Chapitre 1
⚠️ CONTENT WARNING (EN)
This story contains violence, explicit sexual content, and explores dark and sensitive themes including trauma, abuse, manipulation, and revenge.
The setting is fictional, intense, and may be disturbing to some readers.
This book is not suitable for a young or sensitive audience.
Read with caution. This is not a fairy tale with a happy ending… and there’s no Prince Charming here.
CHAPTER 1
Snow White
They stole everything from me. My house.
My inheritance.
My damn name.
My name is Blanche. Neige, if you want the full version. Yeah, that’s really my name. A poetic nonsense my father came up with when I was born, back when he still thought life was a fairy tale and not a cesspool filled with blood and betrayal. “It will leave a mark,” he said, his voice hoarse but warm, a cigar always hanging from his lips. And yeah, it left a mark—on the minds of the kids who mocked me at school, the men who took me for a crazy influencer with a princess complex, the women who sneered when they heard my name, as if I had escaped from an asylum with a tiara on my head. A fairy tale name for a life that reeks of gunpowder, rotten deals, and a darkness that clings to your skin like damp mold.
My mother died giving birth to me. She left the game before she could even see what kind of hell she had thrown me into. I never knew her—never felt her arms around me, never heard her voice. All I have are the stories my father told me, his eyes distant, describing her beauty, her gentleness, the way she could make a man like him believe there was still something good in this world. But these stories always ended the same way: “She gave her life for you, Blanche. Never forget that.” As if I could. As if the weight of her death wasn’t stitched into every breath I take.
My father raised me like his princess. Not the kind who lives in a pink castle with glass slippers and singing birds, but a cartel princess, who grew up surrounded by men with scars on their knuckles and guns tucked into their belts. I learned to load a Glock before I knew how to tie my shoes. My education was a mess, caught between deals, a clan meeting in a smoky back room, and shooting sessions at empty bottles in the courtyard of our vast estate. I lined up the bottles—whiskey, beer, anything the men had left lying around after a long night—and my father stood behind me, his hands on my shoulders, guiding my shot. “Aim well, Blanche,” he growled, his voice low. “You don’t shoot to scare. You shoot to kill.” By the age of ten, I could hit a bottle dead center at twenty meters. By twelve, I could do it blindfolded.
But I quickly learned that a godfather’s love doesn’t protect you from a bullet in the back of the neck.
It was my stepmother who pulled the trigger. Not literally—she’s too smart for that. She doesn’t get her hands dirty. She manipulates, she lies, she seduces, and she brings everyone to their knees without even pulling out a gun. A black widow in stilettos, her lipstick like a warning signal that most men are too stupid to notice. My father died in an “accident,” according to the official version. A car accident on a rainy night, the brakes supposedly failing on a tight curve. A bogus story, the kind of thing only idiots believe. I knew. I had seen the way she looked at him in the months before his death—her cold, calculating eyes, a predator sizing up her prey. And I saw her smile at his funeral, her black veil like a parody of mourning, her manicured hand resting on the coffin as if claiming a trophy.
Three days later, she threw me out.
I can still see her, standing in the doorway of our family estate, arms crossed, her designer dress clinging to her curves like a second skin. She looked at me as if I were chewing gum stuck under her stilettos, something dirty and insignificant that she couldn’t wait to scrape off.
“You don’t have what it takes to be an heiress,” she said, her voice dripping with venom, each word like a dagger plunged into my heart. “You tarnish your father’s name.”
That smile. Cold. Confident. The kind of smile people have who have never suffered because they feed on the suffering of others for breakfast. The kind of smile that says, “You’re going to die, and I hope it’s slow.” Her eyes gleamed with malice, and for a moment, I saw the truth in her gaze—she wasn’t just throwing me out. She was marking me for death. I was a nuisance, a threat to her new empire, a reminder of the man she had murdered to take his place.
I didn’t cry. Not in front of her. I locked my gaze with hers, my jaw clenched so tight I thought my teeth would shatter, and I swallowed my rage like a shot of tequila: in one go, without flinching. My hands trembled as I grabbed the small suitcase she had let me pack—some clothes, a photo of my father, the kitchen knife I had hidden in the lining—but I kept my head high. My boots were full of mud from the rain outside, my heart in pieces, but I left that house as if I still had something to hold on to.
