something off.A face I’ve seen before.A stance too straight.A presence too still.
And then I see them.
