Burn For Me : Bound By The Mafia King

The air stinks of blood and gunpowder—sharp, metallic, suffocating. My left shoulder’s soaked in it, hot and sticky, where it seeps through my shirt. Some of it’s mine. The rest… I don’t have time to care. My head’s still ringing from when one of those Holt bastards slammed it into a metal shelf, and my arm is on fire. The bullet skimmed me good. But I’m still standing.

Still breathing.

Still moving.

The box digs into my ribs with every step, each breath punching against the bruises blooming beneath my skin. The safe’s tucked under my other arm, heavier than it should be for its small size, slick with something warm and suspiciously chunky that I refuse to look at.

We hit the stairwell hard—boots pounding down rusted metal steps like a military drum. Each one shudders up through my bones. Behind us, doors slam open. Voices roar. Footsteps hammer closer.

“Down the alley,” Ryker barks, shoving the door with his shoulder, gun leveled. “Go!”

We burst into the night like hellhounds on the run. Cold air bites into my sweat-soaked skin, burning across raw lungs and bloodied nerves. I’ve got no idea how long we’ve been in this fight—minutes, hours, eternity. Time stopped when I hit the concrete, and a Holt gangster started turning my face into pavement art. The box went flying, sending its contents scattering.

Maddox moved first—cold, yet efficient. One shot. Clean. The son of a bitch crumples beside me, skull blooming red. Maddox grabs the safe while Ryker dives for the spilled contents.

“You’ve gotta keep your chin up, Cali,” Ryker mutters, jamming a file into the box as Maddox hauls me to my feet.

“In my defense, he came out of freaking nowhere,” I snap, slapping grit off my jeans. I flick a glance at Maddox, breath ragged, as he hands me back the safe. “Thanks.”

He just nods down the alley. “Ride’s here.”

The car is idling at the far end, and the engine is growling low. The passenger door is wide open, and lights cut through the dark. Rain-slick pavement glitters with shattered glass, broken like the rest of this night.

We’re seconds away.

Then, the air shifts.

Not loud. Not fast. Just… wrong.

A presence steps from the shadows to our right. Calm and unhurried. Like he’s already seen the ending, and it’s written in our blood.

Dez, our youngest recruit, whirls toward him. The gun comes up too slowly.

The shot cracks like thunder.

Dez’s head jerks back. He drops. Just—drops, his eyes blown wide, mouth still forming the command he never gets to finish. Smoke curls from the wound—red. Thick. Twisting like some kind of unholy signature in the freezing air.

No one breathes.

My eyes narrows onto the red smoke and my chest tightens.

Only one person is notoriously known for using rounds like that.

Maddox’s voice drops, rough and shaken. “Hellbringer.”

For a split second, I freeze.

The whole alley holds its breath—sounds warping, thinning, like someone hit mute on the universe. My pulse pounds too loud in my ears. Even the wind’s gone still.

Hellbringer lowers his pistol. No rush. No emotion. The matte-black mask hides his face, but I feel him watching me. Like I’m already dead, and he’s just waiting for the world to catch up. That kind of focus—glacial, meticulous, final.

Ryker snaps, “Go! Go now!”

My body jolts back online.

I don’t look at the man again. I want to—God, I want to. I want to plant a bullet between his eyes, sever his soul from the earth, and scatter the ashes where rot festers deepest—where the worms writhe in silence and filth clings to bone. But I know better. If I reach for my gun, I’ll be on the ground before I even clear the holster.

Another day. When I’m ready. I’ll hunt him down and end this—I swear it.

The car’s right there.

I run. Blood rushes in my ears. My lungs feel like sandpaper, and my legs feel like lead. Every step screams, but I don’t slow. My fingers graze the door handle—and I’m ripped backward.

Hands—too strong, too fast—slam me to the ground. The safe skitters across the pavement, metal scraping. Pain knives through my ribs as I hit hard, gasping. Immediately, I scramble back up and reach for the door.

It slams in my face.

Ryker stares at me through the glass. His expression is stone. No panic. No apology. Just… locked down.

His hand lifts, but not to open it for me.

Click.

The doors lock.

“What are you doing?” I slam my hand against the window. “Ryker!”

His jaw tightens. “Sorry, sis.”

No.

The car shifts into gear.

