#Steel Cartel

[canadian-pug-cartel]

Created by my buddie (@toastpandadraws) for me and it’s too beautiful to not be seen by the world

[sceletaflores]

GOT YOUR HEART IN A HEADLOCK…

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ೃ⁀➷ pair: bruce wayne x vigilante!fem!reader

ೃ⁀➷ wc: 3.6k

ೃ⁀➷ contains: 18+ SMUT MDNI, nat can’t stop making oc reader characters, somewhat angsty cause i need it to function, bruce's pov, p in v, not rough sex and not love making but another third thing, unprotected sex (do as sex ed teaches, not as i write), slight pain kink, biting, finger sucking RAAAHHH, one tiny mention of blood, bruce wayne experiences feelings, ending is basically the “fucked in missionary and got emotional about it” meme, porn with a little too much plot, no use of y/n.

ೃ⁀➷ nat’s note: oh em gee...baby's first dc fic...i'm so terrified to post this LMAO but i need to because this man just makes me want to write all the sad, angsty, pining/longing filled fics in the world. it’s his beautiful tortured eyes, they’ve transfixed me. title is ofc from imogen heap's 'headlock' cause i'm clearly too obsessed with that album i've named like three fics after it's tracks AND it's just such a bruce song i had to. hope you love it, kisses!

dividers by lovely @saradika-graphics!

bruce wayne gets an unexpected visitor…

Rain pelts at the spotless windows of Bruce's office. Sharp and impossible to ignore in the deep silence shrouding the room.

The overhead lights are dimmed, leaving the only glow in the room the flickering monitors lining the top of his desk. Bruce is hunched over them, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, collar undone, tired eyes fleeting over grainy security footage and recent police reports.

A tension lives in his shoulders as his hands fly over the expanse of his keyboard. The kind that never leaves. He’s chasing patterns again—strings of mob movement, scattered drug shipments, whispers of reemerging cartels. 

It’s not often that he brings his, nightly work, to the tower—but something about the cave felt too heavy. Too suffocating, too soaked in grief and memory for him to get any real work done. Wayne tower, with its sleek sterility, gives him just enough distance to pretend silence is solacing instead of crushing.

Bruce needed that silence. Or maybe he needed the illusion of it—the unostentatious stillness of glass and steel, high enough above the rot of Gotham’s underbelly to try and escape the weight in his chest.

He exhales through his nose, slow and quiet, forearms tensing as he rewinds the surveillance footage for a third time. The storm is growing merciless—thunder cracking like bones, lightning throwing brief, jagged shadows across the gleaming floor. Bruce doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. He just leans further into the static buzz of his monitor, the comfort of control.

Until he feels it.

That shift. 

That slow coil in his gut. The cold drag of something other licking at the edge of the air. A chill snakes its way up his spine and stirs the hair on the back of his neck, pressing against his senses in a way he’s become all too familiar with.

He cuts his eyes to the wall of windows before his desk. At first, he sees nothing but a dark sky. The rain clouds so thick and imposing they mute the shine of the stars, leaving behind a sea of pitch black.

A bolt of lighting rips across the sky—and for half a heartbeat, you’re there.

Seventy eight stories up, floating just outside the glass, shimmering with an ethereal glow. Your form is only half-phased, half solid. Raindrops slip right through you, never landing, never soaking. You press a hand to the glass, head tilted slightly as though amused. 

Bruce doesn’t speak, but his eyes never leave yours.

You don’t knock. You never do.

You phase through the glass like it’s water, it doesn’t creak. It hums—a low rumble of energy. When your boots touch the polished floor, your form sharpens into full opacity, but the essence still clings to your skin. He can smell the ozone.

You don’t speak, not at first. You just stand there, dripping with power instead of rain, head tilting the other way now as you study him like you always do—like you’re looking straight through the flesh and bone, into whatever broken thing is holding it all together.

Bruce forces down the unease curling in the pit of his stomach, he turns his eyes back to the monitors. “You’re late.” His voice is low, sandpaper dry from disuse.

You hum, gliding a few slow steps toward his desk. He can feel the shift in the room—colder, tighter, like the air itself is shrinking away from your presence. 

“I didn’t know we had a date.”

“We didn’t.”

“Then I’m on time.”

Files appear out of thin air, materializing right in front of his eyes. They simply hover for a moment, bathed in a flickering white hue and edged in smoke—until they fall onto his desk with a muted thump. The pages glide their way in front of him with delicate flutter—chilled only by the cold that clings to them from your plane. 

“Where did you get these?” he mutters, scanning the top page. Intelligence. Photos. Notes scrawled in your familiar handwriting. It’s a roster—names he recognizes, faces he’s seen before in police reports and coroner files. All connected to the Falcone remnants. 

“You’re welcome” you say dryly, turning to lean against the edge of his desk. You cross one leg over the other, arms folding over your chest. “Or do I only get a ‘thank you’ if I come gift-wrapped in latex and a chipper attitude?”

Bruce bites back a scoff, brows drawing together the more he reads over the pages. He knows this isn’t a friendly transaction, that it’s the furthest thing from you simply helping him from the kindness of your still heart. You come bearing gifts because you need something.

Bruce doesn’t rise from his chair. He just leans back slowly, eyes dragging up to meet yours. “What do you want, Spectress.”

Your head tilts, he can’t help but let his eyes run along the smooth column of your throat. “You.”

A beat. Bruce’s jaw ticks.

Then you add, “Well not you, you. Not yet.” Your lips curl around the words like they’re a dare. “Your eyes on something for me. There’s been a shift in the Veil, someone’s poking holes again. Thought some of your fancy tech might catch the bleed.”

Bruce stares, hard. He hopes you can still feel the weight of it—like the point of a blade pressed to skin. It’s his default, the way he carves answers out of people who fear the Bat. But you’re not some masked rookie wannabe he can intimidate into compliance with a look. If anything, the pressure only makes your smirk deepen.

“A shift in the Veil,” he repeats, voice low and quiet. Not mocking. Not doubting. Just…curious.

You nod, leaning a little closer, your body an elegant portrait of muscle and menace draped across his desk. “Someone’s not just brushing against it, Bruce. They’re trying to punch through. It’s not subtle.” You inhale a breath you don’t need. “The air is wrong. I can’t reach them. Dead things don’t stay quiet.”

He exhales sharply through his nose, almost a scoff, though there’s no humor in it. “And you think I can track the metaphysical footprint of a ghost hacker.”

Your smile blooms, sharp and lovely like a blade catching the moonlight. “I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t a priority. The last thing I want to admit is that I need your help. But it’s like something’s…tugging. Someone reaching across, but they’re messy. Clumsy. They don’t know what they’re doing, just that they have the power to do it.” 

Bruce’s fingers twitch over the papers, they crinkle softly under his palm. The only sign that your words have sunk teeth into him. This isn’t some abstract ghost story you’re using to toy with him. This is intel. This is you saying something’s coming.

And The Batman doesn't deal well with what he can’t predict.

“Black Mask?”

“I think Black Mask wouldn’t have it in him to stay quiet if it was.”

Your voice is softer now, the flirtatious edge dulled to something more dangerous. The lights of the monitors cast a faint, blue halo over your face, catching in the slight glow that never leaves your eyes. Bruce notices the way your hand flexes on the desk, your nails dragging faint lines into the polished surface, like you’re grounding yourself—fighting the urge to phase away.

He sits forward slowly, reading the movement for what it is. “You’re scared.”

That makes your smile twitch. Not gone—never gone—but something in your face flickers. Like a candle too close to the wind.

“I don’t scare when it comes to the dead, Bruce.” A pause. “I’m what they whisper too.”

