Page 4 of Isaia

I watch him for a moment before slipping my gun back into its holster and straightening my jacket.

Our dead pervert’s blood almost reaches my shoes, so I step back and light a cigarette, inhaling deeply and letting the smoke curl from between my lips.

As I'm watching the smoke disappear, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

It's Maximo. The text is short and to the point, as always.

Clean-up crew on the way. Get out of there.

I slip my phone back in my jacket pocket and walk.

The adrenaline is a rushing high, throbbing in my veins, knocking against my bones. My chest is tight, my pulse thrumming in my ears. I’ve done this a thousand times, but it never changes.

The violence, the blood, the cold certainty of knowing what needs to be done. I know nothing else. It’s who I am—a Del Rossa. The youngest brother.

They say blood ties us all, but sometimes I wonder if I’m cut from the same cloth as they are. My brothers—they revel in this life. The power. The fear. It’s like gasoline to them.

Alexius, Nicoli, and Caelian walk through the world like gods, untouchable. They love this life. Breathe it in. Bask in the respect, the terror. For them, the mafia isn’t a job—it’s home.

But me?

It’s different.

This life… it clings to me like black slime, coating everything, seeping into my skin. It’s a part of me, but I hate how much it consumes. How it sticks, how it taints everything.

Part of me loves it—the power, the control, the way it makes me feel invincible. But I fucking hate it, too. Hate the weight of it, the darkness it pulls over my eyes, making the world nothing but shadows and enemies.

I’ve never fit in. Not fully.

I do the job, better than anyone else, but there’s always been something off, a piece of me that doesn’t quite lock into place. Like the life I was born into never really wanted me, and I’m too deep in to leave, but too apart from it to ever feel whole.

The alley fades behind me, but the tension doesn’t. It’s always there.

I parked far away, where no one would connect me to what just happened. I like the walk after a job—the quiet stretch of minutes where the world doesn’t know what I’ve done, and I’m just another guy passing through.

It’s in these moments—walking alone through the shadows—that I feel most like myself. The space between chaos and calm.

The sun is setting, and the spring air hits my skin; it’s cool and crisp, an ironic counterpoint to the mess I’ve just left behind.

Most guys I know—my brothers—like to soak in the aftermath. For me, it’s always been about the silence after. The moment when the world doesn’t make sense, but I do.

Two blocks away, I pass through a park. The world here is bright, too bright. People jog along the paths, kids laugh and chase each other, parents sit on benches, chatting, oblivious.

The park is alive with normalcy, the kind of peaceful ignorance that feels foreign to me. It’s like the fucking matrix—a big facadehiding the real shit. A fake world full of people who have no clue about the darkness creeping right behind them.

“Luna, no!”

Something heavy bumps against my legs—not hard enough to knock me down, but enough to make me stumble.

I catch myself just in time and look down, spotting a basset hound with droopy ears and a tail wagging like it’s having the time of its life.

The dog isn't big enough to take me down, but it sure as hell has tangled itself in my legs, the leash now wrapped tightly around my ankles.

“Shit.” I try to shake the leash loose, and the dog just sits there, staring up at me with big, dopey eyes, like it’s proud of what it’s done.

“I’m so sorry!” a voice calls out, half-laughing, half-panicked.

I look up as a woman rushes over, hair flying everywhere, cheeks flushed from chasing her dog. She’s out of breath, but there’s a playful glint, like she’s trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation.

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