“You can keep pushing me away, little one. Slam the door. Raise your voice. Pretend I don’t own your thoughts at night. I’ll still be here.” He leans against the doorway, arms crossed, watching you. Calm. Controlled. Dangerous in the way a loaded gun on silk sheets is dangerous. “I don’t need your permission to protect you. I don’t need your love wrapped in pretty words. I see it in the way you look for me in a crowd. The way you breathe easier when I’m near. The way your whole body softens when you think I’m not watching.” He steps forward. Slowly. Like he’s giving you a chance to run—but he knows you won’t. “You want someone who will stay when you’re unbearable. When you say things you don’t mean. When your hands shake and you hate yourself for needing someone. That’s me.” His voice lowers, now just for you. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll drag you out of your own darkness kicking and screaming if I have to. Hold you down until the panic stops. Kiss you like you’re salvation and sin, all in one breath.” A gloved hand brushes your chin, and he tilts your face up—just enough. “You’re not too much. You’re not too broken. You’re just mine.” A pause. “So be angry. Be difficult. Fight me. Just don’t lie and say you don’t want this. Because darling…” He leans in, lips at your ear, voice a dangerous promise wrapped in velvet. “I am the only one who knows how to love the monster and the child in you—and I’m not afraid of either.”

You’re asleep beside him. The world outside is still, but he doesn’t trust stillness. It often comes before the storm. His hand rests on your waist, under silk sheets. Skin on skin. Warm. Present. Proof you’re real. That you chose to stay. You always say he sleeps deeper beside you. But you don’t know that he never truly does. Not completely. Not when the world is full of people who’d take what matters most. He watches you breathe. Your shoulder. The curve of your back. The mark he left on your neck the night before—not from control, but from connection. A memory. “You’re too gentle for this world,” he thinks, brushing a lock of hair from your cheek. “Too good for the weight I carry.” You murmur his name in sleep—softly, like a secret. Vincenzo stills. That sound unravels something in him. You speak his name like it’s something clean. Like he isn’t made of everything sharp. Like he hasn’t shaped his life from fire and silence. You believe in him—without conditions. He doesn’t deserve that. But he’ll protect it with everything he is. A soft buzz from his nightstand. One message. “They’ve found her location.” His face doesn’t change. Not outwardly. He flips the screen face-down and turns back to you. You’ll never know how many nights he’s stood between you and chaos. You’ll never see the shadows he’s already turned away in silence. He leans down, pressing a quiet kiss to your shoulder. “Sleep, amore,” he whispers. “Let me worry about the dark.” His vow was made long ago. Now, it lives in your peace. And he will keep it—even if it means being the storm that protects the calm.

You sit beside him on the worn-out couch, the soft glow of the evening light casting gentle shadows around the room. Elior’s hand finds yours without hesitation, fingers curling around yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world. You don’t have to say anything—he knows. He always knows. The silence between you isn’t heavy; it’s full, like the quiet moments that come after laughter, when everything feels calm and real. His hazel eyes meet yours, warm and steady, and for a second, you feel like you’re the only two people left in the universe. You think about how long you’ve been here together—how this love grew quietly but fiercely, like a wildflower blooming in the cracks. “You’ve been holding so much inside,” he says softly, his thumb tracing little circles over the back of your hand. “Let me carry it with you.” You breathe in, the weight in your chest easing just a bit. With Elior, you don’t have to hide your broken parts or your fears. He doesn’t just see your smile—he sees the shadows beneath it, and still, he stays. Still, he loves you fiercely. Leaning into him, you feel his heartbeat against your temple, steady and sure. It’s a rhythm that soothes the chaos inside you, reminding you that you’re safe here—in his arms, in his love. No grand words or promises, just this quiet, unwavering truth. “I love you,” you whisper, and his smile, soft and overflowing with tenderness, tells you he feels it too. Not because it’s said, but because it’s lived—every day, in every gentle touch, every patient moment. With Elior, love isn’t perfect or flashy. It’s real. It’s healing. And it’s yours

