New York stinks of piss and stale perfume and that garbage smell that gets in your bones.

Up in my place above the Park, you can’t smell the rot. But down here? This is where real power is. Blood. Silence. A Glock against skin.

Tonight, I’m hunting a rat.

Ernesto Russo. Mentor. Capo. Traitor.

He’s laughing too loud at the girl I sent him. Her five-inch heels wobble as she leads him down the service lane toward his black Audi. Same car he taught me to drive stick in, his cigar smoke curling through the cracked windows when I stalled out for the third time. ‘C’mon, kiddo. Even your sister drives better’n you.’

The hands that drilled me on how to field-strip a gun now grope at cheap satin.

The girl sees me first. Her smile doesn’t falter, but her steps quicken, heels clicking a hasty retreat.

Ernesto turns.

Hope flickers in his bloodshot eyes. Then he sees the Glock. The exact fucking piece he gifted me on my eleventh birthday. Some rite of passage.

‘This is the life, kid. You kill for la famiglia, or you bleed for them.’

Guess which one he chose.

“Gia.” His voice cracks on the syllable, palms raised. “Let’s talk.”

“Get in the car.”

His hand twitches toward his coat.

My gun’s in his face before he makes it halfway. “Now.”

He fumbles with the remote. Slides into the driver’s seat.

I slip into the back. The Audi is steeped in his cheap cologne and cheaper lies.

He grips the wheel, his knuckles bleaching to bone-white. Sweat slithers down his temples. Not the honest sweat of a hard day’s work. Not even the kind you work up in a packed bar with a woman pressed against you. This is the greasy sheen of a man who knows his number’s up.

“You talked to the Feds.”

“Wait. Take me to Antonio. We’ll sort this out.”

I scoff. “Father’s done with you. That’s why he sent me.”

“That cold bastard.”

I shove the barrel into the back of his skull. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Look, just this once. Let me go, kid, and I’ll disappear. You’ll never hear from me again.”

I keep quiet. Let him stew in his own desperation.

I see it coming before he does—that split-second when his body betrays him. The eyebrow. Flared nostrils. That barely-there lean toward his piece.

Too slow.

My finger tightens on the trigger. “Try.”

He slams the wheel instead.

“Stunad.” Ernesto glares at me in the rearview, his signet ring knocking against the wheel. Tap tap tap. Then he laughs, wet and hollow. “He coulda sent anyone. But he made you do it. Ever wonder why?”

I give him nothing, even though my pulse’s hammering.

Tap tap tap.

“I held you when you were crying. Remember that? Twelve years old and puking your guts out.”

Blood on my new shoes. Ernesto rubbing my back. ‘Breathe, kid. It gets easier.’

It didn’t.

His breath comes in shallow gasps. “At least look me in the eye when you do it.”

Coward’s request. But I meet his gaze in the mirror anyway.

“Please.” First honest word I’ve heard from him tonight. A vein pulses in his temple—once, twice.

The tapping stops. His shoulders slump. “Tell me, Gia. What’s your soul go for these days?”

The shot cracks—God’s own punchline. His sneer dies half-formed.

The car smells like the Fourth of July. Blood spatters the St. Christopher medal. The one he kissed every time we rolled out on a job. Oozes onto the gearshift—same spot his hand used to cover mine, guiding my white-knuckled grip. Dripping. Like memories.

Those stolen Sundays. Him shoving a cone in my hand—pistachio, already bleeding through the wafer.

Smoke curling from his cigarette. Needle flashing. ‘Breathe, kid.’ A tug at my brow, sutures biting in. ‘Pain means you’re still here.’

The sting of burnt powder as he crushed me close after my first hit. Never said a word about the tears.

Now it’s just another mess I’ve got to wipe down before sunrise.

The deal was simple. Kill the rat, buy myself a few years outside the cage before they come collecting. But as his head lolls against the headrest, something hot claws up my throat.

Father didn’t send me because I’d pull the trigger.

He sent me because I’d choke on every fucking second after.