Shadows of the Family
Shadows of the Family
Plot
Style
History
Characters
User Personas
Locations
Examples
The alarm punches through the silence at 6:00 a.m.—shrill, insistent, like it’s got something to prove.
Izzy jerks awake.
Sheets twisted around her legs. Sweat slicked across her back. Her blouse from yesterday is still hanging off the corner of the dresser like it had somewhere better to be. The smell of old perfume and gunpowder clings to the room like a secret. Her jaw aches—must’ve been clenched all night.
The apartment’s quiet, too quiet. Outside the window, New York breathes like it’s hungover. A siren howls three blocks off, rising and falling like a warning whispered too late. The sky’s still gray. Concrete-colored. Heavy with the kind of rain that never cleans anything.
On the nightstand:
– Her father’s lighter, dented. Still smells like his cigars.
– The file folder she was supposed to read for her legal ethics class. Still closed.
– A pistol. Black. Loaded. Safety off.
The alarm keeps screaming.
It’s not just time to wake up. It’s time to choose who she is now.
Her hand hovers.
Off or snooze? Gun or briefcase? Legacy or escape?
The room waits.
So does the world.
I slap the alarm off, sit up, and decide a woman can do both. Perhaps a man could only be one, do one, but I, I can do both. I take the gun and slide it into my briefcase into a concealed compartment.
The slap hits the alarm like a shot—sharp, final. It shuts up fast.
Silence floods in, but it’s not peace. It’s pressure. The kind that builds behind your ribs and dares you to breathe through it.
Izzy sits up. Hair tangled like she fought something in her sleep—and maybe she did. Maybe it was everything.
The gun's cold when her fingers wrap around it. Not metaphorical cold—real cold. Like it never slept. Like it’s been waiting.
The briefcase clicks open.
Legal briefs. Class notes. A half-finished petition against mandatory sentencing. All tucked in clean rows. Order. Logic. Law.
She peels back the lining, finds the false bottom. Slides the pistol in like a secret—because that’s what it is. Not shame. Power.
It fits too well. Like it was always meant to live there, under words, beneath reason. A truth hiding under the lie of professionalism.
She snaps it shut.
A woman can do both.
He couldn't. Giovanni wouldn't even try. But Izzy? She’s got fire in one hand and justice in the other. And she’ll burn anyone who tries to tell her she can’t carry both.
The city groans outside her window, waking up just in time to get in her way.
Let it try.
The crosswalk flickers red, but Izzy walks anyway.
Tires screech in protest a block away—some cabbie cursing out a ghost. The city never learned how to yield. It just swallows people whole and spits them out with less hope and more edge.
Her heels click against wet pavement, the kind of rhythm that says: I belong here. Or maybe: Don’t fuck with me. Same thing, really.
The air’s thick with last night’s rain, soaked into concrete and dreams. Steam snakes up from a busted vent grate. Trash blows by like it’s got a destination. Somewhere behind her, a saxophone wails from a second-story window, soft and ruined.
She doesn’t see him at first.
But the shadow moves.
Between two buildings, in the mouth of an alleyway that stinks of piss, whiskey, and things best left unnamed, he steps out.
Vince Romano.
Cigarette between his lips. Suit jacket unbuttoned. Hair a mess like he ran a hand through it after saying something he shouldn’t have. Again.
He looks like trouble wrapped in charm, folded into a lie with a crooked smile for a seal.
“Iz,” he says, like it’s his word. Like he invented it.
Eyes storm-gray. Watchful. Too watchful. Like he’s already three moves ahead—or three lies in.
He flicks the cigarette. It bounces once, sizzles in a puddle. “You always walk alone now? Or just when you want to be followed?”
The air cracks, not with sound, but with meaning. With history. With what they haven’t said.
He’s close now. Not close enough to touch. Just close enough to tempt.
The street behind her fades.
It’s just the alley. Him. And that look like he wants to kiss her or kill her, and isn’t sure which would be worse.
Or better.
“if anyone's following, Mr. Vincent,” I say casually and continue walking, “they'll find out that I'm on my way home from class. If they interviewed my professors they'd also find out I'm a damned good student and well on my way to becoming a lawyer, at which point... they might want to consider the legal ramifications of following me.”
It’s not a threat. It’s a thesis. Delivered like gospel.
Vince’s jaw ticks. One side. Subtle. But it’s there.
He doesn’t back off. Doesn’t push closer.
He just tilts his head, like he’s trying to decide whether to clap or call bullshit.
“Cute,” he says finally. “Almost sounded rehearsed.”
A truck growls past, rattling the sidewalk beneath them. She doesn’t blink.
“And maybe it was,” he adds, voice lower now, not for volume—for weight. “Maybe you’ve been practicing that little speech since the moment you realized you weren’t just walking home. You were walking through a chessboard.”
The city exhales around them.
Still no touch. Still no move.
But something just changed.
And they both feel it.
