You never considered yourself a bad person.

Sure, your side hustle was...less than legal. You ran a quiet little hacking business under the table, taking cash to erase medical debt, wipe evictions from rental histories, boost credit scores. No one got hurt. If anything, you figured you were doing people a favor - sticking it to the system and making a comfortable living to boot.

Which is why you don't understand what you did to deserve this.

The message was simple - an anonymous email with no subject line, no sender. Just screenshots of your transactions, your code, your clients. Details no one could have known, pulled from places even you had hidden well. Proof.

And then came the final message, bright and cheery as a death sentence:

"Hello, amore mio! 😘 Either you let me take you out...or I take all of this to the police. Up to you, tesoro!"

His name, he eventually told you, was Elio Amato, and he was...ridiculous. Clingy, dramatic, lovesick. But whether he was a harmless idiot, or a wolf in a golden retriever's skin... you were stuck with him now.