Bruce says nothing. His throat works around a swallow. Your presence has always rattled him. Not because you’re terrifying. He’s faced terrifying. It’s because you see him. 

You see the pulses of emotion he tries his hardest to keep buried, all haloed around him in a hazy smoke of aura and vulnerability. You don’t only test the limits of his control, you blow right through them with all the ease in the world. 

It grates on every inch of his nerves.

And still—still—he can’t help the way his eyes drop. The subtle arc of your hip against his desk. The glow of your power against the dark fabric of your suit. You shouldn’t look this soft, not with the weight you carry. Not with the death you wear like a second skin.

But you do. And it kills him.

Bruce swallows hard, dragging his gaze back to your face. You’re watching him with something like amusement, like you know exactly where his thoughts just wandered.

“You came all this way just for a file drop and a metaphysical theory?”

You don’t answer, letting the silence swell between you until it starts to choke. The room hums with it—something unspoken and aching. That same tension that’s always been there between the two of you, taut as wire. Neither of you ever acknowledge it directly. You dance around it like a live current, but tonight—tonight it feels closer to snapping.

You finally speak. “I saw the Gazette.” You look out to the skyline, eyes shining. “Wayne tower, only the second best view in Gotham, doesn't that just drive you crazy?”

Bruce doesn't take his gaze off you. “Not particularly.”

“What’s the first?”

“I’ll let you know when I find it.”

The unexplainable feeling between you both is pulsing now, alive and unbearable in a way that makes Bruce’s chest tighten. He leans back in his chair, watching you, not sure if he’s challenging you or waiting for you to make the next move. Your gaze flickers between his eyes, his lips, his posture—always studying, always probing.

“Are we done here?”

You hum absentmindedly, pushing off the desk in a fluid motion. The air shifts again as you move. The room feels too small all of a sudden. The rain outside intensifies, and with it, the tension in the air thickens. Bruce can almost taste it—something sharp, eclectic, but also heavy and unwilling to settle.

You walk closer, slow, like you're testing how close you can get before he tenses.

He doesn’t.

That’s the game you always play.

Your tone is velvet stretched over teeth. “I’ve seen inside you, Bruce,” you whisper, the sound pressing against his ribs. “The regret, the rage. The rot. The want. You keep it locked down in suits and silence, but I see it. And it calls to me.”

You circle the desk slowly, not bothering to hide the way your fingers trail across the back of his chair as you pass. Shadows twist and turn around your boots, clinging to the shape of you like they miss you when you're gone. The storm throws another bolt of light against the glass, and your shadow cuts across the floor, long and spindled. Almost wrong.

Bruce doesn’t move, doesn’t even shiver when your fingers drift to his collar and toy with the loose button near his throat. Your touch is cool, just wrong enough to raise goosebumps in its wake. A phantom’s touch.

“You always want what you can’t have, Bruce.”

Your words hit like a jolt of electricity, sharp and raw, and before he can stop himself, he’s standing. The chair scraping against the floor feels like a bomb going off in the silence. But it’s not the anger that drives him. Not entirely.

No, it’s the undeniable attraction. The way your presence disrupts everything he’s spent decades building. The way your very being forces him to question everything he knew about control, power, desire.

“You should leave.” It’s not a command. It’s not a suggestion. It’s…a warning, maybe. He couldn’t tell if you’d heed it. You both know you never do.

“I won’t ask twice,” you whisper, spectral power curling from your skin in soft tendrils that graze his chest. “Help me find who’s bleeding into the Veil , and I’ll make it worth your while.”

Bruce doesn’t need to ask what you mean.

Your hand flattens against his chest, his heartbeat loud and strong beneath your palm. The only warmth in the room.

His hand shoots up fast—too fast—and grabs your wrist. Not rough, but not soft either. Just enough force to anchor, to test the reality of you. His grip burns against your chill.

“I don’t need incentive.”

Your smile curls dangerously, and you phase. Right through his grasp. His fingers snap closed around air, and you’re behind him now, voice purring against the back of his neck. “Liar.”

Bruce rounds his desk with an almost inhuman amount of speed, caging you against the windows. You let him. 

“This isn’t a game, Spectress,” he snarls, eyes burning. His face is close to yours now, too close. Your noses nearly brush. He should pull back. 

“So serious, Bruce,” you murmur, eyes flicking to his lips, then back to his eyes. “Always so fucking serious. All that control, all that rage, and you’ve never even let it out the fun way.”

A muscle jumps in his jaw. “You think that this is fun for me?” he asks, voice like gravel.

“I think you don’t even know how badly you need to come undone.”

Your words hang there. Heavy. Weighted. Inescapable.

And then your mouth is right there—sinful lips brushing against his ear. “Let me show you.”

It’s laughably desperate when your mouths finally meet. Fire and ice coming together in a blaze of teeth and tension and unsaid things. A war between two people who don’t know how to surrender without blood. Neither of you gentle. Neither of you soft. His hands grip your hips roughly, your back hits the glass with more force he’d use on any other woman. 

You bite his lip as he lifts you off the floor like you weigh nothing—like the world could end beneath his feet and he wouldn’t notice as long as your lips stay on his. Your legs wrap around his waist, strong as they drag him further into you.

You meet him with all the power in your bones, your body flickering with that unearthly light as your hands fist the collar of his shirt and pull him impossibly closer. You taste like the dead. Like smoke. Like something Bruce shouldn’t want, and can’t stop needing.

His hips slot against yours, and he’s hard. The heavy weight of his cock pushing against the front of his slacks. You moan low into his mouth, and it’s not ghostly—it’s human. Raw. And that’s what undoes him more than anything. The reminder that beneath all your power, your secrets, your cold—

You’re real.

"You’re soaked in death," he mutters against your mouth, voice raw. "And I still—"

“Still want to fuck me,” you finish, breathless, smirking against his lips. “I can feel it. You think I don’t know what your need tastes like?”

Your hand slides down between your bodies, cupping the thick heat straining against the front of his pants. Bruce hisses through his teeth, hips jerking into your touch, and you laugh—low and lovely and full of wicked delight.

“Look at you,” you murmur, voice thick with sin as you stare down to take in the way his cock strains against your stomach. “So fucking hard for the dead girl.”

It’s more than he can stomach, and Bruce snaps.

He uses a single hand to rip his belt open, the other bracing your thigh against the window so hard the glass groans. Your suit splits open at the hips with a flick of your fingers, the obsidian fabric shifting and slithering like something alive, giving way to skin that’s too perfect, too cold, and he groans—low, rough, helpless. Your suit gone, his shirt shoved up, his pants shoved down just enough for skin to meet skin—desperate and unfiltered.

There’s no ceremony. No slow lead-in. Just the stretch, the pressure, the way your body clenches around him like you’ve been waiting for this—aching for it.

The whole damn building seems to shudder, and your laugh comes out breathless, thrilled. Gotham burns beneath you in the stormlight, streaks of red and gold and shadow, a perfect backdrop to something that was never meant to be soft.

You gasp, sharp nails raking welts down the muscle of his back at the sting of his thick cock forcing a place for itself inside of you. He can feel the way the walls of your cunt flutter around him, gentle caresses that have something dark and consuming blooming in the pit of his stomach.

“You’re soaked,” he mutters against the hollow of your throat, dragging his mouth down the glowing seam of your collarbone, sucking a mark where the light pulses the brightest. “You like this.”

You don’t answer, locking your ankles behind him, digging your nails into his shoulders hard enough to make him snarl. “Harder, Bruce. I can take it.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice.

Every thrust is deep and mean, hips slapping against the cradle of your thighs mercilessly. The sound of skin meeting skin fills the room, wet and obscene. You clench around him, and he groans, fingers digging into your hips so hard they’ll bruise if you let them. 