I wandered for three days. Three days of sleeping outside, avoiding glances, hiding my face so that the Queen Bitch’s watchdogs wouldn’t recognize me. The first night, I found an underground parking lot, the cold, damp concrete against my back as I curled up in a corner, my suitcase as a pillow. The hum of flickering neon lights kept me from sleeping, every shadow making me jump, my hand gripping the kitchen knife I had stolen. I didn’t really sleep—not really. Every noise was a threat, every echo a reminder that I was being hunted.
On the second day, I scavenged for food, diving into a dumpster behind a fast-food joint to retrieve the remains of a meal left on a table—a half-eaten burger, cold fries, a soda can with a few sips left. I ate like a beast, crouched in an alley, my eyes scanning the surroundings for the slightest danger. The food tasted like shame, but it kept me alive. That night, I hid in a park, under a bench, the damp grass against my skin, the knife pressed against my chest as I listened to the sirens in the distance and the laughter of drunks stumbling home. Every heartbeat reminded me that I was alone. Without money. Without weapons. Without a future.
On the third day, I was a ghost. My clothes were filthy, my hair matted with dirt, my body aching from the cold and lack of sleep. I had stopped feeling hunger, stopped feeling anything except this burning need to survive. I knew I couldn’t keep running like this—I needed help, a plan, something. That’s when I met him, a shady guy in a laundromat, his hands stained with grease, his eyes scanning the room as if he expected someone to jump him. I had gone in to warm up, to sit for a few minutes without the rain soaking me to the bone, and he had noticed me, seen the way I flinched at every noise.
“You look like you’re in deep shit,” he said, his voice low, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
I didn’t respond, but he kept talking.
“Go see Dante,” he said, scribbling an address on a piece of torn paper. “If anyone can help you, it’s him.”
I took the paper, my fingers trembling, and I walked. For hours, in the rain, through the slums of the city, passing prostitutes shivering on the sidewalks, dealers exchanging bags in the shadows, all that misery clinging to your skin like a second skin. I walked until I found the alley, a narrow strip of grime that reeked of urine, fried food, and despair. A metal door, tagged and dented by years of wear, faced me. It barely creaked when the wind blew, a dull groan that sounded like a warning.
I waited a long time, the rain dripping down my face, mixing with the dirt and the tears I hadn’t let fall. My heart was pounding, a drum of fear and determination. This was the moment—a point of no return. I could leave, keep running, keep hiding, until the Queen Bitch’s men found me and put a bullet in my skull. Or I could knock on that door and take my chances with a man I didn’t know, a man who could be my salvation or my downfall.
I knocked. Once. Twice. Three times.
No bell. No camera. No “who’s there.” Just the long, slow creak of the door opening, a sound that made me shiver to the bone. And there, in the dim light of the doorway, I saw him.
First mobster. First guardian angel. First obstacle on the path to vengeance.
Dante.
He looked at me without moving, his dark eyes inscrutable, a three-day beard shadowing his jaw. A cigarette dangled from his lips, the ember glowing faintly as he took a drag, the smoke curling around his face like a ghost. He wore a long, worn black coat, the sleeves frayed, the kind of coat that had seen too many fights, too many nights in the rain. He didn’t look surprised to see me—just tired, as if every person who knocked on his door was a reminder that he lived in a world rotten to the core.
“You look like hell,” he said, his voice hoarse, gravelly, the kind of voice that carried the weight of too many years in the game.
“I’ve seen worse,” I replied, my voice raspy but firm. “You look like an old, corrupt cop.”
He smiled, just a corner of his mouth, a twisted smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. The kind of smile that says, “Come in, you’re screwed, but you’re home now.” He took another drag on his cigarette, the smoke escaping his lips as he exhaled, his gaze still fixed on me. Then he stepped aside, the door creaking wider, an invitation I couldn’t refuse.
I hesitated for half a second. Not because I was afraid—I had faced worse than this in the last three days. But because crossing that threshold was like signing a pact with the devil. A point of no return. Once inside, there would be no going back. I would be in his world, playing by his rules, and what happened next—whether I lived or died, whether I avenged or ended up in a shallow grave—would depend on me.
But I thought of her. The Queen Bitch. Her cold smile, her venomous words, the way she had taken everything from me. I thought of my father, his blood on her hands, his legacy stolen. And I thought of the man in the forest, his hands on me, his threat still ringing in my ears.
I thought: OK, Queen Bitch. The game begins.
And I crossed the threshold.
