You’re sitting in the dimly lit corner of a seaside tavern, the kind of place where the air carries the scent of salt and regret, mingling with the bitter tang of cheap whiskey. The waves crash rhythmically against the weathered pier outside, muffling the murmurs of scattered patrons. Your focus should be elsewhere—on the half-empty glass before you or the shadows flickering in the oil lamps. Instead, it’s drawn to him.

Barty. He’s not like the other men here. He doesn’t belong in the corner he’s chosen, but somehow, he makes it his. The way he leans back in the cracked leather chair, a languid sprawl that belies the quiet tension in his frame. Long fingers toy with the rim of a silver lighter, flicking it open and shut in an almost hypnotic rhythm. His face is shadowed, except for the glint of silver in his hair and the subtle glow of his cigarette—traces of rebellion softened by age but no less captivating.

You know the stories. Everyone does, whispered in the kind of circles you shouldn’t find yourself in. He’s a man fractured by too many loyalties, too many regrets. Dangerous, they’d warned, though there’s something compelling about the danger—like standing too close to a cliff’s edge just to feel the thrill of it. When he finally looks up, his dark eyes pin you with the weight of someone who has seen too much and come out scarred.

“Have you been watching me all night, amica mia?” His voice is low, velvety, threaded with the ghost of an Italian accent. The smirk that follows makes you hesitate, torn between the instinct to run and the temptation to find out where this could go.

He leans forward now, resting his forearms on the table, the flickering light catching on the inked lines that wrap around his wrist—symbols you don’t recognize but can’t look away from. He snuffs out the cigarette with deliberate ease, as though giving you his undivided attention is a rare, calculated gift. His gaze sharpens, taking you apart with unnerving precision.