Under The Mafia's Shadow.

Stacy POV

The pounding on the front door rattled the entire apartment.

Not a knock. A bang.

Loud. Merciless. The kind of sound that made your stomach twist and your heart slam against your ribs.

"Don't open it." My brother's voice cracked from across the living room. He was pacing, his hands trembling as he raked them through his messy hair. Sweat rolled down his temples, though the night air of Brooklyn was ice-cold.

I pressed myself against the wall, the coarse paint scratching my back. My chest heaved, trying to force air into my lungs that felt like they had been replaced by stone. "Who is it?" I whispered, but he didn't answer.

The pounding came again, harder. Wood splintered, the noise echoing in the narrow apartment like the sound of doom itself.

"Daniel," I hissed, "tell me who it is."

He stopped pacing, frozen mid-step. His eyes were wide and haunted, reflecting every flicker of light from the broken streetlamp outside the window. His lips trembled before he finally whispered, "It's them."

Them.

The word alone made my knees weaken.

Everyone in the city knew who them meant. The mafia. Whispers of their name alone could silence a room.

They weren't just men. They were power-unpredictable, untouchable, unstoppable.

And now... they were here.

"Daniel, what did you do?" My voice cracked, the sound of it harsh and foreign to my own ears. But the door exploded before he could answer.

The lock clanged to the floor, a metallic punctuation mark that echoed through the apartment. Three men stormed inside like they owned the place, and for a moment, the air itself seemed to shiver under their presence.

Big. Suited. Tattoos crawling up their necks, curling over their hands, vanishing into the collars of their shirts. Their faces were carved from stone, eyes colder than ice, and in those eyes, I felt the weight of every horror ever whispered about in dark alleys.

The tallest one, a scar slicing across his cheek like it had been drawn in fire, smiled without humor. "Daniel." His voice was smooth, almost casual, but it carried the kind of danger that made you want to collapse into the floor. "You've been avoiding us."

My brother stumbled back, hands raised. "P-please, I just need more time-"

"Time?" The man chuckled, low and sharp. The sound slid along the walls like a knife. His gaze shifted. Landed on me.

My stomach dropped.

"She doesn't know, does she?" His smirk widened. "You didn't tell your pretty sister what you cost us?"

"Leave her out of this!" Daniel snapped, his voice cracking.

But the man only tilted his head. "Oh, she's already in it. When you owe, it's never just money. It's everything. Blood. Pride. Family."

I felt my chest squeeze until I couldn't breathe. My legs trembled under me, threatening to give out. Every instinct screamed to run, but the room felt smaller, suffocating.

Then another voice.

Deeper. Sharper. Like steel cutting through silence.

"Enough."

The