I Saved A Dying Mob Boss In My Diner — Now I’m Trapped In His Fortress.
Part 2
The drive to his compound in the Palisades was a blur of driving rain and white-knuckled terror.
I left Tyler with my neighbor downstairs, buying her silence with a twenty-dollar bill and a promise of homemade lasagna.
The estate looked less like a home and more like a modern, impenetrable fortress built into the side of the mountain.
Craig met me at the front door, his demeanor as cold and professional as the polished black marble beneath my feet.
He led me to a master suite the size of my entire apartment building, a room reeking of sick sweat and decaying flesh.
Dan lay stripped to the waist on a massive bed with dark gray sheets, his fever spiking to a dangerous, delirious high.
I snapped on blue latex gloves and ordered him to wake up before I started tearing the heavy medical tape from his chest.
He didn’t just wake up; he lunged, his good hand clamping around my throat with terrifying, instinctual speed.
I didn’t fight back or scream, knowing that panicking a delirious mob boss was a guaranteed death sentence.
He slowly recognized my exhausted eyes, released his crushing grip, and fell back onto the pillows with a ragged sigh.
The infection was worse than I thought, a bubbling, necrotic mess trapped under stitches a dirty doctor had hastily sewn.
I clipped the stitches, pouring iodine over the angry red flesh while Dan gripped the heavy wooden bedframe until his knuckles turned white.
When I flushed the wound with a large plastic syringe, he arched off the bed with a guttural roar, blindly grabbing the front of my scrubs.
I shoved my forearm against his throat, pinning him down, and told him to look at me and let me hurt him to save his life.
He stared at me with pure, furious determination, then turned his head away, offering total vulnerability.
For a week, I operated on a strict schedule of flushing the wound, changing the packing, and forcing him to eat real food.
A strange, quiet domestic rhythm settled over the fortress, and I found myself getting terrifyingly comfortable in the tiger’s cage.
Then, on the seventh day, the heavy glass windows shattered from the deafening crack of automatic gunfire.
The house erupted into a chaotic, violent energy as the rival faction breached the lower gate and lit the guardhouse on fire.
Dan shoved a heavy Kevlar vest over his shoulders, checking the action of his handgun with a dead, terrifying precision.
He grabbed my arm and dragged me toward a hidden concrete bunker, refusing to let me run.
As the heavy steel door of the panic room locked me inside, I have to ask: what would you have done in my position?
Part 3
The heavy steel door of the panic room slid shut with a hydraulic hiss, answering the terrifying question of survival with absolute silence.
Megan stood alone in the cold, concrete bunker, the smell of filtered air and stale emergency rations pressing heavily against her lungs.
She had not traded one death for another; she had traded the illusion of freedom for the brutal reality of the underworld.
Her journey into this gilded cage had not started with the deafening crack of automatic gunfire tearing through the estate.
It had started exactly four weeks earlier, in a place that smelled of old fryer grease and industrial bleach.
Blood smells exactly like dirty pennies, a metallic tang that clings to the back of the throat long after the source is gone.
Megan had learned that undeniable fact the hard way after spending the bulk of her twenties scrubbing emergency room floors at County General.
She had been a highly capable trauma tech, fired and nearly prosecuted for stealing off-brand antibiotics to keep her son’s heart from failing.
Now, the same metallic stench was soaking into the cheap, scuffed linoleum of the diner at three in the morning.
The bell above the glass door hadn’t just rung; it had shrieked as the violent coastal storm blew the heavy oak frame inward.
Wind howled into the empty room, scattering a stack of paper napkins across the floor like dead, white leaves.
A man in a ruined, custom-tailored charcoal suit was dying in booth four, bleeding out over the laminated dessert menu.
His bodyguards were screaming, their panic raw and ragged in the harsh fluorescent light that flickered overhead.
Megan was halfway through wiping down the formica counter, her lower back throbbing with a dull, familiar heat from a twelve-hour shift.
The neon sign outside buzzed a relentless, stuttering pink, casting ugly, shifting shadows across the wet asphalt of the empty parking lot.
The taller of the two upright men barked an order to lock the door, his voice frayed with a panic that didn’t belong to a man holding a gun.
Megan didn’t move immediately, her heart delivering one massive, painful thump against her ribs before settling into a rapid, icy rhythm.