You meet every thrust with a vicious grind of your hips, moaning his name like a prayer and a curse all at once—hand reaching back blindly to slap the glass, leaving a foggy print behind. The groan that rips its way from his chest is filthy, guttural, primal.

You’re impossibly wet, impossibly tight, and the angle—Christ, the angle—lets him grind so deep it feels like he’s trying to carve himself into your spine. Bruce’s eyes fall to where your bodies are joined, he watches the way his cock punches in and out of your swollen cunt. His skin is coated in your messy wetness, glistening in the moonlight each time he pulls out before disappearing back into your addictive warmth.

Your power lashes around you both, the lights flickering, the storm outside growing louder. Somewhere, the shadows moan.

“You love it,” he growls, voice like thunder against your ear. “Getting fucked like this. Against the glass. Knowing anyone could look up and see—”

“Bruce.” Your voice is the deepest form of sin, soaked in gasoline and waiting to be ignited by the match that only he has the ability of sparking.

Bruce can hardly stand it. The nasty, possessive feeling beats against his ribcage almost as hard as his heart. Scratching and clawing and demanding to be set free. His cock throbs inside of you. He’s close, and the incoherent gurgle of his name passing through your lips only spurs him on.

He’s moving before his brain can process it, his hand loosening its unrelenting grip on the muscle of your thigh to cradle your cheek. It’s heartbreakingly tender, in such a way that he’d never use even when he’s playing up the soft, faux-sentimental fucks of Brucie Wayne. 

His thumb swipes across your slick bottom lip before he can think better of it. Your mouth falls open with a pleased moan, devilish tongue sweeping out to brush against his skin teasingly. For a heartstopping moment, Bruce wonders what it would be like to sink between those plush lips.

The cool kiss of them, or the sweet caress of your tongue, on the scorching tip of his cock. Just the thought has him shuddering, a bitten off curse falling from his lips as he pushes his thumb into your wanting mouth. Your eyes flutter closed, lashes fanning over your cheeks as you hollow them and suck.

“Fuck.” Bruce sets a brutal rhythm, hips pistoning into you with a desperation that belies the calm mask he wears for everyone else. But not for you. Never for you. You get the real thing—unfiltered, cracked open, all ugly need and unbearable weight. You take it, welcoming it with a tilt of your hips and a hiss of pleasure through your teeth as they bite down on his thumb roughly. 

You try to phase, instinctively—too much, too fast—but he grabs you harder, pins you down, keeps you there in your body. “No,” he growls, lips against your skin. “You’re not going anywhere. Not till I’m done.”

The coarse, dark hair dusted along his abs grinds over your sensitive clit with every thrust, the blunt head of his cock hammering against the sweet spot inside of you. His heavy balls slap the bruised, raw skin of your ass.

Bruce tilts his hips just so, and you howl.

Your orgasm hits like a supernatural event, your body clenching around him, pulsing with energy that sinks into him, through him, like it’s marking him from the inside out. He chokes on your name—your real name—and it sends another shock through your system.

Bruce spills into you with a growl that rattles through his chest, buried so deep he forgets what it feels like to be hollow. The pulse of his cock is in time with the pounding beat of his heart.

And he watches, eyes rapt, as you come back down. The heave of your chest as you suck in greedy lungfuls of air you haven’t needed in decades, the glowing satisfaction swirling through your cloudy eyes, your swollen lips slick and parted around the soft pants of pleasure—stained with his blood.

He watches the power only barely contained beneath your skin. The shining white of it swimming through your body languidly, like pure white ink spilled along the surface of a lake, pulsing with life. So fucking alive.

Bruce realizes then that he’s found it.

The best view in Gotham.

mini nat’s note: tagging some lovelies that showed interest in this mess @ebodebo @ovaryacted @lordlottie @wlwloverwrites @dixie-isnt-cool! i love you all...bad! bruce wayne isn't on my taglist, but i might add him later! i do possibly want to write more for him in the future, so yell at me to add him if you want! thank you for reading! mwah <3

[dietcane]

⚢ barbed wire baby - prologue

cw: dead dove, do not eat !!, age gap (ellie is late 30's, reader is 21), elements of domestic violence, toxic relationship, death, themes of organized crime (gangs/mafia/drug cartels), cheating, bribery, abuse (physical, drugs, alcohol), mentioned gambling, bloodplay, strap-on usage, heavy manipulation, dark!ellie. more to be added!!

synopsis: as the adrenaline becomes more and more overwhelming, so does the danger. stakes are higher than ever. dingy prison cells, double entendres whispered through jail phones. knowing glances exchanged with prison guards. her modern day bonnie to her clyde. your life weighs in the balance. you know ellie has pull inside and out. you have to decide if you're willing to risk everything for her. are you?

ULTRAVIOLENCE

⤷ m.list

Casinos were one of Ellie's favorite pastimes. Poker chips rolled between tattooed fingers, crystal whiskey glasses, and half-naked women for dealers. She was a shark. Cards in hand, expression deadpan, and a mountain of poker chips beside her. Ellie wasn't a flamboyant poker player. She didn't do ‘splash-in-the-pots’ or string bets. She played quiet, dirty even. But she never cheated. Games played with slow rolls, check-raises, and a daunting poker face. Ellie was good. Barely ever lost. She’d really only ever lost to her father, a very powerful man. A man with enough pull to get rid of you with a snap of his fingers. Her father was a dirty man. Dirty man with jailbait for arm candy. Barely legal nineteen and twenty-year-olds draped over him, high on whatever was just smuggled in through their family port. Joel Miller was a nightmare come to life. And Ellie? She was worse.

To say Ellie is powerful is a devastating understatement. She owned over half of the casinos in the eastern half of the country and nearly all of the ones in Vegas. She had the police and even some of the FBI tucked neatly into her pockets. Judges, too. She had everything. Monopolies on top of monopolies. Ports lugging in drugs, guns, *women*. Anything you could think of, she had.

But most importantly? She had you. Caged underneath her palms, strings pulled and orchestrated, all to the dangerous *bum-bum-bum* of her own drum. You were her girl. Her caged dove. Caged in a jail of steel with barely any room to peek through. Captive. Ellie doesn't like that word, though. Made it seem like she held you against your will, on display like a puppet. That wasn't the case though.. right?

She preferred *attached*. Attached to her like arm candy. Red lips, tight dresses, high heels. Typical WAG attire of Ellie’s caliber. Ellie dictated every single thing about you. The color of your hair, your nails, your outfits, and makeup. Even what you ate. She controlled every aspect of your being. You didn't have to think about a single thing. She took care of all that. You didn't dare question her. But really, why would you?

You learned about questioning and talking back to her a long time ago. Bright-eyed and barely eighteen at the doorstep of her bar, begging for a job. For stability. Young and fiery and full of personality. Full of *fire*. She snuffed that fire out very quickly. She was thirty-six. Full of wisdom and experience. Everyone warned you against going towards those shady bars for work. You didn't listen. Thirty-six, tired eyes, short auburn hair. She was powerful and it leaked out of every single pore. You were desperate for stability, though. More than anything. A half-assed promise of ‘I’ll do anything you ask. Anything. Everything. I just need to get by.’ You learned very quickly the weight of your words. Words tossed out in a fit of pleading and despair. A big mistake, that was. That night she gave you a home. A purpose. You almost lost it that night, too.

“You’ll be one of my girls. We call ‘em bar bunnies. Or bottle girls if you want to fake being classy.” Her voice was smooth. Decadent. You hung onto every single syllable. You followed closely behind her as she navigated her way through the back rooms of her bar. The back hallways of the club were a stark contrast to the opulent main floor – a labyrinth of concrete and exposed pipes, smelling faintly of stale smoke and desperation. You trailed after Ellie, her heavy boots resonating against the grimy floor as she navigated the maze with unsettling confidence. Blindly following her. Following her lead into the underbelly of a life you barely understood. A life where she held more power than you could even start to think of or imagine.

