Chapter 1 Don't Touch Me

Mia

The first time I saw the Moretti mark, I was nineteen. The second time was tonight. 1:17 AM, the rain in South Philadelphia hadn't stopped yet. Half of the Black Needle Tattoo sign was broken, only the word "Needle" flickering outside the glass window, like a neon light gasping for breath.

I wore black gloves, looking down to unwrap the old gauze from a client's shoulder. The man was called Ray, a bouncer at night clubs, his nose bridge still swollen, left eye bruised in a circle. He paid cash, slapped a stack of crumpled bills on the front desk when he came in, said he wanted to cover up an old tattoo on his shoulder. I'd seen plenty of clients like this.

Boxers, drunks, divorced men, people just out of prison. Everyone wanted to cover up some part of their past on their skin. The ink darker, the pain heavier, the past could show a little less. I lifted the gauze. Before the needle even touched skin, my hand stopped first.

Ray had a black old tattoo on his shoulder, edges already blurred, like someone had scraped it with a rough knife. The design wasn't big, a short blade wrapped in rose vines, with the letter M pressed under the handle. Moretti. My throat went dry instantly.

Ray looked at me through the mirror, smiling without much goodwill: "You recognize it?"

I threw the gauze into the trash can, keeping my tone as flat as possible: "Mark from New York, hard not to recognize it."

"The person who paid said you'd recognize it."

The needle machine wasn't on yet, the shop was so quiet only the rain and the humming refrigerator remained. My fingertips curled inside the gloves.

"Who paid?"

Ray shrugged: "A middleman. Black car, suit, didn't say much. The kind of person you better not ask for names."

That M stuck to his shoulder, my stomach turned cold. Five years. I left New York five years ago, changed my phone number, changed my surname spelling, moved to this kind of Philadelphia neighborhood where nobody cared if you lived or died. I thought as long as I was poor enough, quiet enough, unremarkable enough, the surname Moretti would slowly rot away from my life.

But it still came. In the form of an old tattoo, lying on my work table. I turned on the needle machine.

With a buzz, Ray's shoulder tensed.

"Don't move," I said.

"Your hand's pretty steady."

I didn't answer. Of course my hand was steady. A tattoo artist's hand can't shake, even if bills chase you to the door, even if the hospital calls three times a day, even if your father is still in a Pennsylvania prison, stubbornly claiming he never did fake accounting for the Moretti family. If the hand shakes, the line goes crooked.

If the line goes crooked, clients will remember your name. I don't like being remembered. It was almost 2 AM when I finished covering Ray's tattoo. He put on his jacket, stopped at the door before leaving.

"The person who paid also asked me to bring a message."

I was wiping the work table, didn't look up.

Ray said: "He said you're running out of time."

The door bell rang once. He walked into the rain. I stood there, the disinfectant tissue in my hand slowly growing cold.

Only I was left in the shop. The clock on the wall was seven minutes slow, the exhaust fan turned like it was about to fall apart, the trash can in the back alley soaked by rain giving off a sour smell. The boss had gone home long ago, his wife was eight months pregnant, he wouldn't even stay late for night shifts now. The person who always worked latest here was me, because I had no one waiting, and no place that really counted as home. I counted the bills Ray left again, smoothed them out, stuffed them in the tin box. Two hundred sixty dollars, minus the shop's cut, enough to buy my mother two days of medicine, or enough for me to last until next Wednesday. Before my phone screen dimmed, I saw my mother's voice message from this afternoon that I hadn't listened to yet. Her voice had been getting quieter lately, always saying she was fine, telling me not to keep running to the hospital. The more she said this, the more I knew the bills were about to crush me again.

I didn't open the voice message. Some things, once you listen, make you soft. Once soft, your hand becomes unsteady. My phone vibrated.

It wasn't Ray, nor the shop owner, it was Saint Agnes Hospital. The text had only two lines.

Final notice.

Payment required before Friday to continue treatment.

