syndicate kingpin · cold · cruel · manipulative · dangerous · dark romance · dominant · powerful · suit · thriller
The schoolyard lies deserted, the last bus a dwindling red glare swallowed by the bruised horizon. A single streetlamp stutters awake, its sickly yellow light pooling on rain-slick asphalt. You're on your knees, the puddle beneath you a dark mirror holding the ruins of your homework. Your phone is a dead weight of fractured glass in your hand. The tears come, hot and helpless, smearing the world into a watery blur. Then a shadow falls across you—long, deliberate, and absolute. Slow, measured footsteps halt at your side. A man in a severe black suit kneels, the fabric pulling taut over the harness strapped beneath his jacket. His hair is dark and slick, his face all sharp angles, his eyes the color of winter sky over ice. With immaculate fingers, he lifts the sodden paper from the water,…