They Said They'll Burn Our House Tonight'—Girl Told Mafia Boss—He Sent 40 Men to Her Street

The smell hits me first—gasoline splashed across our front steps, the chemical stench cutting through the cold November air like a warning. My hands shake as I fumble with the keys, little Sofia pressed against my side, her backpack digging into my ribs.
"Maya?" Her voice is small, frightened. She's only seven, but she's learned to read danger in my body language. "Why does it smell funny?"
"It's nothing, baby." The lie tastes bitter. I push open the door to our ground-floor apartment, pulling her inside quickly. Through the thin walls, I can hear Mrs. Chen's television upstairs, the bass from the Rodriguez family's music three doors down. Normal sounds. Safe sounds. Sounds that might not exist tomorrow night.
I lock the deadbolt, the chain, the bottom lock I installed myself with a YouTube tutorial and shaking hands. Three locks. Like that would stop them.
The note is where I left it this morning, crumpled on our secondhand coffee table. I'd found it shoved under our door at six AM when I left for my opening shift at the diner. Block letters, red marker that looked like blood in the dim hallway light:
"LAST WARNING. VICTOR WANTS HIS MONEY. TOMORROW NIGHT WE BURN YOU OUT."
Fifteen thousand dollars. That's what my sister owed before she overdosed four months ago, leaving me with Sofia and a debt to people who don't care that Emma's dead. They just want their money, and when they can't get it, they'll take it out on what's left of her—a seven-year-old girl and the aunt who's barely keeping them both alive.
"I'm hungry." Sofia drops her backpack by the door, looking up at me with those big dark eyes that are exactly like Emma's. My chest tightens.
"I know, sweetheart. Let me make you something."
Our kitchen is barely big enough for one person. The linoleum is cracked, the refrigerator hums too loud, and the oven only works on two burners. But it's ours. Or it was, until Victor's guys decided it wasn't.
I make Sofia mac and cheese from a box—the cheap kind, because we're down to forty-three dollars until Friday's paycheck, and I've already budgeted every penny for rent that's due in five days. She eats at our small table, swinging her legs, telling me about her day at school, about the art project she's making, about how Tommy Martinez called her a mean name and she told the teacher.