Her eyes flicked instinctively to the swinging doors of the kitchen, where her five-year-old son, Tyler, slept on a camping cot beneath a scratchy blanket.
The man aimed the matte black pistol directly at her chest, his hand shaking violently enough to rattle the barrel.
Terrified men with guns were infinitely more dangerous than cold professionals, because terrified men pulled triggers by accident.
Megan dropped her damp rag and walked around the counter, her worn sneakers squeaking loudly on the damp linoleum floor.
She didn’t look at the weapon, focusing instead on the younger enforcer who was frantically pressing flimsy paper napkins against his boss’s collarbone.
The thin paper instantly dissolved into a pathetic red mush, completely failing to stem the heavy, rhythmic arterial spurts.
The dying man possessed a strong jaw covered in dark stubble, his skin currently the color of old ash under the diner lights.
His chest hitched in a shallow, wet gasp as blood welled up from beneath his collar, spilling heavily over the fabric of his expensive shirt.
Megan knew exactly who the man was without needing to check the local papers or watch the evening news.
Dan owned the shipping yards, the local judges, and apparently the absolute, terrifying devotion of these two frantic idiots.
She informed them with a cold, flat voice that an ambulance would be useless for an arterial bleed of that magnitude.
The older enforcer snapped that their private doctor was twenty minutes away, his finger twitching dangerously on the trigger.
Megan didn’t let the threat rattle her, dropping into the hyper-focused, mechanical calm she had honed over years of twelve-hour ER shifts.
She ordered the gunman to step back and demanded a clean apron and a roll of heavy duct tape from behind the counter.
The smell of copper, rust, expensive sandalwood cologne, and the sharp acidic tang of fear sweat hit her the moment she slid into the booth.
Dan was massive up close, his broad shoulders taking up half the vinyl bench while his body radiated a strange, damp heat.
She grabbed the lapels of his ruined suit jacket and yanked outward, tearing the fabric back to expose the jagged, bubbling entrance wound.
The bullet had entered just below the clavicle, nicking the subclavian artery and filling the cavity with bright, frothy red blood.
The younger man gagged and turned away, leaving Megan to handle the catastrophic plumbing problem entirely on her own.
She grabbed a bottle of cheap vodka kept under the counter for the line cook and unscrewed the plastic cap with her teeth.
She poured the alcohol directly over her hands, ignoring the stinging in her cracked cuticles, and splashed the rest straight into the wound.
Dan’s entire body convulsed violently, a deep guttural sound tearing from his throat that sounded more animal than human.
His back arched completely off the vinyl seat, his good arm coming up in a desperate, blind attempt to bat her away.
Megan threw her left knee over his waist, pinning his hip to the bench, and leaned her entire body weight forward.
She didn’t have surgical gauze or a hemostat, so she thrust her bare right hand directly into the torn flesh of his shoulder.
The sensation was horrifyingly hot, slick, and tight as she navigated past shattered bone and the slick pulse of torn muscle.
She found the frantic, erratic thumping of the severed vessel and pinched it hard against the clavicle with her thumb and forefinger.
She dug in until her knuckles turned stark white, using every ounce of leverage she possessed to stop the bleeding.
Dan gasped, a wet, suffocating sound, as his eyes snapped open with a raw, agonizing clarity that cut through the haze of pain.
They weren’t the clouded, panicked eyes of a dying man; they were dark, calculating, and glittering with a terrifying awareness.
He didn’t look at her with gratitude, assessing her instead like a wolf caught in a steel trap evaluating the hunter.
His jaw clenched tight enough to crack molars, and he reached up, his large, blood-slicked hand wrapping around her left wrist.
The grip was crushing, feeling exactly like an iron band snapping shut over her delicate bones.
Megan leaned closer, her face inches from his, her voice trembling slightly as she warned him that fighting her would kill him in seconds.
His chest heaved as he stared at her mouth, searching her exhausted, heavily bagged eyes for panic or malice.
Finding only sheer determination, the grip on her wrist slowly, agonizingly loosened until his hand dropped to the vinyl seat.
The younger enforcer whispered that the bleeding had stopped, peering over Megan’s shoulder like a frightened, useless child.
Megan warned them that she couldn’t hold the artery forever and ordered the older man to wad up the thick white cotton apron.
