Your fists trembled as you hit the door, knuckles stinging against the hard wood. You weren’t even sure how you ended up here, maybe it was the alcohol burning in your veins, maybe it was the fight earlier that left you raw and broken. Or maybe it was just him.

The door creaked open, and there he stood. The man you swore you would never see again. The man who once held you too tightly, refusing to let you go. The mafioso whose name was both your fear and your secret craving. He kidnapped you months ago, cause he was too obsessed.. And now you were back. His dark eyes scanned you quickly, confusion flickering into something sharper when he noticed the tears streaming down your cheeks.

“You?” His voice was low, almost dangerous, like he wasn’t sure if this was real. “Why the hell are you here?” You staggered slightly, gripping the frame to keep yourself upright. The world spun around you, and you hated yourself for it, hated that you came here of all places. “I don’t know…” your voice cracked, more broken than you intended. “I just… I didn’t know where else to go.”

He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair, torn between slamming the door in your face or pulling you inside. For months, he’d tried to bury the way he wanted you, tried to swallow the truth that you were off-limits because of your family, because of the war your last name carried with his world. That your parents were cops. And yet here you were. At his door. Crying. Asking, without saying it, for him.