Topless girls filtered out of private rooms and back out onto the floor. Skimpy costumes held up by thin strings tied into pretty little bows. Clouds of seductive perfume wafted off of them. They were all gorgeous. Dancers covered in shiny body glitter, shimmery eyeshadows, and sticky lip glosses. A door creaked open down the hall, spilling a brief burst of music and muffled laughter into the dim corridor. A dancer emerged, her sequined skirt slightly askew with her bra pulled below her tits, her expression a practiced mask of indifference. She brushed past Ellie, heading towards the main club area. As she passed, Ellie's lips quirked into a subtle, knowing smirk. She smirked at her. A coil tightened in your stomach. A heavy, unwelcome coil. Lined with disgust and laced with an unspecified yearning.

It wasn't that familiar coil of arousal. The knowing feeling of slicking up in your panties, sweat beading at your hairline, and pants for air. This was something else. A feeling rearing its ugly head into your stomach. Jealousy. Envy. You were filled with an overwhelming sense of it. It felt like you were going to burn from the inside out. Nerve ends frayed and burnt. Your lungs felt like they were filled with smoke. A simple action like that? Working you up and filling you with unbridled rage? Unlike you. A lazy smirk directed at a topless stripper? Really? This wasn’t like you.

Ellie turned to glance at you, a lazy action, yet her gaze was sharp enough to cut through steel, and scoffed, the sound laced with something akin to amusement and a hint of something else, something that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. "An aversion to my dancers, I see." Her eyes, dark and knowing, bore into you, dissecting your feigned composure with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. It felt like being pinned under a microscope, every flaw magnified, every secret laid bare for her amusement. A flush, unwelcome and betraying, bloomed across your cheeks, a traitorous flag signaling the inner turmoil you desperately tried to conceal. It crept up your neck, painting you in shades of vulnerability you never intended to reveal. "It's nothing," you managed, the words a pathetic whisper, a mere puff of air that barely escaped your lips, sounding weak and unconvincing even to your own ears.

Ellie's smirk widened, morphing into a predatory curve that hinted at a dangerous game, a silent promise of pleasure and pain intertwined. "Is it now?" she purred, her voice a silken caress that sent a shiver tracing its way down your spine, prickling your skin and setting your nerve endings alight. She turned her back to you again. Broad shoulders filling out a perfectly tailored suit. Crisp lines and cinched waists under belts. She was the epitome of clean-cut. Straight lines, sharp edges.

"Perhaps," she murmured, her gaze never wavering, never releasing you from its captive hold, "You’ll learn eventually, little girl." The words hung between you, suspended in the air like a fragile crystal, heavy with implication, a challenge, an accusation, and a promise all wrapped into one exquisitely dangerous package. You fought to meet her gaze, to hold your ground and maintain some semblance of control, but the weight of her scrutiny was a physical force, pressing down on you, stealing the air from your lungs, and threatening to drown you in the turbulent depths of your unspoken desires. Your heart hammered against your ribs, a frantic drumbeat echoing the chaos within, as you struggled to find your voice, to formulate a response that wouldn't betray the raw, visceral emotions raging beneath the surface.

You clear your throat. “I just think it's stupid. Dancing naked for someone else's entertainment? I think it makes you trash—,” You don't get to finish your sentence. The words were barely out of your mouth, a desperate attempt to salvage the situation, when the world exploded in a blinding flash of pain. Ellie's hand, surprisingly swift and strong, connected with your cheek with a sickening thud, the force of the blow snapping your head to the side. A wave of dizziness washed over you, leaving you momentarily disoriented and gasping for breath. The taste of copper filled your mouth, acrid and metallic, as a thin trickle of blood escaped from the corner of your lip. The room spun, the vibrant colors of the club swirling into a nauseating vortex, and the music, once a pulsating rhythm, now pounded against your skull like a relentless hammer.

Your ears rang, a high-pitched whine that drowned out the murmurs of the surrounding crowd, isolating you in a bubble of shock and disorientation. The sting on your cheek intensified, a burning fire that radiated outwards, consuming your senses and leaving you reeling in a haze of pain and disbelief. Your cheek throbs. You touch your cheek in shock, pulling back shaky fingers to see blood. Your eyes zero in on her rings. Gold, freezing cold and snug around her fingers. They nicked you. Leaving small scars and blood bubbling to the surface. She stands in front of you, arms crossed against her chest. The sleeves of her suit strains against her toned arms. You swallow. You’re intimidated. You’re scared. She’s consuming every single one of your senses until you can’t do anything without her having some sort of twisted influence over you.

“Watch your fucking mouth when you talk to me. My business, my rules. I might as well fucking put you up on stage. See how trashy it really is.”

You learned that day, indeed. She made you dance for six months. Tireless hours practicing. Leaving colorful bruises in yellow and red and purple all over your thighs and between your knees.

Six months. One hundred eighty-three days. Four thousand three hundred eighty hours. Two hundred sixty-two thousand eight hundred minutes. You didn't dance for her club. The club and its filthy rich partygoers, no. She made you her own *private* dancer. Critiqued you on every single minute detail the usual coked-out customers wouldn't notice.

Point your feet. Pull your back in. Arch harder. Orders barked out with heavy expectations for them to be followed. Belts lashed out against body parts as a warning, hair tugged to position your head, forceful (yet light impact, thank god) smacks to get your attention on her. You learned. Learned to appease and be docile. Speak when spoken to. Learned to be her caged dove. Learned to be her ride or die, damn near. Her right hand. In six months, you’d done so many depraved things besides enjoy her merciless demands. Only for her.

The casino is loud and bustling. Ellie has you perched over her thigh, slotting the muscular skin between your thighs. The scent of her cologne envelopes you whole. Strong wafts of black coffee, spice and vanilla all wrapped into one. Her hand is digging into your hip. The game is frustrating her. Her cold rings carve into your hip bones and you can feel the indents already beginning to form. Her breathing is calm despite the anger bridling beneath her surface. Ellie flicks the ash of her cigarette carelessly, disregarding the yelp it tugs out of her opponent as it lands onto his leg. Chips click loudly as the final round progresses- only Ellie and some sleazy, grubby man across from her are left. He goes all in and Ellie prods her tongue into her cheek. You glance at her cards- a royal flush. Rare that you get one of those. She presents nervously, shifting you in her lap. She’s bluffing. Her opponent is getting cocky. He takes a long swig of his cheap beer and shakes his head at Ellie. His cards go down- a straight flush. Ellie huffs and splays out her cards. She wins, you think. You don't pay attention to these meaningless games. She collects her rewards and stands with you.

She tugs you over to a corner of the bar, forcing you to sit as she stands behind you. There’s a football game playing faintly in the background, drowned out by incessant laughter and cheers. The repetitive hum of the slot machines hummed quietly, soft echo of beeps and chimes drifting into the dimly lit bar area. Ellie's lips, soft yet insistent, pecked repeatedly against your neck. It tickled. Her lips were slightly chapped, leaving wet trails behind as she progressed up your neck and behind your ear. The scent of expensive cologne mingled and tangled with her always present aroma of whiskey. You instinctively shuddered at the ghost of her lashes against your skin.

“Els.” You’ve always been soft spoken with her, save for the night you met. Flame snuffed out, leaving smoky wisps behind. No more fight. Just quiet obedience. She kisses with more fervor, more force and intention behind it.