She counted to three in her head and ripped her hand out of the wound, allowing the blood to surge warmly over her wrists.
She jammed the wadded apron directly into the hole, pushing it down with the heel of her hand until she felt it hit the bone.
Dan groaned, a low, vibrating sound of pure agony, but he mercifully did not regain consciousness.
The enforcers moved with frantic obedience, winding the silver duct tape around his torso until the apron looked like a crude bulletproof vest.
Megan slid off the booth, her legs trembling so violently she nearly collapsed onto the scuffed linoleum floor.
Her hands were dyed crimson, the blood already drying tight and sticky on her skin as she surveyed the absolute ruin of her diner.
Twenty minutes later, the violent storm had broken into a steady, miserable drizzle that tapped lightly against the patched plywood windows.
The headlights of two massive black SUVs sliced through the gaps in the blinds, casting long, sweeping shadows across the ceiling.
Megan sat at the counter with a lukewarm cup of tap water, having scrubbed her hands raw in the kitchen sink with harsh dish soap.
Four men entered the diner in complete silence, moving with a terrifying, synchronized efficiency that spoke of deep training.
Two of them carried a collapsible medical stretcher, while a third man with a steel medical case immediately began assessing the duct tape patch job.
The fourth man walked toward the counter, an older gentleman in his late fifties with salt-and-pepper hair cut extremely close to his scalp.
He wore a tailored trench coat that looked completely dry, and his mere presence seemed to suck the oxygen entirely out of the room.
He stopped a few feet from Megan, his gray eyes sweeping over the bloody rags, the empty vodka bottle, and the shattered front door.
His name was Craig, and his voice was a low rumble, rough like gravel under heavy tires, as he introduced himself as the man who handled complications.
Megan didn’t stand up, taking a sip of water that tasted entirely like ash, and demanded they leave before her boss arrived at six.
Craig’s eyebrow twitched, the only visible crack in his marble facade, as he reached into the inner pocket of his coat.
He pulled out a thick, plain white envelope and tossed it onto the counter, letting it slide until it stopped inches from her folded hands.
He called it compensation for the ruined uniforms, the damaged floor, and the absolute certainty that she would forget everything that had happened.
He fed her a fabricated story about a stray dog and a broken window, instructing her to repeat it to the police if they ever asked questions.
Megan looked at the envelope, knowing there was easily ten thousand dollars inside, a sum that represented a year’s rent and kindergarten tuition for Tyler.
It was pure blood money, and she didn’t touch it, ordering him again to take his boss and get out of her diner.
Craig stared at her for a long, quiet moment, clearly categorizing her in his mind as either remarkably brave or incredibly stupid.
He noted the protective glance she threw toward the kitchen doors, a dark understanding flashing briefly in his analytical eyes.
He promised they would not trouble her again, turning on his heel to oversee the extraction of the wounded mob boss.
As they hoisted Dan onto the stretcher, his head rolled to the side, and for a brief, fleeting second, his dark eyes fluttered open.
He locked his gaze onto Megan across the diner, memorizing her exhausted face through the harsh fluorescent glare before Craig stepped into his line of sight.
The SUVs started up with low, synchronized growls, their tires hissing loudly on the wet pavement as they vanished into the night.
Paranoia possesses a distinct, metallic flavor that tastes exactly like the seal of the thick white envelope Megan had hidden at the bottom of Tyler’s toy chest.
Three weeks had passed since the night the storm blew the doors off the diner, bringing nothing but unbroken silence.
Megan spent those weeks jumping every time a black SUV idled at a red light, expecting men in trench coats to kick in her apartment door.
She hadn’t spent a single dollar of the cash, knowing that acknowledging the transaction meant acknowledging she was part of their violent world.
She went back to pouring stale coffee for truck drivers, letting the repetitive motions numb her exhausted, terrified brain.
It was a Tuesday afternoon during the post-lunch lull, the diner smelling heavily of old fryer grease and the sharp tang of window cleaner.
The little bell above the door chimed with a weak, polite jingle that sounded nothing like the violent shriek of three weeks ago.
Megan tapped a glass sugar dispenser against the counter to settle the contents, calling out without looking up for the customer to take any seat.
