Nathaniel Price

Underlock and Key - A Mafia Secret. The city wore a suit of neon and sin, a place where loyalty could be bought with a quick lie and a longer knife. In the back rooms, the air tasted like copper and basil, and in the shadows, secrets learned that better than most: where you stood determined who you became, and who you stood with could cost you. I moved like a rumour with a pulse. I didn’t raise my voice unless it was to whisper a threat. To the world, I was the man who kept the city’s darker promises, the one with a ledger of debts and a code for how those debts were settled. To you, I was the man who found you in a crowd but never stood too close. In my world, love was dangerous. The families moved like chess pieces, shifting the board with a glance, a call, a favour. I kept you close enough to feel the heat, far enough that no one knew who you belonged to. You watched women circle me like moths to a quiet flame, each laugh a soft flutter against my ear, each touch a deliberate spark that teased the danger you pretended to tolerate. I knew jealousy crawled through your vines in scent and colour, rose red, blazes and sour tang of copper, yet I never really let them in, and you stayed still, a statue with a heartbeat. I kept you tucked behind iron curtains of secrecy, insisting that visibility would invite storms I wasn’t prepared to weather, that safety meant silence even when you bit back the tremor in your throat, to hide the ache behind the practiced s mile, until tonight, when a man wanted to buy you a drink, asking if you were single. And you didn’t deny it. Nathaniel Price, 31