"You can tell me to stop," Ellie murmured, her voice a husky whisper that barely carried over the bustle of the casino. Her fingers, laced through your hair, tightening slightly. A warning. Tell me to stop. Only if you dare. The illusion of a choice. You couldn't say no. It was a test. Were you going to defy her or not? You don't in the end. Just silently baring more of yourself to her. She bites down forcefully.

Her teeth graze the spot once she pulls away. The sharp-edged dagger of her canine teeth. Sharp and present. She bites again. More aggression, more force. It's electrifying. Your heart hammers against your chest. You feel like you’re being held underwater. Drowning just below the surface. Lungs filling more and more with water every time you inhale. You can’t breathe. It's making you dizzy with heady arousal. You’re wrecked underneath her hands.

Pliable. Malleable. She’s kissing and tugging and biting and you feel like you're on cloud nine. Everything was nothing but background noise to you. Her warm body pressed against your back, her hair resting over your shoulders, tattooed hands around your waist. It was only you two. In your own bubble. Blissful and domestic, draped over your back, soft hums sounding in your ear. Her veiny hands slot into yours, thumb rubbing affectionately against the heavy diamond ring on your ring finger. She lets out a pleased hum at you. “Oh, hello. Look at you go. Pretty rock on your finger for my pretty girl, huh, babe? Nice and shiny for ya—,”

And then it starts. Overlapping screams, frenzied scrambles. Illegal high rollers bolting for purchase to stay hidden, tables clattering. Chairs scattering. Glass breaks. The entire bar is swiped. Crystal whiskey glasses and bottles of aged wine pattering to the floor. A cacophony of wails and panicked grunts fills the air. And then the agents come in. Guns trained and pointed. Red beams scanning the room. Ellie swallows against your neck. She stands taller, yanking you up. She had always thrived on the edge, dancing between risk and rewards. This was a game she expertly knew how to play.

She knew how prison worked. Hell, she probably had minions tucked into every prison and jail in America. She disarms herself, sliding her handgun over the table before the agents got to you two. She pulled you close, kisses pressed against your temples. You knew what this meant.

She pushes you. Launches you into the steady stream of people scrambling to escape. The lights go out. It's dark, there's people screaming. You’re shoved into a flurry of pushing and crying. Blue and red lights flicker through the darkness.

You glance back.

She has every single agent’s red beam pointed at her forehead. They cuff her. Roughly. She makes eye contact with you through the chaos. Everything goes quiet. Ellie stands still where the agents try to hustle her out. There’s a Glock pressed against her temples. A bruise is blossoming where it presses against her head.

“I’ll be home soon. Hold it down for me, Bonnie.”

[ghettogirly]

Hey boo! I'm not sure if you're taking requests, but if you are, would you be willing to check this out?

I was thinking about a fresh out of prison Armando Aretas. He's been a little rough with you during sex, ever since he was released. Hurting you is definitely not his intention but he can't help but lose control after all this time away from you. It doesn't bother you at all but he still feels bad about his actions and wants to make it up to you. (Soft smut)

xblackfemalereader or femalereader would suffice.

This is for the freaks! Okay, I'm out.💋💋

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𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐨́𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚..

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᯾ 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎 𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐒 𝐗 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

᯾ synopsis: Armando couldn’t wait to return back to you after being freshly broken out of prison, wanting to come back home and to cherish you again was all that he wished for. However, he certainly didn’t wish to hurt you either.

᯾ theme: angst with a happy ending, smut.

᯾ format: story.

᯾ warnings: sex, mentions of escaping prison, armando is a rough during sex, mature language, reader gets hurt during sex, use of a safe word.

᯾ authors note: i hope you enjoyed!! This is my longest story yet, sorry it took so long, i added so many different elements.

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𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐎𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐁𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆, this was a normality within the institution as the men went crazy being locked in their cell for 23 hours a day. Their brains slowly turning insane at the routine of staring at white walls while the day goes by. Men turned into animals here, feeling as if they’re in a cage, they had nothing else to cast out their anger on.

Animalistic screams were scattered around the block of cells as the prison warden took no notice, sitting down on his chair with his hat covering his eyes as his head was down. Clearly taking no notice of the cameras. Casually walking over to the welded steel door, Armando looked through the tiny screen on his door, looking around as far as the tiny little screen within the door let him. He was used to the chaos, however, that didn’t mean it got any less annoying.

Yet, today was the day.

Plopping his magazine on his bed, he walked around to his shower room. Armando crouched down slightly. Pushing his fingers through the small steel gaps of the tiny vent in his cell, he opened it, taking out a match. “aquí tienes…”

His prison flip flops created a smack on the concrete floor as they connected. Whistling, he looked up at the camera while messing about with it in his hand. Wasting no time, A whoosh of light appeared before him as the flame quickly ignited and started moving slowly down the little stick. “Hasta el fuego.” Throwing the match onto his bed, he ran into the shower and disappeared down the hole.

Below the hole was a motorcycle waiting for him , with some cartel members side by side. Jumping on the blacked out bike, armando revved his aggressively before driving off. “Vamos! ¡No tenemos tiempo!” The other men nodded before quickly following their boss.

𝐒𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐑𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐄𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐋𝐃. Armando’s orange jumpsuit clung to him as the fibres shrunk due to the contact of the rain above, now displaying his buff physique. Alarms were heard blaring in the distance, presumably because of the chaos he left behind.

Regardless, he kept his pace, running to a remote location within the field. His cartel organised a chopper for him there, to safely secure him back at the mansion. Branches snapped as he jumped over them or threw them out the way, Armando stayed alert.

Left. Right. Up. Behind.

Every area had to be surveilled. No witnesses. No police.

Finally reaching the location, a chopper was there awaiting him. A member stepped out to greet him, yet, there was no time for that. “¡Súbete al puto avión!” The male shouted, ordering his men as he signalled the pilot to engage. Some cartel members were still far behind. “Tsk.”

Bolts of light flashed among the mexican faces as bullets made of hardened steel penetrated the bodies of the workers still running to the helicopter, knocking them down one by one, the male angled his arms with ease. Looking through the scope, he released each bullet one by one, none of them being able to escape this fate. BANG! BANG! BANG!

“If they can’t keep up, leave them in the dirt.”

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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐎𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐀𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐑𝐔𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐀𝐍̃𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐒. Twirling his ring around, all he could think about was his wife. You was the light of his world. Staying with him through thick and thin, you even gave up your dream of a beautiful wedding by marrying him in prison.

He was coming back home now though, ready to give you the world baby.

Satisfied with the life Armando already gave you, each day you thanked the heavens that he was still alive. It was painful, seeing him locked up. Yet, it would’ve been worse placing down his casket six feet under. 𝐌𝐈𝐗𝐄𝐃 𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓, travelled through your system as amygdala integrated your emotions with the other areas of your brain. He was coming back.

“Ma’am he’s here.”

“Jefe, estamos aquí.”

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐈𝐑 𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐌𝐈𝐀𝐌𝐈. Cartel members swiftly moved to the door, opening it, revealing the muscular leader. Splashes of dirt imprinted the orange jumpsuit due to the dampness of the forest. It had slight rips in it, clear signs of getting caught onto nature.

Armando slowly made his way out of the chopper, slowly analysing all his workers as they waited for his approval. “Es bueno estar de vuelta.” Bottles were popped as loud cheers were heard from the whole crowd, who walked over to greet him. He gave handshakes and side hugs to his most loyal “friends.”

𝐀 𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐀𝐒 𝐃𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐃. “Finally you’re home!” Running up to him, you jump in his arms as they wrap around you, leaning in for a kiss. “ive te perdió..” Armando whispers, feeling your scent flow over his senses, bringing him a sense of comfort. Looking up at you with love in his eyes, he licks his lips, “Maldita sea, no puedo esperar para quitarles la ropa.”

