Made & Marked By The Mafia

[Three]

SIENNA

The pharmacy on the corner had its shutters down, forcing me to walk a few blocks deeper into a part of town that didn’t exactly scream safe after dark. But with a half-conscious stranger bleeding out on my couch, my night had already left normal far behind.

By the time I returned, nearly thirty minutes later, the apartment was still. Too still.

He was stretched out on the couch, his shirt half-untucked, dark lashes brushing against cheekbones that looked carved, not born. He was too much and not enough, all at once. My fingers ached to touch, and I hated myself for the craving. There was something about him—wild and untamed, yet painfully magnetic. The kind of man who didn’t just walk into a room, he took it. Who made you feel like you were about to fall before you’d even leaned forward.

I crouched down beside him, telling myself it was just to check his temperature. Responsible stuff. Not because I was intrigued by the curve of his mouth or the faint scar slicing through his brow. My fingers hovered, then pressed gently to his forehead—warm, but not feverish.

Still, he didn’t stir.

“Hey,” I whispered, brushing my knuckles over his jaw. Nothing.

The pill bottle dangled loosely in my grip as I stood there, my heart beating a little faster than it should have. I didn’t know who he was. Or what kind of storm he’d brought to my door. But something told me when it hit, it wouldn’t be gentle.

I set the medicine on the side table, along with the change, and backed away slowly.

My bedroom door stayed open. I didn’t bother pretending to sleep.

I just lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet stretch out between heartbeats… and waiting for the unknown to catch up to me.

When sunlight slipped through the slits of the window and hit me square in the face, it took me a full minute to process what time of the day it was. My brain felt like it had been dipped in cement, heavy and slow, but my body? My body felt like I’d gone ten rounds with a wrecking ball.

The kind of sleep I’d fallen into wasn’t peaceful. It was the kind that hits after you’ve been wrung dry, emotionally and physically. After the adrenaline fizzles out, your system crashes like a house of cards. I hadn’t meant to pass out. I’d just lay there, watching the ceiling and trying not to think too hard about the stranger bleeding on my couch… and then boom. Out cold.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, pushed the tangled sheets off my legs, and shot up from the bed like something might explode if I didn’t move fast enough. My heart was already racing.

The couch…it was bloody empty. The blankets were in a messy pile, the pillow slightly dented, but he was gone. Just... vanished.

“What the hell?” I whispered under my breath, scanning the space, but came up with nothing.

There was just a ridiculous note on the pillow, taped with the kind of casual disregard that made my blood boil.

‘Thank you.’ That was it.

Two stupid words scribbled in blocky handwriting that looked as rushed and impersonal as the man himself. And then I noticed the roll of bills still sitting exactly where I’d left it—untouched. That should’ve made me feel better, right? It didn’t.

It made me feel cheap and used like I was some w***e. Like some desperate good Samaritan who could be brushed off with a vague word of gratitude and a vanishing act.

I didn’t help him for money. I went out in the middle of the damn night, risked walking through the kind of neighborhood that inspired horror movies, and brought back medicine for a complete stranger, a stranger who could have been a potential criminal. I gave him a place to rest. I checked his fever. I watched him sleep like some kind of i***t with a Florence Nightingale complex.

And he just disappeared.

The rage came slow at first. A little trickle of heat in my belly. But then it built—until it was a full-on storm rolling through my chest, tightening my hands into fists and making my jaw clenched so hard I thought I might crack a molar.

He thought he could just vanish with a scribbled note and call it a day. That I’d go on with my life like he hadn’t crashed into it like he hadn’t brought all that danger and chaos into my living room and left with barely a trace?

I snatched the note off the pillow, crumpled it in my palm, and stared down at the cash on the table.

I hoped—no, I prayed—that I saw him again.

Because the next time we crossed paths, I’d be ready. And I’d have that stack of money in hand, ready to shove it into his smug, arrogant chest and tell him exactly where he could put it.

