The Mafia's Veil

a feline predator's strike - swi

ud, a brutal collision of flesh and bone

spli

almost beautiful

e music, sharp as the shards that scattered across

tened myself against the bar, the cool, polished wood against my back doing little to calm the storm roaring inside me. Dante Lombardi

ways did, not to notice the sharp, shifting glances exchanged between Dante's men. The

eamble, without a sin

usso's e

storm that broke the fra

st fists, blades, and the flash of cold gunmetal

hough, that cau

led, precise, surgical in his movements. He was a master, dancing his own brutal ballet. A

to the spot, una

sed, eyes rolling back as though all the life was sucked from him in a single blow. Dante didn't flin

it was a thi

it, another man lunged at him, a

knowing I had been

terstrike came. A quick snap of his wrist, his elbow driving into the man's side with brutal force. The crack of bones breaking was a sound that

mach c

I hadn't anticipated. The coldness behind each movement, the way his e

ght es

it all. The club - this place where I had often lost myself in the music, in the faces of strangers - had transformed into a war zo

e grab

ning with a force that felt too desperate, too animalistic. Panic flicke

n't t

his face. The sound of glass meeting skin rang in my ears as he recoiled, curses spilling from his mo

do next, one of Dante's men - a blur of motion - was on the guy,

ulse thrummed in my ears as I looked at the chaos around me - the violence, the blood, the wreckag

to see what

from the madness, away from Dante's world that had just revealed its true nature. The quie

in cold determination, his body a beautiful, terrifying force in motion. It was as though he belonged here, as though t

life he led, I was nothing more than a spectat

ther I found it terri

d. The club, which had once seemed a sanctuary, was now a place I would never see the same way again. And Dante? Dan

chaos, I felt a pull - an undeniable force

er: How long before I wo