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𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎 𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐈𝐍 𝐁𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐍 𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍 𝐀𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐏𝐄𝐄𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐔𝐋𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒, 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐃𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍. His heavy arm laid on your thighs, sleeping at an angle due to his constant movement while sleeping. Clearly he was not used to being in a comfortable bed, transitioning from prison conditions to luxurious conditions being a massive jump.

Yet, you felt strange. Your body felt sore due to the sudden use of muscles contracting while keeping up with Armando’s rough pace. Maybe it was the prison system that made him more aggressive, maybe it was the excitement. Who knows?

Nevertheless, you brushed it off. Not wanting to overthink all the possibilities of the sudden change in his sexual stance the night before. This was a moment to enjoy life, not dwell on it.

Removing the pink, silk bonnet that rested on top of your head, protecting every curl from breakage, they spilled out. Resting beautifully on your shoulders. It was frizzy at the roots due to the intensity of last night, the sweat causing the curls to become puffy, but that’s not nothing a little mousse can’t fix. Messing about with your curls as you was lost in thought, you felt a gentle press to your shoulder.

“está bien?”

You nodded, not really feeling the need to tell Armando about your thoughts from the night before, not wanting to concern him on his first morning being free from the cage he used to be contained in. “Never been better.” Planting a kiss on your lips, he smiled at your reply, not thinking anything of it as he was essentially on cloud nine. “Ven a acostarte con-“

A loud buzz reverberated off of the oak bedside table, a loud groan was made by the male as he slowly rolled over to pick it up. Swiping the green button, he answered. “¿Por qué coño me llamas tan temprano en la mañana?” You chuckled at his blunt answer, typical Armando.

A sigh escaped your husband’s lips, clearly annoyed at the shit he had to deal with so early in the morning. Placing the phone down he looked over at you, “tengo que irme..”, annoyance was plastered all over his face.

“That’s fine, i’ll be waiting here for you anyways babe.” You said gently, kissing his cheek and then his lips. Wrapping his arms around you, he leans for another kiss. and another. and another. “You need to go..”

“¿Realmente tengo que???”

Chuckling you lightly hit his arm, “Go and get up.”

“Ya no me amas?”

A pillow was then flung towards his head.

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𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝟏𝟎𝐏𝐌 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐎𝐑 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍. Armando had blood splatters on his white-collared shirt. The first two buttons were undone as he coordinated the outfit with black pants, he was looking sexy but that wasn’t the point. “What happened?” Asking in a panic as you walk up to him to check if he’s okay. “Estoy bien, no te preocupes.”

He walked into the bathroom, taking off his shirt and pants as he threw them into the wash basket. Walking back out, half naked. You couldn’t take your eyes off him, the scars tattooed all over his body due to the violent nature of the cartel being a sad story to tell, but sexy to look at.

𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆: 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄 - 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐙𝐀

“Súbete a la cama, princesa.”

Wasting no time, you did as you were told, stripping off your clothes. Slowly crawling onto the bed you laid down, spreading your legs as he got in between you. Tracing his finger up and down your clit, your wetness coating his finger. “Stop-“ Not even having time to finish your sentence, he pushed a finger in, making you gasp.

Pumping it in and out, you writhed under him at the pleasure he’s inflicting upon you. “Oh fuck!”

He slowly lowered himself down by your clit, still pumping in that finger. You felt his hot breath on your lower area, sending down electrical impulses throughout your nervous system, diffusing through your synapses. A wet object then placed itself upon your clit, circling it.

Armando licked stripes up and down,

making you moan in pleasure, tugging on his hair as you urge him to do more. “I can’t..”

“Puede.” Lifting himself up from that area, he pulls his finger out from you, putting it in his mouth and tasting you. Repositioning himself, he lines up his cock with your pussy before pushing himself in, stretching you out. A sharp flash of pain struck you before quickly dying back down. Armando didn’t seem to notice and slowly started thrusting for about 5 seconds before increasing his speed.

It was somewhat animalistic as he roughly thrusted into you, clearly taking his anger out on your body. It was satisfying at first, but then, his pace got faster. His grip becoming harder. “Armando!” You shouted, but he was still caught up in the overwhelming feeling of being inside of you.

“Cherry! Cherry!”

That’s when he noticed and stopped., quickly pulling out of you “¿Te lastimaste?”

“Estoy bien, todavía estoy adolorido de la otra noche.”

You noticed the pained expression that plastered his face. “Lo siento, lo siento-“

Holding his face in his hands, you look at him with a passion in your eyes. “I know you never meant to hurt me. Stop blaming yourself so much.”

Armando looked at you and nodded, before lifting you up and carrying you to the bathroom.

𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐔𝐁𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐇, he slowly stroked your face as you relaxed against him. “Perdoname quierda.” He whispered.

“Don’t worry, i already have.”

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[🕷️] 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒:

“aquí tienes…” : there it is..

“Vamos! ¡No tenemos tiempo!” : Let’s go! We don’t have time!

“¡Súbete al puto avión!”: Get on the fucking plane!

Los campañeros: Their companions.

“Jefe, estamos aquí.”: Boss, we are here.

“Es bueno estar de vuelta.”: It’s good to be back.

“Te extrañé” I missed you.

“No puedo esperar para quitarme esta ropa”: I can’t wait to take these clothes off.

“está bien?” : You okay ?

“Ven a acostarte con-“ : Come sleep with-

“¿Por qué coño me llamas tan temprano en la mañana?”: Why the fuck are you calling me so early in the morning?

“tengo que irme..”,: I have to go

“¿Realmente tengo que???” : Do i really have to ???

“Ya no me amas?” You don’t love me?

“Estoy bien, no te preocupes.” : I am fine, don’t worry.

“Acuéstate en la cama, princesa.” : Lie on the bed princess.

“Puede.” : You can.

“¿Te lastimaste?” : Are you hurt?

“Estoy bien, todavía estoy adolorido de la otra noche.” : I’m fine, i’m still sore from the other night.

“Lo siento.” : I’m sorry.

“Perdoname quierda.”: Forgive me, love.

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[🕷️] 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @milliumizoomi @shurisgf @tyneshaaa @sarcasticbitchsblog @amplifiedmoan @wizewhispers @5tarlan7 @thedarkworldofhananerea @armandosbabymama @dyttomori @deadpool15

[duskidolsmut]

"Betrayed and Fucked"

Irene, a battle-hardened lesbian secret agent with a razor-sharp desire, endures a nightmare of handcuffs and brutal sex that tears through flesh and soul. Betrayed and pushed to the edge, she turns violence into power, vowing a revenge as savage as the pleasures that scarred her.

Tags: DarkFic, EnemiesToLovers, BDSM, LesbianForcedSeduce, SexualRevenge, DirtyTalk, SizeKink, AfterSex, BrutalSex

W: 4.533

Irene, a secret agent who leads a double life. At 33 years old, she is pure elegance and danger – a predator who hides a breathtaking body under impeccable suits and a smile that disarms and dominates in equal measure.

Her long, silky black hair falls over delicate shoulders, framing that doll-like face – full lips that have already drawn sighs and moans, eyes that capture you with a look and hands that know exactly where to squeeze, loaded with a magnetic glow that has already made women writhe in moans of ecstasy, legs trembling under her touch. Her reputation in espionage circles is legendary: a mind as sharp as her tongue, capable of deciphering codes and bodies with equal ease.

Away from missions, Irene lives for the forbidden. Her encounters with lovers—always women—are intense and clandestine, a refuge where she surrenders herself without restraint, her fingers tracing damp curves, the salty taste of female skin ingrained in her memory. But at work, she is relentless, a shadow that glides among the powerful, collecting secrets like trophies. Her current assignment has taken her to the heart of a criminal organization that traffics sensitive data between governments and cartels, a network as slippery as the sweat that runs down the back of her neck on hot nights. Undercover for months, she has built a perfect facade—until the betrayal.

