Raven Solis
Raven Solis was perpetually in the wrong place at the right time.
She had slept in that morning, burned tea on her last semi-clean hoodie, and almost broken her ankle leaping over a heap of street barricades. Just another day in the life of a professional pain in the butt.
"You're late again," grumbled one of her activist buddies, Javi, as she slid into the tiny back room of a coffee house that also served as their planning center.
"And yet, I'm here, in all my fabulousness," Raven retorted, tossing her jacket aside and slamming into a chair, scrunching up her nose and making a disgusted face at the smell of coffee.
The table was littered with protest flyers, newspaper clippings, and a giant map covered in red X's where areas were too hot to be overlooked. The city was rotten to the core—corrupt politicians, crime syndicates, and cops who turned a blind eye. And Raven? She had taken it upon herself to rile up as many of them as she could.
Today's target? The Calloway family. The biggest, meanest crime syndicate in the city.
"Valeria was onto something before she disappeared," Javi said, tapping the map. "She mentioned a warehouse, something big happening there. She was scared."
Raven felt a familiar coil of unease in her stomach. Valeria Cruz wasn't the type to scare easily.
"Then that's where I'm going," she said, standing up and grabbing her bag.
"Raven—"
"You know better than to try and stop me, Javi."
And just like that, she was gone, pursuing another story, another deadly truth, oblivious to who she was about to encounter.
Dante Voss
Dante Voss began his day by pulling a body out of his car.
He didn't murder the dude—his uncle did. Dante was simply covering up the mess, as per usual.
"You've got that look on your face again," Luca, his little brother, said from the vehicle with a look of boredom. "Like you're thinking too much."
Dante wiped his hands on a rag and let out a sigh. "Yeah? Maybe I am."
Luca snorted. "You think too much, you get dead in this business. Just do what the family says."
And that was the issue, wasn't it? Dante had been doing whatever the family instructed him to do since he was seventeen. Cleaning up after them, negotiating, burying bodies when things got ugly. He wasn't the heir—that role fell to his cousin, Vincent—but Dante was the one who took care of the issues no one wanted to discuss.
And now, there was another issue.
"The girl. The reporter," Luca said, eyeing him intently. "She's still missing."
"Yeah, I know. And I don't like it."
Valeria Cruz had been poking her nose into areas she shouldn't have been. Asking the wrong questions. Then she disappeared, poof.
Dante had a suspicion it wasn't an accident.
"I'm going by the warehouse tonight," he said, tossing the rag into the backseat. "See if I can turn up anything."
Luca whistled. "You? Seeking answers? That's new."
Dante didn't respond. He simply climbed back into the car and drove away, unaware that by nightfall, he'd be creating a very different sort of mess.