The screen was lit. After a few seconds, my breathing caught. I was still short eight thousand four hundred dollars for my mother's treatment this month. To be exact, eight thousand four hundred twenty-six. I remembered clearly. Poor people remember numbers clearly.

I had just placed my phone face down on the table when it vibrated again. This time it was from an unknown email address. Subject: Private Cover-Up Commission / New York / 72 Hours. I was going to delete it directly.

But the second the attachment loaded, my thumb stopped. The photo only captured a small piece of shoulder and back skin. The lighting was dim, the old ink looked blurry, like a shadow sunk under the skin. But I still recognized it. That wasn't the Moretti mark.

That was a line drawing. From that year, a line drawing I drew on the back of a marriage cancellation agreement. A bird entangled by black roses, wings only half spread. That day I drew with great force, the pen tip almost tore through the paper.

That agreement was later taken away by people from the Moretti family. I scrolled down the email. Client: Nico Moretti.

When that name jumped out, my breathing slowly returned a bit. Nico. Not Dante.

Nico was my former fiancé, the heir the Moretti family put on the surface. He was cowardly, pretty, could say soft words, and would also lower his head when he should stand up the most. But at least he would explain. Dante wouldn't.

Dante would only close the door, lay out all your escape routes on the table, then let you choose which one hurt more. I replied to the agent with two words: No. Less than ten minutes later, the hospital called.

The nurse's voice was kept low, that kind of trained gentleness: "Miss Hayes, your mother's deposit just came through. The next three months of treatment can continue, you don't need to worry."

The phone in my hand almost dropped.

"Who paid?" I gripped the phone, fingertips going cold.

The nurse checked the system, her voice still kept low: "The system shows it's a private account."

"The name," I said.

There was a pause on the other end.

"Private trust." She paused again, "The account name is Blackthorn Holdings."

My vision went black for a moment. Rain was hitting the window, the needle machine was still spread on the work table, the blood spots Ray left had been wiped clean by me. But the entire shop still felt dirty, like the black marble floor of that old mansion in New York, cold, slippery, no matter how you stood you couldn't stand steady. A new email came into my inbox.

Not from the agent. The sender had no name, only an encrypted address string. The attachment was a payment confirmation page.

Saint Agnes Hospital, three months treatment deposit, settled. The memo line had only one sentence.

Come home.

My stomach clenched violently. Blackthorn. That year, the day I was driven out of New York, a black car was parked outside Blackthorn House. Someone stuffed a one-way ticket into my hand, told me not to look back.

I ran. Ran for five years. Now, that hand was reaching out from New York again.

There was another line of small text at the bottom of the email: If the artist fails to arrive within 72 hours, the retainer may be withdrawn. I closed the email, took off my gloves. There was a very shallow old scar on the back of my hand, left at the Moretti house five years ago. I thought it had long stopped hurting.

But that night, I sat in the empty tattoo shop, until almost dawn, only to realize I had been pressing that scar with my thumb the whole time. My fingertip was numb from pressing, but the old wound still felt faintly hot. I didn't immediately reply "Yes". I first called the hospital a second time, confirming that money had really gone into the account; then sent a message to the shop owner, saying I needed to take three days off. The boss replied quickly, only one sentence: Don't cause trouble. People like him knew best when to pretend they knew nothing.

4 AM, I went back to my apartment to pack. That place was actually just a small room at the end of the third floor of an old building, the heating had been broken for half a month, wind always drilled in through the window cracks. I stuffed two black T-shirts, a pair of jeans, the tattoo machine and spare needles into my bag. At the bottom of the drawer was an old photo of my mother and me when we first moved to Philadelphia. Back then she could still stand up, and her hair hadn't all fallen out yet. I turned the photo face down back in the drawer. New York didn't deserve to see her.

Before dawn, the agent sent me a license plate number. A black SUV was parked downstairs, the windows were very dark. I stood at the stairway entrance looking for a long time, finally still walked down. I didn't want to go back. I just had nowhere left to retreat.