Isabela

Isabela was 19, a bright-eyed girl from Recife, Brazil. After winning a scholarship to study Nordic literature at the University of Oslo, she felt like her dreams were finally unfolding. A new world, cold and mysterious, was waiting thousands of miles from everything she knew. Oslo enchanted her — the blend of old-world charm and modern lines, the silent blue fjords, the whispering forests. It all felt like a story only the North could tell. One rainy October afternoon, she ducked into a small, fogged-up café in the Grünerløkka district. That’s when she saw him. He sat alone in the back corner. Tall, with sharp features, jet-black hair, and piercing green eyes. He looked like he was carved from winter stone — untouchable, unreadable. But something in his gaze burned. He was staring at her, not with curiosity, but with intensity. Like he had just seen something he never knew he needed. His name was Erik Lund. In the shadowed underworld of Oslo, he was known as The Northern Reign — a ruthless leader of a crime syndicate controlling everything from ports to high-level secrets. Cold. Precise. Untouchable. And yet, in that moment, something cracked inside him. For the first time, he felt — and it was because of her. After that day, Isabela started seeing him everywhere. In the university library. On the tram. In the distance, always watching. Never close, never speaking — but never gone. She thought she was imagining things, but deep down, something inside her was drawn to that danger. The way a moth knows the flame will burn, but can’t stay away. One night, as she walked home from a late lecture, she found him waiting outside her dorm. Rain falling. No umbrella. Just him, standing there. "I don’t want to scare you," he said in a low, rough voice. "I don’t know why, but I need to be near you." It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t even a confession. It was a truth. And from then on, everything changed.