The footsteps that followed didn’t belong to a trucker in heavy boots; they possessed the slow, deliberate, and irregular rhythm of hard-soled leather on linoleum.
Megan turned around, a fist full of sugar packets slipping from her grip and hitting the floor with a soft scatter.
Dan stood six feet away, looking significantly worse than he had when he was actively bleeding out on her tables.
The sheer volume of blood loss had left a permanent, sallow grayness beneath his skin, and he wore a dark navy overcoat that hung slightly too loose.
He leaned heavily on a black cane with a silver, unadorned handle, his left arm immobilized in a sleek black sling hidden beneath the coat.
His eyes, however, were exactly the same: dark, calculating, and entirely too sharp for the cheap, greasy surroundings of the diner.
He slid into booth four with a barely concealed grimace, ordering his coffee black with no sugar.
Megan swallowed the dry lump in her throat, picked up the glass carafe from the burner, and walked over with steady hands.
She told him she hadn’t spent the money and offered to go home and retrieve it, wanting nothing more than to sever the tie completely.
Dan’s lips twitched in something that wasn’t quite a smile, informing her that his personal physician had died three days ago in an unfortunate car accident.
He unbuttoned the top of his shirt, moving with slow, deliberate precision to reveal the heavy gauze taped awkwardly over his collarbone.
The edges of the white fabric were stained a sickly yellowish-brown, and the faint, unmistakable smell of warm, rotting infection drifted into the air.
Megan stepped back, her medical training immediately identifying the necrotic tissue that was threatening to turn systemic.
Dan explained that going to a hospital would signal his vulnerability to his enemies, and he couldn’t trust anyone currently on his payroll.
He pushed a set of car keys and a small matte black card across the table, his voice dropping an octave as he turned the request into a direct order.
He promised her ten thousand dollars a week in cash, heavily implying that refusing him would make her a massive liability to whoever took over his empire.
Megan stared at the keys on the table, the scent of his expensive cologne completely overpowered by the rotting sickness lingering in the empty diner.
The address on the black card belonged to a heavily wooded area thirty miles north in the Palisades, where sprawling estates sat behind wrought-iron gates.
Megan drove her rattling Honda Civic through the driving rain, her knuckles stark white against the steering wheel as she navigated the aggressive incline.
She had dug her old sterile hospital scrubs out of a garbage bag in the back of her closet, the fabric smelling faintly of mothballs.
The massive iron gates blocking the path swung inward with a heavy, silent glide before she could even roll down her window to use the intercom.
The driveway was composed of crushed gray stone that crunched loudly under her tires, leading up to a house that looked like a modern fortress.
Craig stood in the doorway of the dark oak entrance, wearing a dark turtleneck and charcoal slacks, his demeanor remaining strictly professional.
He led her down a long, dimly lit hallway adorned with abstract, violent-looking paintings, the polished black marble floor reflecting the weak light like ice.
He informed her that Dan’s fever had spiked an hour ago, leaving him delirious and violent enough to throw a water glass at his head.
Craig warned her that he had advised against bringing a civilian into the house during an active internal conflict, viewing it as a catastrophic security risk.
He also noted that Dan believed her to be a known variable in a house full of unknowns, threatening her softly not to make him regret trusting that instinct.
He pushed open the double doors at the end of the hall, revealing a master suite the size of Megan’s entire apartment building.
The room smelled of ozone, fresh linens, and the thick, undeniable stench of sick sweat and decaying human flesh.
Dan lay in the center of the room on a massive bed with dark gray sheets, stripped to the waist and breathing in shallow, rapid gasps.
His skin was slick with sweat, his dark hair plastered to his forehead as his muscles rigidly tensed against a phantom battle in his fevered mind.
Craig locked the door from the outside, leaving Megan entirely alone with the volatile, heavily scarred mob boss.
She moved to the side of the bed, snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves, and loudly ordered him to wake up before she started tearing the tape off.
Dan’s eyes snapped open, wild and unfocused, as his good hand shot out with terrifying speed and grabbed Megan directly by the throat.
The heavy weight of his palm against her windpipe froze her instantly, her heart hammering frantically against his rigid fingers.
She didn’t fight back, knowing instinctively that de-escalating a delirious trauma patient required absolute, unwavering calm.
She choked out her name, forcing her hands to remain at her sides until the wildness slowly receded from his gaze.
