Dancing with a stranger

Chapter |1✨

At six years old, I witnessed things no child should ever have to see. It's like a nightmare I can't wake up from, no matter how hard I try. The memory plays out in fragments, but the details are seared into my mind like a scar that never heals.

It was late one night, the kind of night where the house felt too quiet. My brother, Luca, was sitting on the floor, playing with his action figures, while my mom was in the kitchen, humming to herself as she cooked. Everything felt normal—too normal, looking back. Then, the door slammed open, and everything changed.

I remember the sound of boots pounding on the floor as four men in masks stormed into our home. Their voices were low and guttural, but I could hear the anger in them. My mother screamed as they shoved past her, knocking her to the ground. One of them raised a gun, and before I could even process it, a shot rang out. The deafening sound echoed through the house, and my mother collapsed. Blood pooled around her, staining the kitchen floor, and the world spun around me.

"Mom!" I screamed, but my voice was swallowed by the chaos.

I don't know how I got to her, or why I didn't run. But I remember clutching her hand, begging her to wake up. She didn't. I could feel the coldness of her skin against mine, her body already still.

Then I saw Luca. He was only seven, too young to understand what was happening. But I remember the look of terror in his eyes as one of the men grabbed him by the throat. They yanked him up, dragging him toward the door, and no one said a word. I could only watch as they hauled him out of our home, his feet kicking weakly, his tiny body going limp.

"Luca!" I screamed, but the men just ignored me, pulling him into the dark night, leaving me alone in the wreckage of our home.

To this day, I don't know who those men were. I don't know what they wanted, or why they did what they did. All I know is that it had something to do with my father, Michelangelo De Santi. My father, a man I rarely saw, a man who was always "working," always involved in the shady world of crime. I didn't understand the full extent of his involvement in the Black Knights gang back then, but I knew enough to fear him. To know that whatever was happening wasn't just random. It had to be connected to him.

The Black Knights were a powerful and feared criminal organization. My father was one of their leaders. And as much as I tried to push it away, a part of me knew that this was the world my mother had married into—a world where loyalty was everything, but so was betrayal. And I couldn't help but wonder if my father's past had come back to claim us, leaving me with nothing but the pieces of a broken family and a future full of questions.

I still don't know who those men were. But I do know this: that night marked the beginning of my real life. The life of someone forced to grow up too fast, forced to navigate a world of violence, loss, and unanswered questions. And the thing that haunts me the most is that I might never get the answers I'm looking for.

What happened to Luca? Where is he now? Did my father have something to do with it?

The answers, buried somewhere in that dark, dangerous world, remain just out of reach. But I'll never stop looking for them. Not as long as I still breathe.

15 years later
Age 21

10 am

My alarm starts blaring, dragging me from the deep sleep I was so desperately clinging to. Ugh, I groan, grabbing the pillow and pulling it over my head in a vain attempt to drown out the noise. I thought, well, today's the day of my twenty-first birthday—yay, note the sarcasm. Another birthday without my mother and brother.