The blow comes from an ally, a familiar face she never suspected, and now Irene is vulnerable. She wakes with a snap in her mind, her body heavy, the damp, fetid air of an underground room invading her nostrils. The dim light of a pendant lamp reveals stained concrete walls, the cold floor beneath her torn boots. Her wrists, thin but strong, are bound by icy steel handcuffs, the metal biting into her white skin and leaving red marks that burn with every movement. The sound of the chains clanking echoes like a warning. She lifts her chin, her disheveled hair falling over her face, and stares at her captor.

Before her stands Levi, a mountain of a man, nearly seven feet tall, his muscles defined beneath a dirty T-shirt that barely contains his broad chest. His hands are rough, calloused like sandpaper, thick fingers that seem made for breaking bones—or gripping flesh. His short, disheveled hair frames a rough, scarred face, and his eyes, small and dark, devour her with a raw, almost animal hunger. He stares at her as if she were a banquet, his heavy breathing filling the air with the smell of tobacco and sweat. Irene feels the weight of his gaze sliding over her body—from the curve of her breasts beneath her torn blouse to the firm thighs squeezed by her leather pants.

The basement stank of mold and dried blood, an acrid smell that clung to the nostrils like a rotten memory. The light from the single hanging bulb wavered like a dying heart, casting quivering shadows on the damp walls—slender, twisted shapes that looked like hungry fingers crawling over Irene’s body, tracing the contours of her exposed skin. She was on her knees on the rough floor, the concrete scraping her soft flesh through her torn stockings, but there was no defeat in her posture. The tight black latex dress—the last vestige of her identity as the seductive undercover agent—clung to her like a second skin, glistening in the dim light, every curve of her body outlined in sinful detail. Her pert breasts strained against the fabric, her hardened nipples marking the latex like a silent invitation, while her hips lifted in a promise that Levi devoured with his eyes, the saliva almost visible in his half-open mouth.

“You’re going to die here,” he growled, his voice rough as concrete being dragged, low enough to vibrate in her chest. Levi stepped forward, his heavy boots echoing on the floor, the smell of sweat and metal rising from him like raw steam.

Irene laughed, a low, wet sound that dripped from her throat like poisoned honey, reverberating in the claustrophobic space. She lifted her chin with deliberate slowness, her black hair falling in sweaty strands over her shoulders, framing her pale face where her swollen lips—bruised from biting down to contain her moans as he dragged her here—gleamed a wet red. Her thin wrists twisted against the handcuffs, the cold metal creaking, but it wasn’t an attempt to escape—it was a spectacle. She wanted him to see, to feel the power that still emanated from her, even in chains. His eyes locked on the movement, and she felt the heat of his gaze slide down her skin like a dirty caress.

“Are you sure?” Irene let the words escape like smoke, slow and heavy, each syllable a thread of desire wrapped in threat. Her eyes met his, a glint of defiance dancing in them, while her tongue slid subtly over her lower lip, leaving a wet trail that caught the light.

Levi was brutal, yes—a wall of bone and muscle, the kind of man who crushed before he thought. But Irene knew creatures like him: brute-force machines with small brains and hungry dicks, with no imagination beyond what they could grasp. She, on the other hand, was made of more refined vices, of pleasures she shaped into weapons. Her fingers, still stained with traces of red lipstick from a past lover and dried blood beneath her short nails, slid up her thigh with torturous slowness. The latex cracked beneath her touch, the sound cutting through the silence like a whip as she spread her legs slightly, the black fabric stretching against her firm flesh, revealing the damp contour between her thighs—not from weakness, but from a game she was mastering.

“I can give you something better than information…” Her whisper was a razor’s edge between her teeth, sharp and seductive, laden with a promise that made the air between them grow thick. She leaned forward, enough so that the scent of her skin—a mix of expensive perfume and fresh sweat—hit him like a slap.

Levi spat on the floor, a clumsy attempt to maintain control, but his dark eyes already betrayed his facade. They lowered to her mouth, to those swollen lips that seemed to beg for something crueler than words, and Irene saw his pulse quicken in his exposed jugular, a vein pulsing beneath the rough skin of his neck. He was hooked, even if he didn’t know it yet. His chest rose and fell faster, the growing bulge in his pants betraying what she already knew: he might be her captor, but she was the poison that would kill him from the inside, one bite at a time.

Levi’s first move was brutal—a savage tug on the latex collar that made Irene gasp, the sound escaping hoarsely from her throat as the material stretched to its limit, giving way with an obscene snap that echoed in the basement like a muffled scream. The fabric tore in jagged strips, revealing Irene’s pale skin, now flushed with a mix of cold and adrenaline, her pores standing out as if begging for touch. Beads of sweat glistened on her exposed collarbone, trickling slowly down to the valley between her breasts. Levi paused for a second, his eyes glazed over the newly discovered flesh, his chest rising like that of a starving animal.

“You think you’re too smart, don’t you?” — He growled, his deep voice scratching the air, full of contempt and something dirtier.

Irene didn't respond with words. Her abdominal muscles contracted reflexively, defined under her smooth skin, when his rough hand grabbed the torn fabric and pulled harder, the sound of the latex breaking mingling with the jingling of the handcuffs. Her black lace bra appeared like an exposed secret—the last vestige of her real self, a delicate piece that contrasted with the brutality around her. Her nipples, betrayed by the biting cold of the basement, hardened under the thin lace, pointing like accusations against the almost transparent fabric. She hated that reaction, the heat that rose from her chest to her neck, but she couldn't help the tingling that snaked across her skin.

—You're enjoying it, are you? — Levi laughed, a hoarse and cruel laugh, while his calloused fingers, rough as stone, crushed her waist with enough force to leave purple marks. He lifted her off the ground in one rough motion, slamming her against the wall with a thud that reverberated in her bones. The cold concrete scraped against her bare back, and the handcuffs cut deeper into her wrists, the metal biting until she felt the wet heat of blood running down in thin rivulets.

Irene smiled, her swollen lips parted, the bright red shining like a fresh wound. “You only know how to use force… what a shame,” she said, her voice low and sharp, dripping with sarcasm. And then, with deliberate precision, she lifted her thigh, rubbing it against his groin. The rough denim brushed against her skin, and she felt the hard bulge pulsing beneath the fabric, hot and insistent. Levi held his breath, a growl caught in his throat, his eyes darkening even further.

She hated touching him—his scent, a mix of stale sweat and raw testosterone, invaded her nostrils like an affront. But her body, trained by years of missions and pleasures, reacted on instinct. It was a machine she had perfected on other bodies—feminine bodies, soft and moist, that yielded beneath her fingers with delicate moans. Now, he betrayed her with this brute. Levi thought he had control of everything, that he had her in the palm of his hand, until Irene leaned in, her lips brushing his ear, her breath hot against his rough skin. “Do you want to see me beg?” Her voice was a sweet, lethal poison, while her hips moved in a slow, undulating rhythm, a ballet of seduction that she had always mastered.

Heat rose up her thighs, where his thick, muscular leg pressed her against the wall, his jeans scratching her exposed skin like a rough promise. The remaining latex clung to the sweat that trickled between her breasts, the shiny fabric catching the wavering light in wet reflections. Levi couldn’t resist – his hand came up, his calloused fingers gripping one of her breasts, squeezing the nipple through the lace with a force that was almost painful. Irene clenched her teeth, the air hissing between them, but the shock of pleasure and pain shot like electricity through her body, making her legs tremble against her will. Her clit throbbed, a hot, wet betrayal that she felt growing between her thighs, the fabric of her panties soaked through what was left of the latex.