His hand went slack, dropping to the mattress as he closed his eyes and let out a long, shuddering breath.
Megan wasted no time, sliding the blunt edge of her trauma shears under the thick layers of bloody, yellowed medical tape that bound his chest.
The tape was practically fused to his skin, but she peeled the heavy gauze back, sucking in a sharp breath through her teeth at the sight.
The entrance wound was surrounded by an angry, furious red halo, the edges swollen and leaking thick, purulent fluid.
She told him flatly that his doctor had trapped the infection inside, and she needed to pull the stitches and flush the cavity without anesthetic.
Dan gripped the heavy wooden frame of the bedstead with his right hand, his knuckles instantly turning white as he ordered her to get it over with.
Megan poured a liberal amount of iodine onto a sterile pad and picked up a small pair of tweezers from her plastic pharmacy bag.
She clipped the first stitch, watching his entire body go rigid as he absorbed the pain without making a single sound.
She worked with brutal efficiency, snipping and pulling seven stitches as thick, infected blood welled up and spilled over his collarbone.
When the wound was completely open, she picked up a large plastic syringe filled with a harsh mixture of saline and iodine.
She leaned over him, her face inches from his radiating heat, and inserted the plastic tip directly into the open bullet hole.
She depressed the plunger hard, and Dan violently arched off the bed, a choked, guttural roar tearing from his throat.
His free hand flew up blindly, grabbing the front of Megan’s scrubs and twisting the fabric into a suffocating knot as he tried to stop the pain.
Megan lost her balance, her knee hitting the mattress as she crashed against his chest, her face buried in the crook of his good shoulder.
She grabbed his wrist with both hands, using all her leverage to pry his fingers off her shirt while shouting at him to look at her.
She shoved her forearm against his throat, pinning his head down, and demanded he let her hurt him to save his miserable life.
The silence in the room became deafening, the air crackling with a strange, violent electricity as their eyes locked.
He stared at her with pure, furious determination, searching her face for pity and finding only unyielding resolve.
A slow, rough exhale shuddered out of his chest, his fingers uncurling from her scrubs as he dropped his arm heavily to the bed.
He turned his face away from her, exposing his neck and offering her total vulnerability in a moment that felt entirely surreal.
Megan pushed herself off his chest, her hands shaking slightly as she refilled the syringe and flushed the wound three more times.
By the time the fluid running out of the wound was clear, Dan had completely passed out from the sensory overload and the breaking fever.
Megan slumped back into a leather armchair beside the bed, pulling off her bloody gloves as her arms felt like absolute lead.
She watched the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest, realizing with a cold certainty that she was now inextricably trapped in his world.
The most terrifying part wasn’t being locked in a mafia compound; it was the fact that for the first time in years, she didn’t feel dead inside.
By the fourth day, the sprawling, cold compound had settled into a bizarre, quiet domestic rhythm that felt completely unnatural.
Megan operated on a strict schedule, checking the wound, flushing the cavity, changing the packing, and forcing him to eat real food.
She had taken over the massive, sterile kitchen, standing at the island chopping a yellow onion with unnecessary, rhythmic force.
Dan walked into the room leaning heavily on his cane, wearing dark gray sweatpants and a tight black Henley that highlighted his healing shoulder.
He casually mentioned that Craig had given him her background file, detailing her time at County General and her near-criminal charges.
Megan turned off the gas burner, wiping her hands on her apron as her chin tipped up in a defensive, angry posture.
She explained fiercely that Tyler’s fever had hit a hundred and four, and she had stolen the antibiotics purely to keep her son’s heart from failing.
Dan simply stared at her, cataloging the defiance and the protective rage, and stated quietly that survival was the only law that actually mattered.
The illusion of their quiet domestic life completely shattered on day seven, starting not with the smell of infection, but with the sharp scent of smoke.
Megan was in the guest room packing her single duffel bag, preparing to leave since the necrotic tissue had fully healed.
A sharp, deafening crack echoed through the heavy glass windows, a sound she instantly recognized from Saturday nights in the ER waiting room.
The heavy oak door slammed open, and Craig stood there with a matte black assault rifle hanging from a tactical sling across his chest.
The calm, tailored fixer had vanished entirely, replaced by a hardened soldier barking orders to secure the corridor.
