Tisha fought against the heaviness of her eyelids but managed to finally open them with sheer willpower. It was morning, and she had somehow moved herself to the bed. Miuty was next to her, moments away from pawing her until she got up to feed him.
"Gimmee a sec, buddy," Tisha said as she fumbled with the blankets while ensuring Miuty stayed relatively undisturbed.
Her first priority was to find some socks and a sweatshirt to preserve as much warmth as she could on her errand. The days were still cold, and she tried to keep the utilities low for her high-rise studio apartment in the city. But today, as she covered the t-shirt she slept in with an oversized hoodie that said "I'm not late. It's time dilation," she'd need a second pair of socks to cross her frigid floor.
She pulled a bag of kibble from a low cabinet and used a ¼ cup measuring scoop to dole out the recommended serving amount for an indoor cat. She cleaned and refilled his water bowl and sifted through his litter box. Tying up a waste bag and placing it on the floor next to the door, she threw on some sweatpants and headed to the closest garbage chute.
Her mind was still spinning over what to write to fill that blank document taunting her from her computer screen.
The real problem here is that when I write something, I always do research first. But the only thing I know about "mafia" is from movies and pop culture cliches.
She reached the chute and put the waste bag in the general waste slot and the empty wine bottle in the glass slot. Still ruminating, she turned to head back to her apartment door when she almost walked right into a torso. No. A lean and hard chest that just begged to be touched.
Oh, and there was a body attached to it. A body that had sculpted shoulders and a neck. And a defined jawline that led up to dark hair and olive eyes. Olive eyes that were looking down at her.
Tisha was lost in the moment until a very real problem flashed before her. Oh crap. I look like a messy blob and probably smell like wine and cat litter.
She quickly put her head down and mumbled, "Sorry." As she started to scamper back to her apartment, she looked back at home for a moment. He popped his own garbage into the chute, but she noticed that he didn't separate out his recycling.
Shame. He was nearly perfect, she thought. But then noticed he was heading her way with a disarmingly charming smile on his face. She fumbled for her key, but he stopped at the door next to hers.
"My name is Luca, by the way," he said with a sweet baritone voice.
"And you live on the second floor," she blurted out before feeling embarrassed.
But he looked puzzled. "No, I'm your new neighbor. I live here." He pointed at his door.
"No, it's a song… Nevermind." She finally got the door unlocked. "Uhm… welcome to the building and…"
Miuty was waiting on the other side, and she put her foot in first in a futile attempt to keep him from running out. She wasn't even looking in Luca's direction. She couldn't.
"And… good luck," she said quickly as she popped into her apartment and closed the door behind her.
She bent down and stroked Miuty a few times for not jumping over her foot and sprinting into the hallway when he had the chance.
"Miuty. We're never leaving this apartment again," she whispered.
But that sentiment was washed away in the shower and breakfast, and the cruel reality of a blank story document. So less than an hour after she swore not to leave the apartment, she peered into the hallway to make sure he wasn't there and fast-walked to the elevator.
As the door slid open, another face appeared. It was of a pretty boy or a man with delicate features that would probably be used on an androgynous fashion site. His hair was dyed white, but his auburn roots were showing. He was wearing sunglasses, and she imagined he was either hungover or wearing guyliner from clubbing the night before and now headed home in a walk of shame.
His headphones were in, so she didn't bother greeting him; she just nodded.
He looks familiar, for some reason. Or maybe he just looks like someone I've seen somewhere? She gave an inner, dismissive shrug and looked at her feet until the elevator reached the ground floor.
She crossed the strap of her handbag over her body and stepped out onto the city street. She pulled out her phone and tapped on the Gemini AI app. When it opened, she typed: "Give me a list of different types of mafias and where I might find them for research."
After a beat, the following text unfurled:
* Classic Italian Mafia (La Cosa Nostra)
Cliche location, Italian family restaurant
* Russian Mafia (The Bratva)
Cliche location, steamy bathhouse
* Japanese Yakuza (Gokudō)
Cliche location, high-end host club
* Chinese Triads
Cliche location, Mahjong parlor or dim sum tea house
* The Cartels (Narcos)
Cliche location, warehouse on or off the docks, look for crates marked FRAGILE
* Irish Mob
Cliche location, a gritty boxing gym
* Cyber-Mafia
Cliche location, Internet cafe, unassuming coffee shop, or they are a NEET and never leave their apartment
* Magic Mafia (Vampires/Demons)
Cliche location, underground goth rave
Tisha burst out laughing, drawing the attention of only a few people around, who were probably tourists. The locals just ignored it and kept their heads down while tapping on their phones.
