“Yes mom, I’m doing really well. Just closed a huge deal, I’ll buy you something nice when I get home.”

Pera sighed as his mother asked a question he’d heard far too many times.

“No, mom, I haven’t found a girlfriend yet. Yes, I’m aware that I’m breaking your heart. I—”

He abruptly lowered his phone and exchanged looks with a man staring at him from a distance, then glanced around.

Only a few moments earlier, the street had been full of life and activity. Now, though, it was silent and empty.

The man reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol, then started sprinting at Pera. At the same time, a few figures stepped out of the shadowed alleyways and moved to surround him.

Shit. The mafia found me already? Can’t I ever catch a break?!

Without any hesitation Pera ended the call with his mother and ran towards the nearest alleyway. A hulk of a man moved to block him, but unlike the first, he was only armed with a pair of brass knuckles. 

Pera dodged under the man’s punch and slid under his wide-open legs.

He ran through the alleyway, then around a corner. Behind him, he heard several voices shouting at each other.

“Where did he go?!”

“He went down the alleyway!”

Pera cursed as he picked up a rock and used it to smash through a window. Before he jumped through it, though, he took the time to yell back at his pursuers.

“Just let me live, dammit! If you kill me then I won’t be able to pay your boss back!”

He didn’t wait for an answer before jumping through the window. Unfortunately for Pera, a mafia soldier turned the corner and caught sight of his shoes sliding over the windowsill.

“He’s in that building!” the pursuer shouted.

Pera landed on the floor and looked up, only to see that he’d apparently dove right into the middle of a couple’s argument—and effectively ended it.

The silence didn’t last long, however, as husband and wife soon directed their tempers at their uninvited guest. Pera dodged past a flying vase and an alarm clock, through the couple’s living room, and out the door into the building’s hallway.

He wasn’t sure how his pursuers had gotten into the building so quickly, but as he rounded the hallway’s corner he spotted a pistol-wielding mafioso running at him.

As the mafia soldier raised his pistol and fired in Pera’s direction, the latter turned back around and opened a door to the building’s stairway.

He ran up a floor and opened the door, only to shut it immediately and continue his way up. Two gangsters burst through the door just a moment later, shouting bloody murder as they did so.

I can’t just run to the rooftop, I’d be cutting off my own escape. Gotta find a floor I can hide on, or find a place where I can jump back onto the streets. I’ll be safer out amongst the public.

When he reached the fourth floor Pera opened the door and burst into the hallway. There was a girl walking down it carrying a load of laundry, and even as Pera rushed towards her, she obliviously used her key to open the door to her room and walked inside.

Before she could even turn around to shut the door, though, Pera burst through it and slammed it shut behind him.

The girl immediately dropped the bag of freshly-laundered clothes and began to scream.

“Shh! Quiet, I’m not gonna—woah!” Pera tried to grasp the woman’s fists as she began to pummel him with a flurry of blows. “I’m not gonna hurt you! I just need to hide for a second!”

Unsurprisingly, Pera’s frantic bargaining did little to quell the girl’s fears, and she only continued to scream louder.

A few seconds later, a heavy fist pounded against the door. 

“Hey! Is there a brown Asian dude in there?!”

“Yea, he’s hurting me! Help!” the girl yelped.

“Fuck!” Pera let go of the girl and ran deeper into her apartment. He found a window, but the outside was barred, perhaps for the occupants' safety in this dangerous city.

Before he could find another potential escape route, the door behind him swung open and the mafioso on the other side barged through, shoving the girl to the side as he did so.

“Get down! Now!” The man shouted at Pera, his pistol aimed right at Pera’s forehead.

Pera slowly lowered himself to a kneeling position, then raised his hands and grimaced. “Look, man. Just let me go. I’ll pay what I owe, I swear.”

The mafioso lifted his gun and smashed Pera’s cheek with the pistol’s butt. “Shut it. Boss ‘gon deal with ya.” 

“Please, I’ll make it worth your while.” Pera spat a glob of blood onto the ground, ignoring the pain on the side of his face as he did so. “I’ll wire you all my money as soon as I’m out.”

