Loving A Mafia

Ghosts in the Glass

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Maya didn’t sleep that night.

Not because of fear. Not even because of guilt.

But because every time she closed her eyes, she remembered the way he looked at her — like she wasn’t broken. Like she was fire.

And that terrified her more than any of his weapons.

She was pacing when dawn broke, her bare feet silent on the marble floor. The mansion still slept, or pretended to. Shadows dripped from the corners like oil, and somewhere far off, a clock chimed six.

A knock at her door made her jump.

It wasn’t Asher.

Ezra stood there, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. “He wants to see you.”

Maya didn’t ask where. She just followed.

The hallways twisted like the inside of a maze, familiar and strange all at once. Ezra led her downstairs, past the kitchen, past the cellar doors she’d once tried to pry open with a fork. Finally, they reached a wing she hadn’t seen before — older, darker. Dust motes danced in the shafts of morning light, and the air smelled faintly of earth and memory.

Asher was waiting in a room that could’ve been a library, if libraries bled secrets.

He didn’t look up when she entered.

Just said, “Close the door.”

She did.

“I need to show you something,” he said.

On the table in front of him were files. Dozens. Names, dates, photos. Newspaper clippings, blurred surveillance shots, typed reports with blacked-out lines. She recognized one of the faces immediately.

“Jones,” she said coldly.

Asher nodded. “He was never just a runner. He was working for someone. Someone bigger.”

Maya’s fingers hovered over another photo. “Who?”

“I don’t know yet,” Asher admitted. “But they’ve been watching you. Before me. Before all of this.”

Her stomach turned. “Why?”

He finally looked up. “Because you saw something, Maya. Something you don’t even realize yet. And they think you’re a threat.”

She backed away a step. “You brought me here to protect me?”

“I brought you here because I didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “But now? Now I need you to remember. Whatever you saw that night—at the nightclub, before the blackout—it’s the key.”

She thought back. Flashes. Music pulsing. Strobes painting shadows across sweating bodies. The sound of glass shattering. A briefcase. A man with a tattoo on his throat, shaped like a serpent eating its tail.

Her breath caught.

Asher saw it.

“You remember.”

“A little.”

“It’s enough. We’ll find the rest.”

“We?”

He stood and crossed the space between them. This time, he didn’t touch her.

“You’re not my prisoner anymore, Maya. Not if you don’t want to be.”

Silence stretched thin between them.

Then she said, “If I help you... when it’s over, I walk.”

“You’ll have that choice.”

She stared at him for a long moment.

And then nodded.

“Good,” Asher said. “Because the ghosts are waking up. And we don’t have much time.”

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