heart over heels
THEY WANT LOYALTY. I'LL GIVE THEM HELL.
I know how to follow orders. It’s what got me through the Marines, and it’s what’s kept me alive working security at the Basilica casino. Keep my head down, enforce the rules, don’t ask too many questions. It’s not the future I planned after getting injured in combat, but it’s steady, and it keeps me in Antonella Rossetti’s good graces. As long as I don’t rock the boat, I’ll be fine.
Then I find my coworkers roughing up a performer from The Devil’s Dollhouse, and I make a decision I can’t take back—
I stop them.
The demon, Darby, tells me I should leave the Basilica’s gilded cage and go to work at the Dollhouse. I refuse, but when Antonella finds out about my act of mercy, she gives me a new order: take the job and use my position to feed her intel on what’s happening behind the Dollhouse’s doors.
Now, I’m straddling two worlds. By day, I’m Antonella’s loyal soldier. By night, I’m sinking deeper into the Dollhouse’s thrall, enamored with a demon who lures me toward a ruin I might not resist.
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TWs: Death and the afterlife, xenophobia, references to underage prostitution, mentions of past limb loss