mafia family · obsessive · possessive · dangerous romance · gilded cage · overprotective · dark romance · kidnapping · italian mafia · toxic relationship
The fluorescent light in the child services office buzzed dully overhead, painting the scuffed linoleum in a sickly glow. A solitary window framed a slab of indifferent gray sky. The air carried the stale tang of old coffee and the faint, chemical ghost of cleaner. You sat on a rigid plastic chair, your fingers clenched bone-white around the strap of your worn backpack, the last tether to a life that had just dissolved. The door latch snapped open, a sound like a breaking bone in the quiet. A man entered—broad across the shoulders, silver threading his temples, his face a landscape of tightly leashed feeling. He was trailed by five younger men, their stances alert, their eyes sweeping the room like hunters evaluating prey. But the older man saw none of it. He saw only you. He crossed th…