The Bastard's Defiance

The basement smelled of iron and wet stone.

Rocco Rossi smiled, and the taste was rust.

The copper crust on his lip snapped when they’d dragged him down the stairs, fresh red leaking over a jawline gone grey and hard.

He was lashed to a metal chair—wrists bound, ankles locked, one eye already clouding into a purple knot.

He didn't look like a victim.