Let's see… According to this, Yakuza and Magic (hahahahahahaha!) are only at night. It's too early for the dim sum or Italian family restaurant. The docks would require 3 transfers on the subway, so that's for later. That leaves… gritty gym, steamy bathhouse, Internet cafe, and obscure coffee shop. The bathhouse seems like a petri dish of bacteria and toxic mold, so that goes on the back burner. Boxing gym, it is.
Tisha did a quick search for city boxing gyms and found a suspicious-sounding one close by. How did I never notice this being on the same street?
She looked at the address again and walked a few blocks before standing in front of The Broken Clover. Tisha sighed before monologuing. "A clover is a legume, and breaking it means destroying a nitrogen-fixing plant. It's just bad for soil health. Also, why is the font on the sign Papyrus? It's not even the correct country of origin. Criminals should have better typography standards."
Of course, she was more scared than annoyed. The fear wasn't from accidentally bumping into someone in the Irish mob. It was from the social anxiety of being a blatant fish out of water. But she steeled herself to take the next step into this "gritty boxing gym."
She pushed open the rusted metal door and was immediately overwhelmed by a scent so thick it practically had a molecular weight. It was a cocktail of stale beer, aged leather, and aggressive, unmitigated testosterone.
"Well, ventilation is nonexistent. This place is surely a death trap," she muttered, pulling her scarf over her nose.
The particulate air matter in here is mostly dead skin cells and regret.
But then, the fog cleared. And Tisha stopped talking.
The gym was dark, dingy, and every single cliche one could think of from exposed brick to buzzing halogen lights. High windows cast god rays, but Tisha barely noticed the dust motes flailing in the shafts of light.
No. She noticed the specimens.
The room was populated exclusively by what her romance-contest prompt would describe as "Rough-and-Tumble Irish Lads." To her left, a man with hair the color of a setting sun was destroying a heavy bag. He was shirtless, his skin a pale alabaster map of freckles that vanished into the waistband of his shorts. With every impact, sweat flew from him in a perfect arc.
The centrifugal force on that sweat spray is remarkable, Tisha thought, her eyes tracking a bead of moisture down his spine.
She swallowed.
And his latissimus dorsi... the muscle insertion points are genetically gifted. Purely from an anatomical standpoint. Obviously.
In the center ring, two men were sparring. Their dark curls were matted to their foreheads, eyes like angry storm clouds, skin flushing a dangerous, heated pink across their cheekbones. One of them took a hit to the jaw, grinned, and spat blood onto the canvas.
That grin released a dopamine hit despite the trauma, Tisha noted, her hand drifting to her own throat. His pain tolerance suggests high beta-endorphin levels. And a jawline that could structurally compromise a diamond.
Tisha waved her hand in front of her face, "Is it hot in here? It must be the lack of AC."
Everywhere she looked, it was a showcase of Celtic braun operating at peak efficiency. Broad shoulders that blocked out the dim lights. The sharp, angular facial structures suggested their ancestors chewed rocks for calcium. A guy near the water cooler—dark hair, blue eyes so bright they looked radioactive—wiped his face with a towel, lifting his shirt to reveal a set of abs that looked like a cobblestone street.
Tisha's grip on her notebook tightened.
Okay. Focus. You are here to research criminal hierarchies, not to admire the... the...
She watched the guy flex as he drank
. ...the tensile strength of the external oblique muscles.
She fanned faster, her own cortisol spiking for reasons she refused to categorize as 'attraction.'
"It's just biology," she whispered to herself, unable to look away. "They are displaying markers of high reproductive fitness to intimidate rivals. It's basically a nature documentary. A very... sweaty... high-definition nature documentary."
Am I drooling right now?
But her observation time was interrupted by a handsome middle-aged man in a three-piece suit and wool pea coat (collar up) with a gray newsboy hat. When he spoke, his Irish accent was thick, but still easy to understand. "Top o' the mornin' to ya, lass. Didja need somethin'?"
I'm disappointed in myself for thinking that greeting was expected. The cliche-gods must be afoot.
As Tisha admired the man in front of her, she suddenly noticed that the gym had gone silent and everyone was looking in her direction. The freckled puncher had his hands wrapped around the heavy bag, and the stunning men in the ring were now leaning over the top rope of the ring, removing their mouth guards somehow in slow motion.
"I…uh…" She looked around again, taking in the sinfully stimulating sight, all eyes looking back at her. "Sorry. Wrong address!"
She ran to the exit.