The dark streets outside the Syndicate club were slick with rain, the neon signs bleeding into the puddles like fresh crimson.
Rocco stood by his black Ducati, issuing commanding farewells to his soldiers. He finally turned, noticing I was still standing in his shadow on the pavement.
"I almost forgot you rode here with me," he casually remarked, adjusting the collar of his leather jacket.
Daria stepped out of the club doors, dramatically clasping her hands together as she jogged over to the bike.
"Take me on a high-speed run to the fighting ring, Boss," she begged, leaning her hip against the motorcycle. "I need the adrenaline."
Rocco glanced at the backseat of his Ducati. His dark eyes flickered to me, then back to the bike. Seeing my deadpan expression, his jaw clenched in visible displeasure.
He reached into the storage compartment, yanking out the spare pink helmet, and tossed it through the damp air to Daria.
"Get on," he ordered.
Daria caught the helmet, smirking victoriously as she turned her sharp gaze to me.
"The last civilian subway leaves in twenty minutes, Tessa," she warned, hooking a finger through the helmet's chin strap and letting it swing idly. "You better run fast, future Enforcer. The streets are dangerous at night."
I saw not malice in her eyes, but the cool, possessive satisfaction of a predator marking her territory.
In that moment, I decided I was entirely done playing the victim.
With a calm I did not know I possessed, I stepped forward, holding out my hand directly in front of Daria's chest.
"Hand over the helmet."
Daria froze. Having already straddled the bike behind Rocco, she clutched the helmet to her chest and glared at me.
"What is your problem?" she asked.
"The helmet is mine," I coldly informed her, my voice echoing in the damp alleyway. "It is a matching set. I bought it with my own money for Rocco's initiation birthday."
Daria bit her lower lip, looking at Rocco over her shoulder with the calculated innocence of a wronged woman.
Rocco scowled. He stepped off the kickstand, his massive frame towering over me in the street.
"You are being petty over a piece of gear," he berated me, his voice low and heavy with authority. "It is just a helmet, Tessa. You are acting increasingly pathetic over nothing."
Daria lightly traced the line of Rocco's broad shoulder with her manicured fingernail-a small, deliberate gesture meant only for my eyes.
I stared at his chest, looking at the man who used to hold my hand when we crossed the street as children.
I slowly lowered my hand.
"It's cheap anyway. Keep it."
As the words left my mouth, the fifteen years of suffocating devotion I had harbored for him did not shatter. It simply seeped away, draining out of me and into the wet asphalt, leaving behind only the hollow echo of profound fatigue.
I realized I no longer wanted his possessions; more importantly, I no longer wanted the man himself.
The Ducati roared to life. Rocco did not look back as he tore down the street, the engine echoing like a gunshot in the night.
I did not run for the civilian subway. Instead, I raised my hand and hailed a heavily armored Syndicate cab idling near the club entrance.
I climbed into the backseat, locking the heavy doors, and stared out the bulletproof glass as the city blurred past me.
Everyone in the Family assumed Rocco had entered this life solely because of his hunger to be the Don.
I remembered how his grandfather, the former Boss, had molded him. He had locked a young Rocco in basements with traitors, teaching him to crave absolute power-to be the undisputed, ruthless king of this city.
I reflected on how the Family assumed I was joining the Enforcers just for Rocco, since I had been his obedient shadow since we were six years old.
I traced the memory of the exact moment everything changed. When puberty hit, his possessive nickname for me shifted from 'mine' to referring to me as his 'Associate.'
He stopped climbing through my window in the dead of night; instead, he began to treat me like a piece on his board, moving me out of his inner circle with the same detached motion he used to sweep spent casings from a table.
I recalled the crushing heartbreak of that shift, but I had naively accepted it.
I truly believed that as long as I bled for the Family, as long as I learned how to shoot and fight, I would remain by his side.
I truly believed we would conquer the Enforcer Academy together, thinking that one day he would recognize my unwavering loyalty and pull me out of the shadows.
Then I remembered the day Daria arrived from Chicago. As a Capo's daughter, she stepped into the training ring and drew blood from Rocco's lip in a sparring match.
My mind replayed the moment her glove split his lip, and the flicker of excitement in his eyes. It was not the look of a man who was hurt, but the silent, feral acknowledgment of a kindred spirit. Only now, in the back of this cab, did I finally understand what that signal had meant.
"Miss?" the cab driver interrupted, glancing at me through the reinforced rearview mirror. "We have reached your estate."
I blinked, pulling my eyes away from the window.
"Why are you crying?" the hardened driver asked, his hand resting on his radio. "Do I need to alert your Capo father? Is there a threat?"
Snapping back to reality, I reached up and touched my cheek, my fingers coming away wet.
I wiped my tears with the back of my sleeve.
"No threat," I told the driver, my voice steady and hollow. "My future can only be built on my own terms, far away from that man's throne."