And maybe, just maybe, flip him the bird for good measure.

I reached the club ten minutes late.

It was neither ideal nor smart, and certainly not unnoticed. But I was hoping—praying—that Mr. Grayson hadn’t noticed. Then again, hope was for fools and romantics, and I was neither. I was a broke waitress with rent due in three days and a landlord who didn’t believe in grace periods.

The smart thing to do would’ve been to grab the cash the stranger had left behind on my coffee table. A neat little thank-you for saving his possibly criminal ass. But I didn’t, not because I was noble or anything—I’d stolen tips from Mindy once when she forgot to close her drawer—but because it felt wrong. Like accepting hush money.

I was poor, not pathetic.

I slipped into the back room, tossed my bag into my locker, and yanked my uniform over my head like a second skin. The other girls were crowded around the TV, a low hum of whispers buzzing like static.

I didn’t look at first. Gossip was their religion, and I’d stopped praying a long time ago.

But then I caught the tail end of Lily’s breathless whisper.

“—police were everywhere.”

“Swear to God,” Mindy said, eyes wide and slightly manic, “I’m never taking that road again. Ever.”

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” I asked, tying my apron and approaching the huddle.

Lily turned to me, face pale but excited. “What time did you leave the diner last night?”

I frowned. “I dunno, around eleven. Why? Is Mr. Grayson throwing a tantrum again because I didn’t say goodnight to him like I’m his damn girlfriend?”

Because that had happened before. And because my boss had a habit of asking about me in that offhand, casually creepy way that made my skin crawl. Like I was a stray cat, he was thinking of taking in—or putting down.

“No,” Mindy cut in, pointing toward the TV screen. “Not Grayson. Look.”

And then I looked.

And I stopped breathing.

The footage was a blur of chaos—grainy clips stitched together like some twisted highlight reel. Flashing sirens. Police tape fluttering like warning flags. Bullet holes riddled across brick walls. Rubble was scattered like confetti at a funeral.

There were shots of local gangs—tattoos, leather, bad attitudes—and bikers who looked like they hadn’t showered since the last apocalypse. Reporters kept saying someone important had been involved. Someone the gang had apparently wanted to kill.

But the name?

They kept that conveniently under wraps.

And in that moment, every cell in my body screamed the same thing.

It’s him.

The man I saved last night. The one who vanished without so much as a thank you, leaving only a two-word note and a level of arrogance you usually needed a yacht and private island to carry around.

“Someone... who?” I asked, even though my gut already had the answer.

“Someone rich and powerful, apparently,” Lily replied, like that explained everything. “Rumor has it, he was caught in the middle of a gang war. His bodyguard’s dead. And now… he’s missing.”

My spine stiffened.

“Kidnapped,” Mindy chimed in, clearly delighted to play narrator to our real-life thriller.

“But why won’t they say who?” I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.

I yanked out my phone and typed in the incident, the date, anything that could give me a name.

Articles popped up instantly—story after story about secrets and money, political whispers, hush-hush meetings, anonymous sources. But not once did they mention who the man was. It was like the entire internet had been scrubbed clean. Or someone paid good money to keep it that way.

Lily touched my arm. “You go home through that area, don’t you, Sienna? You didn’t hear anything?”

I blinked out of the daze. “Nope. Quiet as usual. I had my earbuds in. Probably saved my life, huh?”

Lily let out a shaky breath. “God, you’re lucky. If you’d left earlier—”

I forced a laugh. “Yeah, I guess I owe a thank-you to Mr. Grayson for keeping me late.”

And as if I’d summoned a demon by name, a voice called out from the hall.

“You’ve got a lot of things to thank me for, sweetheart.”

We all turned.

There he was.

Mr. Grayson, with his slick smile, overconfident stride, and eyes that always lingered too long over my breasts.

And just like that, I knew—the stranger might’ve left, but this was the man who was going to ruin my day.

Possibly my whole damn week.