The rain wasn’t heavy. Just a mist that hung in the air like breath in winter — soft, steady, not enough to send people running, just enough to make everything quiet. You sat on a wooden bench near the old bridge, sipping coffee from a paper cup, watching the world pass at half-speed. The trees dripped. The river whispered. No one else lingered. Except him. Rowan Thorn. You didn’t know his name then. Just a stranger who sat three paces away, jacket too thin, hair damp, hands trembling slightly as he thumbed through a dog-eared book with no title on the spine. He didn’t look at you. Not directly. But there was a flicker — the kind of glance people give when they hope they haven’t been noticed, and also hope they have. You offered him the spare coffee you didn’t really need. Wordlessly. Just held it out, steam curling from the lid like something fragile. He hesitated. Then took it. “Thanks,” he said, voice rough from disuse, like it hadn’t been asked to speak softly in weeks. You nodded. That was all. That’s all it needed to be. The rain thickened a little. He pulled his coat tighter, but didn’t leave. After a while, he said, “Do you ever feel like everything’s… muted?” You looked at him. “I used to hear things. Birds. Cars. People. Laughter. And now it’s all just… background.” You didn’t speak right away. Then, gently, you said, “Maybe you just need someone to listen with.” He blinked — startled. Not by the words, but by the way you said them like you meant them. Like he wasn’t just part of the scenery. He looked down at the cup in his hands. It was shaking a little less now. “You don’t even know me.” “I don’t have to. Not yet.” He turned to face you fully for the first time. And smiled. Not fully, not brightly — but the kind that’s new. Careful. Real. That was the beginning. Not fireworks. Not fate. Just two people, in the rain. And something quiet between them beginning to bloom.

You wake in silk sheets that aren’t yours, tasting him on your lips and regret on your tongue. There’s a note on the pillow beside you — folded once, perfectly, like he planned this down to the moment you’d open your eyes. Don’t fall in love, sweetheart. His scent clings to everything: the sheets, the wine glass, your skin. You remember the way he touched you — slow, deliberate, like he was memorizing something he meant to destroy. And just before he disappeared: “Tell your father I said thank you.” By the time you pull yourself together, it’s already on the news. Your father — arrested. Charges stacking like bodies. All tied to your access. Your credentials. You. Lucien Vale disappeared like he was never real — just perfume, fingerprints, and that voice in your head. You try to forget. You fail. Weeks pass. And then you see him again. Not in shadow. Not hidden. He’s leaning on a grand piano in a room filled with light and noise, dressed like sin dressed itself. Laughing, glowing. He doesn’t belong anywhere, but somehow belongs more than anyone else. And his eyes — his eyes are already on you. You don’t think. You walk straight to him. He smiles like you’re exactly where you should be. “Angel,” he says, lifting his glass, “you look like betrayal suits you.” You slap him. He doesn’t even blink. Just laughs — low, amused — and touches his cheek where your hand landed. “Still wearing my cologne?” he asks, stepping in. “Or is that just memory?” You hate him. You hate that you didn’t walk away. “Why?” you breathe. He tilts his head. “Because I could.” And softer, almost like it costs him: “Because I wanted you to see me.” That’s the thing about poison — once it’s in you, you start to mistake it for heat. For hunger. For home. And Lucien Thorn is already in your blood.

He didn’t just enter the room—you feel it like a shift in the air, like the world pulls back and makes space for him Jaxon moves through the crowded bar like a shadow cut in sharp lines and cold steel. His tailored black suit clings to broad shoulders, every inch of him radiating quiet menace and control. His jaw is sharp enough to cut glass, and those dark, calculating eyes lock onto you like a predator zeroing in on its prey The room shrinks around him. Men straighten, women glance away, whispers fade into silence. He’s a king without a crown, a mafia boss not by rumor but by the way he carries himself: deliberate steps, measured gestures, silent commands that no one dares to defy His hands are a contradiction—gloved in leather, smooth and precise, but when they touch, it’s like a vice tightening around your skin, claiming you without asking. He speaks rarely, but when he does, his voice is low—a dangerous melody that makes your blood run hot and cold all at once You catch his gaze from across the room, and something primal shifts inside you—a mixture of fear, fascination, and a dark, desperate hunger you can’t explain. There’s no softness there, no hesitation. Only possession He smiles, but it’s a predator’s smile, sharp and merciless “Don’t look at me like that,” he says, voice like gravel and silk “Like you want me to lie to you.” The warning is clear. The danger is real. But you’re already lost