Chapter 1
Chapter OneThe First CutVal only stopped at her aunt’s house for supplies.
That was all.
A clean shirt. Her charger. The little plastic box of bandages she had shoved under the bathroom sink months ago and kept forgetting to move. Maybe the bottle of peroxide if it was still there.
Then she was supposed to go right back to Vinny’s.
The cannoli shells were cooling on racks in his kitchen, and if she did not get back soon, he would pretend he did not care and then absolutely care. Vinny Belluccia had a way of acting like dessert orders were beneath him until one tray came out wrong.
Then he noticed everything.
Val had one foot in the hallway when the knock came.
Not a polite knock.
A panicked one.
She froze.
Her aunt’s house was too quiet for that kind of sound.
When she opened the door, a boy stood there with blood running down his hand and two Belluccia cousins behind him trying to look brave.
The tallest one lifted his chin.
“Vinny said you know what to do.”
Val stared at him.
“Vinny did not say that.”
The boy with the bloody hand looked pale.
“It’s just a cut.”
It was not just a cut.
It was shallow enough not to kill him, but deep enough to start a rumor.
Val pulled him inside before the neighbors saw.
“Kitchen,” she said.
The cousins moved like they already knew the house, bumping into chairs, whispering, tracking street dust across her aunt’s clean floor.
Val grabbed the first-aid box from under the sink and set it on the table.
The boy sat down, trying not to shake.
She washed her hands, snapped on gloves, and looked at the cut.
Not terrible.
Messy. Dramatic. Stupid.
Exactly the kind of wound boys got when they were old enough to be dangerous and young enough to still think blood made them important.
“What happened?” she asked.
Nobody answered.
That told her enough.
She cleaned it slowly, wrapped it tight, and kept her voice flat.
“You need to keep this covered. No showing it off. No picking at it. No telling people I did this.”
The tallest cousin gave a half-smirk.
“Too late.”
Val looked up.
“What does that mean?”
Before he could answer, headlights swept across the front window.
A car door shut.
The kitchen went quiet.
Vinny walked in like the house belonged to him, but his eyes went straight to the blood, then to the cousins, then to Val.
His face changed.
Not loud.
Worse.
Controlled.
“Who told you to come here?” he asked.
Nobody answered.
Vinny stepped closer.
“I asked a question.”
The boy with the wrapped hand swallowed.
“We heard you came here when you got cut.”
Val looked at Vinny.
Vinny did not look at her.
He looked at his cousins like they had just broken a rule nobody had written down yet.
“You don’t bring blood to this house,” he said.
“It wasn’t bad,” one cousin muttered.
Vinny’s eyes cut to him.
“It was bad enough for you to knock on her door.”
Nobody spoke.
Val closed the first-aid box.
“He’s fine. It’s cleaned and wrapped.”
Vinny nodded once, but his jaw stayed tight.
Then he looked at her.
“You got your stuff?”
“Some of it.”
“Get the rest later.”
“I need the peroxide.”
“I got peroxide.”
“I need my charger.”
“I got chargers.”
Val stared at him.
Vinny reached for the first-aid box and picked it up.
“This comes with us.”
The cousins looked confused.
Val did not.
She understood exactly what had happened.
The second they showed up at her aunt’s house, her aunt’s house stopped being safe.
Vinny opened the door and pointed outside.
“All of you. Car. Now.”
The cousins moved fast.
Val grabbed her bag, her charger, and the clean shirt off the back of a chair.
Vinny waited until she passed him.
Then, quieter, he said, “Nobody knocks here again.”
Val looked at him.
“It was one cut.”
Vinny’s mouth tilted, not quite his smirk.
“That’s how stupid things start.”
Outside, the boys piled into the car like they had just been caught by a principal instead of a Belluccia.
Val locked her aunt’s door behind her.
The night smelled like rain, sugar, and trouble.
Vinny opened the passenger door for her.
She got in without arguing.
Back at his house, the cannoli shells were still waiting on the racks.
The kitchen light was warm.
The coffee pot was half full.
The whole place smelled like pastry and espresso, like nothing bad could happen there if they kept moving fast enough.
Vinny set the first-aid box on the counter beside the powdered sugar.
Val looked at it.
Then at him.
“You’re making this a thing.”
Vinny rolled up his sleeves.
“No,” he said. “They made it a thing.”
He picked up a cannoli shell and held it out to her.
“Fill.”
Val took it.
And just like that, they went back to work.