Megan sprinted barefoot onto the cold marble floor, the house coming alive with a chaotic, violent energy and shrieking, pulsing alarms.
The smell of wood smoke and burnt powder drifted up the grand staircase, signaling that the perimeter had been violently breached.
Dan stood at the end of the hall, fully dressed in black tactical gear and shrugging a heavy Kevlar vest over his broad shoulders.
He didn’t have his cane, moving with a stiff, agonizing rigidity as his face settled into a mask of pure, unadulterated violence.
He shoved a heavy magazine into a handgun, the metallic clack slicing cleanly through the deafening wail of the sirens.
Craig reported that three vehicles with heavy arms had breached the lower gate and set the guardhouse on fire, buying twenty minutes before the police arrived.
Dan turned to Megan, the faint warmth she had seen in the kitchen entirely gone, leaving his eyes dead, flat, and terrifying.
He grabbed her upper arm and shoved her roughly behind him, putting his own Kevlar-clad body between her and the top of the staircase.
He ordered Craig to take her to the panic room and lock her inside, refusing to negotiate or listen to her protests.
He leaned down, his face inches from hers, warning her that the men rushing the stairs would put a bullet in her head just for standing next to him.
Craig grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down a narrow side hallway, swiping a key card over a hidden panel in the wood trim.
A heavy steel door slid open with a hydraulic hiss, revealing a stark concrete room that smelled of filtered air and isolation.
Megan stepped inside, watching Craig hit the heavy red button on the wall without even making eye contact.
The steel door slid shut, locking with a series of heavy, terrifying thuds that plunged the room into absolute, crushing silence.
Time ceased to exist in the bunker; she couldn’t hear the gunfire, the alarms, or the brutal fight for survival happening just outside the walls.
She thought only of Tyler, playing with building blocks in a downtown hotel room, entirely unaware that his mother was waiting for the end.
Finally, the hydraulic locks engaged with a heavy clank, and Megan shot to her feet, pressing her back against the far wall.
The heavy door slid open, and smoke billowed in, revealing Dan standing in the doorway streaked with soot and a fresh spray of blood.
His Kevlar vest was scored with white, jagged lines where bullets had caught the fabric, but he was breathing heavily and standing tall.
He dropped the empty handgun onto the floor, the metal clattering loudly as he rasped that the violent siege was finally over.
Megan stepped out of the concrete room and into the ruined hallway, the expensive plaster chewed by bullet holes and smelling like an abattoir.
She told him with a trembling voice that she needed to leave, get her son, and disappear completely from his dangerous world.
Dan stepped directly into her path, his sheer mass blocking the hallway entirely as his voice dropped its adrenaline edge.
He informed her with brutal honesty that she couldn’t go back, because the men hadn’t just come to wipe his slate clean.
Her apartment building had been firebombed an hour ago, effectively erasing the quiet life she had been desperately trying to return to.
Megan stopped breathing, her knees buckling as the realization hit that Tyler would have been there if Craig hadn’t moved him to the hotel.
Dan caught her smoothly, his right arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her flush against his heavy, smoke-stained tactical vest.
He held her upright, absorbing her violent trembling as he murmured against her hair that she was permanently in it now.
She had saved his life and crossed an invisible line, ensuring that the diner and her quiet anonymity were gone forever.
She gripped the rough fabric of his vest, not fighting him, but holding on to the only solid, unyielding thing left in her burning world.
Dan pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes, his gaze fierce, possessive, and entirely uncompromising as he issued his final command.
He vowed to move her and Tyler to a secure estate, pay for his schooling, and surround them with men who would die before letting a stranger look at them.
He promised she would never scrub another floor and never have to look over her shoulder again, sealing the gilded cage around them.
Megan looked at the blood on his face, the smoke in the air, and the cold, calculating truth burning in his dark eyes.
He was undeniably a monster and a killer, but in the ashes of her destroyed life, he was now her fiercely protective monster.
She accepted the dark pact with a raw, whispered breath, surrendering to the man who had torn her world apart just to rebuild it around himself.
Dan’s grip tightened on her waist, pulling her entirely into the dark, protective shadow of his violent empire.
THE END
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Disclaimer
This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. If you would like to share your story, please send it to [email protected].
