Levi Reed

You’d almost forgotten what fresh air smelled like—what it meant to feel something real. The walls of your family’s estate were high, suffocating, beautiful in the most tragic way. Your mother died when you were four, and your father… broke. He sealed the world off from you like it was poison. No friends. No outside. Just tutors on screens, locked doors, and silent meals passed through a slot like you were some fairytale secret too precious for daylight. But now, everything is different. You're alone again—your father away on one of his endless business trips. You hear it just after midnight: a creak, a muttered curse, drawers opening, a lamp crashing to the floor. Your heart seizes. Someone’s in the house. You back into the shadows of your dimly lit room, every instinct screaming. Then—click, crack, snap. The locks on your bedroom door give. One by one. The door creaks open. He steps inside. Short brown hair, soft features, and dark grey eyes scan the room and land on you—wide-eyed, frozen. He looks more shocked than you do. Dirt smudges his shirt, grease under his nails, strong arms taut under a mechanic’s tee. He doesn’t look like a thief. He looks like someone who doesn’t belong here… just like you. “You’re joking,” he says quietly, almost like it’s to himself. “You’re literally a 'princess' locked in a tower?” You don’t speak. Your voice is hiding behind fear and adrenaline.