“You don’t mean that,” I say, voice cracking. “Don’t you fucking dare—”

He doesn’t flinch or so much as blink. “You’re a weight we can’t carry.”

And then they’re gone.

The tires scream against wet pavement, and the car peels away into the night—taking the only people I’ve ever bled for with it. My reflection fades in the red taillights, swallowed by the dark.

I just stand there.

Heart jackhammering. Knees scraped. Hairline bleeding into my eye. The safe lies abandoned in the gutter like it means nothing.

They left me.

My brothers left me.

I can’t move. My brain scrambles for logic, for sense, but everything’s twisted and wrong. I got the box. I took the hits. I made sure we got out alive. And still, they chose to cut me loose like I was nothing.

Then—

Footsteps.

Not frantic. Not fast. Just… steady.

Measured.

Final.

Each one hits the pavement like a countdown, echoing louder than gunfire. Not running. Not rushing.

Coming closer to me.

I don’t turn.

Because if I look—if I see him—the hatred I feel for this man runs so deep no words or action could justify it.

But he keeps coming anyway.

At first, he’s just a shadow—bleeding out of the alley’s edge like the night itself stepped forward to claim me. His presence crashes into me—pure wickedness wearing flesh, thick and oppressive, tightening around my throat until breathing feels earned, not given.

My hand fumbles for the gun at my back—blood-slick, trembling—but I’m too slow.

He’s already here.

A gloved hand snaps around my wrist, exact and cruel. One twist and a bolt of pain shoot up my arm, lighting my shoulder on fire. My knees nearly buckle. The weapon slips from my grip, useless, clattering to the pavement like it never mattered.

Then he crouches.

Calm. Still. Unshaken.

A predator who doesn’t need to chase.

He peels off the mask.

And I forget how to breathe—how to hate.

Dark hair, damp and tousled like he walked straight out of war. Because he did. Jaw sharp enough to cut, mouth sculpted like sin—cruel lips made for giving commands and breaking hearts. He shouldn’t look like this. No one this monstrous should be this fucking beautiful.

But it’s his eyes that gut me.

They’re darker than smoke and older than hate—black holes that suck the warmth right out of your soul. No light. No mercy.

No escape.

My breath catches.

Not from fear.

From fury—at myself.

Because what kind of twisted soul sees beauty in the man who took their mother’s life?

The kind of beautiful that doesn’t belong in bloodstained alleyways. The kind that makes people stop and stare. That shouldn’t belong to the bastard who burned my world down. But it does. And that makes it worse.

This is the face from my nightmares.

“Calistra Ford,” he murmurs—low and lethal. His voice slithers under my skin, smooth as silk, cold as a muzzle pressed to my spine. “You’ve been busy.”

I don’t answer.

I swing.

He catches it effortlessly, fingers closing around my wrist like a trap. My bones grind. I grit my teeth.

“You stole from me,” he says like he’s reading off a grocery list, and not threatening me. No heat. No anger. Just a fact—one that ends in blood because that’s how his world works.

I spit at his boots. “You murdered my mother, you piece of shit.”

Not a flicker in his expression. Not even a blink. “No,” he says softly. “That was someone else. But don’t worry, sweetheart—you’ll find out who soon enough.”

Ice floods my chest. Lies. All bloody lies. “Go to hell,” I hiss.

His head tilts, slow and deliberate, a ghost of something dangerous flashing through those void-dark eyes. Then the corner of his lips quirked up into a sinful smile. “I already brought it with me.”

Then everything blurs.

One second, I’m upright. The next, I’m airborne—thrown over his shoulder like a duffel bag full of broken bones and rage. Pain screams through every bruise, every raw nerve, but he doesn’t even flinch.

He just walks.

Like he owns me.

Like this has already been written in stone.

He throws me into the back of a black SUV. The door’s already open, waiting like a goddamn grave. My elbow smashes into the seat edge, and I fold in on myself, breath hitching.

I push up, head spinning, and that’s when I see it.

Silver embossed on the inner panel—gleaming like a brand burned into my memory. A serpent wreathed in fire, eating its own tail.

The Holt crest.

The same one my mother bled for. The one stamped into the bullets that tore my world apart.

And now it surrounds me.

The door slams shut.

Steel and shadow.

Silence.

And the gut-punch truth settles in like a death knell—

No one’s coming to save me this time.