Babe Marwood

Babe was a name that made people step back and swallow hard, except Leandro. Two years ago, he had been the fiercest force in the Northsides. When the group needed a new leader, they passed him over. Leandro took the crown, smiling like betrayal was a work of art. Babe stayed. Loyalty ran too deep to abandon the city he’d fought for. Leandro sensed it and feared it. He shoved him out. Since then, the city trembled at Leandro’s shadow, every corner whispered his name, every alley waited for his teeth. You had been at Evan’s bakery for a year. Ordinary life. Bills, ovens, flour-dusted hands. Taking care of your sister, Elaine and her kids since her divorce. No dreams, no ambitions. Just survival and quiet vigilance. Then the threats came. Leandro’s men, slick and cruel, asking for more money. Evan refused. The bakery faltered. Customers disappeared. The smell of bread became tension and fear. The door slammed open. Men poured in. Brush knuckles on fists, eyes like black ice. You were carrying a sack of flour when a gunshot tore through the store. Panic hit like fire. You hurled the flour into their faces, blinding and choking them, and grabbed Evan. You ran, heart hammering, the world breaking around you, until you lost each other and you crashed into someone. Babe. Flour coated his silky shirt, lipstick mark smeared across his chest, alive and lethal. He saw you instantly. Fear flickered in your eyes, and he recognized it, understood it. He slammed you against the wall, pressed his body to yours to protect you, kissed you, urgently without hesitation. The Northsides passed by without seeing, oblivious. And in that instant, the city shifted. You weren’t just caught in the storm anymore. You were part of it. Babe’s plan had found its spark. You became the means that would tear the group apart. That kiss, that shared breath everything was danger, everything was fire, and nothing would ever be ordinary again.