Chapter 2 - The Morning After
When Sadie woke up the next morning, the couch was empty.
The floral cushion was stained with dried blood, but Gabriel Rossi was gone. The only evidence he had ever been there was a crisp, hundred-dollar bill left pinned beneath a coffee mug on the table, along with a scrap of paper bearing a single phone number and three words: Call if needed.
Sadie stared at the bill, scoffed, and tossed it into her junk drawer. She didn't want his mob money. She wanted her normal, miserable, predictable life back.
Except life had other plans.
By noon, her shift at The Rusted Anchor hadn't even started yet when her phone rang. It was her landlord, Mr. Henderson, sounding uncharacteristically polite.
"Sadie? Just calling to let you know your past-due rent has been settled for the next six months," Henderson babbled nervously. "And... well, the plumbing crew is outside right now. They're fixing your radiator."
Sadie gripped the phone. "Who paid it?"
"Some man in a suit dropped off an envelope. Didn't give a name, but he left a card that said Rossi Logistics."
Sadie hung up, her blood running cold.
She grabbed her coat, marched down to the junk drawer, pulled out the phone number Gabriel had left her, and dialed it with shaking fingers. It picked up on the first ring.
"You're a subtle as a freight train," Sadie hissed into the receiver.
"Good morning to you too, Sadie," Gabriel’s smooth, velvet voice flowed through the speaker. "Did the radiator warm up?"
"I don't want your charity, Mr. Rossi. Take your money back. Fix my rent back to overdue, I don't care. Just stay out of my life."
"Charity?" There was a dark amusement in his tone. "In my world, nothing is charity, Sadie. That was an installment on a debt. You saved my life. I clear my ledgers. Now we're even."
"Good. Then we're done."
May you like
"For now," Gabriel agreed softly. "Be careful walking home tonight."
The line clicked dead. Sadie stood in her newly heated apartment, shivering despite the warmth, realizing with sudden dread that once a monster knew your name, you never really got it back.
