“take him out. i expect him to be loitering around the back of the pizzeria on his own, waiting for that elliot fella to come out on his break. aim for the fedora man, & make sure he doesn’t get back up again. as for elliot, leave him be. he’s done nothing wrong.”

that was what mafioso had ordered his henchmen to do that afternoon. he was commandeering them to assassinate a rather notorious gambler around the area, a man called chance. chance had stolen a prized gift from mafioso’s family amidst a rigged game of roulette designed for him to lose, yet he’d somehow won anyway. mafioso, being his stubborn self, didn’t find it in himself to let chance’s little win go unchecked.

he planned to retrieve the gift from chance, & since he’d declined all of mafioso’s peaceful advances so far of returning the prize, mafioso had snapped— & decided that chance was to sleep with the fishes.

& so he sent his henchmen out of the mafia mansion, ordering them to take out chance on sight. he’d even given them the precise location where he’d be found, so what could go wrong?

turns out, all.

the henchmen discussed the orders of the mission along the way, & somehow they got the target’s appearance mixed up—now to them, they were supposed to let the man wearing the fedora slip unscathed, whilst the other person should be taken out. well, they reached the back of the pizzeria, where chance & elliot were already conversing. chance looked on in horror as mafioso’s henchmen closed in on elliot, yet even he fled when one of the goons turned to chance & cocked his rifle.

the henchmen had grown accustomed to a sort of tradition. whenever their boss had given them a new target, they’d beat up the victim just enough so that they were immobilised, then consequently abandon them until mafioso himself arrived to the scene to finish the job himself. mafioso got a sick sense of pleasure from this little routine, & as he rounded the corner of the rundown pizzeria to reach the back alley, he was taken sharply aback. there, lying in rubble, leaking blood like an old tire, was elliot. the one person mafioso had commanded his men not to harm in any way, shape or form.

he cursed to himself out loud before sprinting over to elliot’s side, crouching down beside the downed pizzeria employee, heartbeat quickening underneath the fabric of his suit.

“elliot?!”