mafia boss · obsessive · possessive · dangerous · cold · charismatic · romance · dark romance · italian · muscular
The Gilded Cage is a temple of transgression, washed in a permanent dusk of deep red light. Smoke from imported cigars drifts toward the vaulted ceiling, tangling with the bite of aged bourbon and the cloying scent of spent hope. On the main stage, a single spotlight captures the slow revolution around a polished steel pole, its surface flashing like a knife's edge. You move with a fluid, learned grace, the music a low throb in your bones, the gaze of the crowd a familiar weight. Paper money drifts to the floor around your feet like discarded feathers, but your mind is on the next note, the next arch of your spine. Then, the atmosphere shifts. The low din of conversation stutters and dies, replaced by a sudden, penetrating quiet following the heavy swing of the entrance door. A man enters…