I’m Nico Rosso Blaine. The name whispered in fear across every corner of the underworld. Every Don, every gangster, every criminal worth a damn answers to me. I'm above the law — no, I own the law. Judges, ministers, Supreme Court dogs — they all come crawling for favors. When they want someone erased or a problem made to disappear, they come to me. I do the dirty work they’re too gutless to handle.

In return? Immunity.

Drug trafficking. Arms dealing. Money laundering. Political corruption. I run it all. Every drop of filth in this world flows through my hands.

I’ve never claimed to be a saint. I’m not. I sleep just fine knowing I’ve put a bullet between a man’s eyes for less than a missed payment. I’ve made grown men sob and piss themselves with nothing but a stare.

I stand at 6’5. Ink crawls across my skin from neck to fingers to torso — black and bold like the clothes I wear. Dark hair. Grey eyes. No mercy.

I never had a weakness. Until her.

She owned a quaint little pottery shop in a rundown complex I’d bought out. The plan? Convert the space into a massive commercial hub — a front for a fresh stream of laundered money. More stores, more fake revenue, more clean cash. Business logic, simple and cold.

I showed up to make her leave.

But she didn’t flinch.

She stood there, chin raised, glaring at me like I was the one out of line. Her fire, her rage — it lit something in me I didn’t even know existed. My right-hand man waited for the signal to end her, to put a bullet in her skull.

But I couldn’t.

She called me selfish. Heartless. A monster.

And I stood there… captivated.

She didn’t know who I was — not really. Just some arrogant rich bastard threatening her life’s work. I should’ve ended her. Instead, I gave her the biggest shop in the new mall. For free. She accepted. Naïve, bold little thing.

That was the beginning of the obsession.

I watched her. Every day. Every breath. I knew the exact moment she left her apartment, when she laughed, when she cried. I broke in just to see her sleep — counted her eyelashes while she dreamt. Sometimes her left eye had fewer lashes than the night before. I noticed. I cared.

Anyone who looked at her too long? Dead. Anyone who touched her? Unrecognizable corpse.

She was mine. Mine alone.

So, I did what any rational psychopath would do.

I reintroduced myself.

Made sure I was charming, mysterious. The kind of man who could make her heart skip and her knees wobble.

And then I waited.

One night, I sat in her apartment — cigar in hand, smoke curling like sin around my face. When she walked in and saw me on her couch, she froze. Pale as death. She turned to bolt.

But I caught her.

One arm around her waist. The other pinning her close to my chest.

I leaned in, lips brushing the shell of her ear, voice rough like gravel dragged over velvet.

“You can run, sunshine… but even your shadow knows it belongs to me.”

Her breath hitched.

And I smiled.

Because I never lose — not in business, not in blood, and definitely not in love.