The mafioso grinned, showing his yellow teeth. “Dumbass. I know you’re broke. And we’s being paid well to end ya.I might be a made man after this.”

So that’s why they’re offing me instead of forcing me to be their debt slave for the next fifty years.

“Who’s paying you?” Pera asked.

I bet it was those bookmakers. Why can’t they cut me some slack? Who loses when they’re up twenty-five points in the third quarter in the Super Bowl? I thought it was a sure bet. It WAS a sure bet.

Or maybe it was those crypto NFT freaks. How was I supposed to know all of those pictures would lose all their value in a matter of weeks? Everything I read told me that those things were valuable. Intrinsically valuable! That, uh… yeah, alright. Maybe I got scammed on that one.

Or maybe…

Pera sighed as the man wordlessly stared at him instead of answering his question. How had he pissed so many people off? Just three months ago he’d been on top of the world, racking in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as a stockbroker. 

But now here he was, several million dollars in debt, about to die at the hands of the local mafia.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl pick herself off the floor and run into her bedroom. A click sounded as she locked the door and the loud grinding of heavy wood sliding on wood sounded as she moved her furniture to blockade the door.

Moments later, a flurry of footsteps sounded and a dozen mafiosos entered the room and surrounded Pera.

Pera recognized the man at the forefront.

“Should I be honored that the boss himself has come to confirm my death?” Pera asked in a bitter tone.

“When someone loses a thousand G’s of my hard-earned cash, I feel that I’ve earned the right to beat their face in with my own hands.” 

“Nothing I can do to change your mind?” 

The boss shook his head. “The administration has decided.”

“Can I at least know who’s paying for my head? The dead deserve to know who to haunt.” 

The mafia boss crouched so that he and Pera were at the same height. “I suppose there’s no harm telling you. After all, dead men tell no tales. You know well enough who it is. The men with the midas touch.”

Pera silently cursed. Was it not enough that they’d fired him for his mistakes? Why did they need to take it so far?

“Well, I’ve satisfied my curiosity.” The mafia boss looked toward the man who had cornered Pera in the room.

“You caught him, Rocco? You did well. The administration has taken note of your dedication. Bag him and bring him to the car. We will bring him to the pier.”

“What?! No! Just kill me here!”

“Sorry, my young… friend. It was requested, for their enjoyment. That and lupara bianca.”

Before Pera could protest any further, a sack was pulled over his head and his arms were roughly grabbed and tied behind his back.

He could tell, despite being trapped in a rough, uncomfortable world of darkness, that he was brought out of the room, carried into and out of an elevator, and onto the street But it was only when he was roughly dumped into what he assumed was the back of a car that his mind was able to catch up to just how utterly fucked he was.

He struggled violently against the rope bindings, but whoever had tied him up had done a great job.

Shit! They tied me up good!

The car violently turned, sending him tumbling, crashing into the side of the car’s trunk. A few moments later, the car turned again, sending him tumbling against the other side.

“Dammit, just kill me! The hell is with all this bouncing around?!” Pera shouted as loudly as he could through the sack, but obviously no response came.

By the time the car came to a stop and he was dragged to his feet, he was no longer scared of his pending death. He was too pissed off for that. He twisted and struggled against the strong hands that forcefully guided him down a straight walkway.

Eventually they came to a stop.

The mafia boss’s voice sounded behind him as his legs were tied together. “Ciao, ya rat bastard. Can’t say I won’t be enjoying this.”

And with that, he was unceremoniously pushed forward. He fell through the air for a split second, then crashed through the water. 

He tried to struggle his way back up to the surface, but not only had they tied all of his limbs, they’d even attached a rock to the rope around his legs.

A few thrashes later, Pera’s body went limp as he lost the will to fight his impending end.

If only I’d been born rich, I wouldn’t have had to struggle like this.

If only… I’d ever been given a second chance.

In the darkness, a bright blue screen suddenly appeared before his eyes.

Pera opened his mouth and, with what little air he had left, let out a raspy, quiet, “Yes!”

Then the water rushed in.