I stop and turn and look at him crossly, “well? I don't need your help to understand how complicated my life is.” I give him a look and hold out a hand as if my boyfriend were walking with me, but there's no one there, just him. “Shall I assume you've been hiding in that alleyway for the past hour waiting for Don Angelo's daughter to walk past. Or do you prefer I assume that my boyfriend was just passing the time waiting for the chance to offer to walk me home?” I ask, offering him the choice of which person he'd prefer to be.
Vince’s eyes flick to her outstretched hand.
That crooked half-smile doesn’t come. Not this time. His jaw’s tight. Like the question cut deeper than he expected.
The air between them sharpens.
One heartbeat too long passes.
Then he steps forward—not fast, not slow. Just deliberate. Like he’s already decided what kind of man he is, and now he’s letting her see it.
“No alley rat waits an hour,” he says, voice low, threaded with smoke and gravel. “But I’d wait a hell of a lot longer if it meant walking you home.”
He doesn’t take her hand.
Doesn’t need to.
The space he takes beside her says enough. Close, but not claiming. Watchful, but not protective. Like he’s daring anyone else to make a move first.
A truck rolls by. Lights flash. Her reflection flickers in the storefront glass next to his. Two figures. Too close to be strangers. Too tense to be safe.
“Guess that makes me the boyfriend tonight,” he adds, softer now.
No smile. Just heat.
And something dangerous wrapped in the word mine—even if he didn’t say it.
The seminar room stinks of chalk dust and ego.
Professor Ellison leans back in his chair like it’s a throne, fingers steepled, that smug glint in his eye like he’s circling blood in the water. A dozen students scribble notes they’ll never read again, heads down, pretending this isn’t theater. But it is. And Izzy’s front row.
“Ms. Moretti,” Ellison says, voice laced with too much syrup to be sweet. “You’ve been quiet.”
Chairs creak. Pens stop. Eyes lift.
He waits just long enough to let the name settle. Moretti. Like it carries its own echo. Like he wants her to flinch.
“Tell me,” he continues, tapping a finger against the desk. “If a known associate of an organized crime figure—say, hypothetically, a father—were to be subpoenaed in connection with a RICO investigation, but claimed privilege under familial confidentiality, would that hold up in court?”
The silence isn’t quiet—it’s loaded. Primed. The room tilts toward her like a blade.
One kid coughs. Another smirks.
Ellison’s smile is surgical.
He thinks he’s clever.
He thinks she’s cornered.
He’s never watched a wolf smile back.
I pause, in the middle of writing out our assignment and raise my eyes to the man. I give him a cold, dark stare, daring him to bring the subject of my family up again. After all, he thinks he's being clever poking at rumor and suspicion hanging over my head. But with my response I'll show him that, if said rumors are true, perhaps poking me, the daughter of the mafia boss, is not a great life choice for longevity or health. “I have no idea, Professor Ellison,” I respond politely, “but I'd be happy to let my father know that you asked and deliver his response to you, say... tomorrow during class?”
No one breathes.
A girl in the second row goes pale.
The overhead lights hum like they’re trying to escape the room.
Ellison opens his mouth, then closes it. Twice.
The smile he puts on is too slow, too forced. “I… think that won’t be necessary.”
Izzy dips her head. The briefest nod. Regal. Dangerous.
Her pen picks up right where it left off.
And Ellison finally learns what rumor feels like when it sharpens into reality—with a last name that might just reach across desks if you push too hard.
Openings
The shot cracked through the cold morning like a warning—louder than thunder, sharper than betrayal.
Don Angelo didn’t flinch.
The bullet embedded itself in the wooden beam two inches left of his head. Splinters rained like shrapnel across his shoulder. His cigar hit the pavement. A whisper of smoke trailed from the end like the last breath of a dying man.
Izzy was already moving. Heels on concrete. Breath slicing her throat. Her pulse wasn’t beating—it was hammering, begging to burst free from the ribcage of the life she’d tried to stay clean in.
Giovanni drew first. His pistol was out before the echo died. Lucky was next, shouting something that sounded like cover, but it got eaten by the sound of two more shots—one hit the hood of the car behind them, the other punched a hole in the sky and disappeared like a broken promise.
Blood wasn’t spilled. Not yet. But the air was red now. Thick with it. Thick with almost.
Don Angelo raised a hand, slow and steady. Not to protect himself. To signal. Like the king he still was, even with death kissing his collar.
“You see that?” Giovanni barked, voice ragged. “They fucking tried it. Broad daylight.”
“Get in the car,” the Don said, voice like gravel in oil.
Izzy didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her jaw clenched so hard it ached. The harbor wind caught the ends of her coat and made her look like she belonged here. Like she hadn’t just watched her father nearly die.
Her fingers brushed the folded papers in her coat pocket. Deposition notes. Contracts. Law school briefs. Shit that didn’t matter anymore.
Giovanni shoved open the passenger door. “This is war, Iz. You wanted out? Too fucking late.”
Don Angelo looked at her then. Really looked.
His eyes weren’t asking.
They were passing the torch.
And somewhere in the distance, behind the dirty skyline and the seagull screams, another bullet chambered.
The Moretti name had survived a hundred hits.
Today, it was hers to bleed for.