"Looks like the little slut got wet…" Levi growled, his tone full of mockery and triumph, as he thrust two thick fingers into her mouth, forcing them against his tongue. She closed her lips reflexively, her sharp teeth brushing against his skin, the salty taste of dirt and power invading her. Irene wanted to spit, but her body was already arching on its own, her back curving forward, her hips seeking friction against his thigh as if they were a separate entity from the mind that screamed no. The heat between her legs was unbearable, a throbbing that made her clench her fists in the handcuffs until her nails dug into her palms. She knew how to play this game - even when every fiber of her lesbian soul rebelled against the desire he was tearing from her.

The sound of the latex tearing to the end echoed like a gunshot in the basement, a dry and final crack that reverberated off the damp walls, marking the end of the last barrier between Irene and Levi's brutality. He didn't uncuff her – he wanted her immobile, he wanted her at his mercy, her wrists tied above her head, the metal of the handcuffs digging into her flesh until blood dripped in dark drops onto the floor. But Irene wasn't at the mercy of anything. Even chained, her body was a weapon, and she knew how to use it.

Her breasts sprang free of the destroyed fabric, her swollen pink nipples throbbing from the friction against the latex, sore and sensitive in the cold air that licked them. Her pale skin shone with a thin layer of sweat, the muscles of her abdomen trembling subtly as she took a deep breath. Levi spat directly on her, the hot, viscous liquid hitting the space between her breasts, dripping slowly like a dirty caress down to her navel. He laughed, his husky voice cutting through the air. “The spy queen, now she’s just another grinning slut.”

Irene didn’t moan. She arched. Her body formed a perfect curve, a living sculpture of desire and defiance—her wrists bleeding from the handcuffs, her hips lifted like an offering, her soaked black lace panties clinging to her nether lips, the sheer fabric revealing every swollen, wet contour. Levi saw it, his dark eyes widening with hunger, and she knew he saw it. She felt the weight of his gaze like a physical touch, moving down her trembling thighs to the heat that betrayed her facade.

— Do you want to break me? — She repeated, her voice now blurred, hoarse with someone who wanted to be forced to like me, each word dripping with a desire she despised feeling. — Then break me.

Levi didn't need any more invitation. His hand descended like lightning, thrusting under her panties with brute force, his calloused fingers finding slick heat, resistance and a moan that Irene trapped between her teeth, her lips trembling as she fought the sound. He rubbed his fingers against her lips, parting them, his thumb brushing her swollen clit with a pressure that made her hips rise involuntarily. She hated every second of it – his smell, his weight, the invasion – but her body vibrated, her nerves on fire, betraying her with a pulse she couldn't control. HER SMILE, HOWEVER, NEVER FELL, a thread of defiance shining on her swollen lips as she stared at him.

He ripped off his shirt in one swift movement, throwing it to the floor, the fabric falling with a wet sound. Irene looked away for a moment – ​​he was huge, a mountain of sculpted muscles, his broad, toned chest covered in a layer of dark hair, his shoulders broad as if they could crush her with their weight alone. She swallowed hard, her mind spinning: Would he kill her? But then he finished undressing her, tearing off the remains of the latex and panties with his hands, leaving her completely naked, exposed, her goosebumps contrasting with the heat emanating from her core.

Levi knelt, his lips brushing her navel, his thin beard scratching her sensitive skin as he left a hot, wet trail. Irene felt her knees give way, her body weakening against her will, a low moan escaping her as he moved higher, his mouth tracing a torturous path down her abdomen, between her breasts, until it grazed the base of her neck. He opened his mouth and licked, his rough, wide tongue sliding over her skin, the salty taste of sweat and arousal filling him. She moaned loudly, pleasure ripping through her body like a knife, her thoughts spinning: What was this feeling? Why was he making her feel this way?

Suddenly, he gripped her thighs tightly, his nails digging into the soft flesh as he spread her legs, exposing her dripping slit to the cool air. Liquid ran down her inner thighs, glistening in the dim light, and Levi groaned, a guttural, ecstatic sound, his hungry eyes fixed on her arousal. He descended upon her like a predator, his mouth crashing against her swollen, wet lips, his tongue invading her without hesitation. Irene pulled at the handcuffs, the metal cutting deeper, her body writhing as he licked with animalistic voracity, sucking on her lips, diving as deep as he could, his nose brushing her clit as he drowned in her taste and smell—a sweet, musky scent that drove him wild.

Her body was on fire, pulsing all over, the heat rising in waves that made her fingers curl in the handcuffs. She writhed, but fell weakly under his tongue, the muscles in her thighs trembling as he controlled her in every way. Irene closed her mouth, trying to stifle her screams of pleasure—he didn't deserve to hear her, didn't deserve this victory. But the sounds escaped muffled by her closed lips, the pleasure building like a storm she couldn't stop. He moved his tongue in and out, licking her clit in quick circles as he left, and she arched her back involuntarily, her entire body reacting to his whim. Why this? Why him? She didn’t know, didn’t understand – she could only feel it, the moans tearing from her throat: “Uhhnnnhhh… N-n-no!” she tried to say, but the words were lost in a hoarse scream.

Then, suddenly, her entire body exploded in an overwhelming orgasm. She screamed, the sound echoing in the basement as he licked and sucked her with a roughness that prolonged each spasm. Her thighs shook violently, the liquid dripping harder, staining the floor as she came undone. Levi stood up, his lips glistening with her, and looked down at her sweaty, heaving body – her breasts rising and falling rapidly, her skin marked with redness, her eyes half-closed. She stared at him, her chest heaving, and saw the corner of his mouth lift in a crooked, satisfied smile. Irene swallowed hard, the bitter taste of defeat mixing with the ecstasy that still pulsed through her veins. Exhausted, she slumped against the wall, her body limp.

He leaned down to kiss her jaw and neck, his warm, moist lips brushing the sensitive skin just below her ear, a cruel contrast that made Irene's hair stand on end in anticipation of the chaos she knew was coming. His breath, heavy with tobacco and raw desire, warmed the curve of her neck, and for a moment she almost gave in to his false tenderness. But then he pulled away, his dark eyes shining with something wild, and he began to remove his pants with quick, sloppy movements. Irene gasped, her breath catching in her throat—he was grotesquely large, a menace of swollen, pulsing flesh that hung between her legs like a living weapon. Thick veins snaked beneath the taut skin, their length and width defying any logic of resistance. For a brief moment, desperation shone in her eyes, a flash of vulnerability that she hated to have missed.

Levi gripped her thighs with hands that didn't ask for permission, his calloused fingers digging into the soft flesh like claws, opening her with a force that made her muscles protest. He held her like a book he wanted to rip open, the pages of her body exposed and vulnerable under his hungry gaze. His tip—hot, thick, already dripping with a translucent drop—pressed against her lower lips, brushing them with torturous slowness, teasing her as he watched her every reaction. His eyes fixed on her expression, on her furrowed brows, her parted lips, on the way her chest rose too quickly.

"Stop…" Irene moaned, the word escaping weakly, almost a whisper, but her body already betrayed the lie. The heat between her thighs pulsed with raw need, her swollen, slick lips opening slightly for him, begging against every fiber of her mind.

And then— He entered her in a single brutal movement, a blow that tore through the air and her body at the same time. Irene screamed, the sound tearing through her throat as the handcuffs clanked violently, the chains slamming against the metal table he had thrown her on. He was too big, too deep—every inch of him stretched her to the limit of pain, her inner muscles giving way under his relentless invasion. She felt him throb inside her, hot and solid, filling her in a way that seemed impossible, the pressure against her inner walls eliciting ragged gasps from her lips. Moisture dripped down her thighs, her body surrendering even as her mind fought.

“You’re tearing me apart…” She gasped, her voice shaking, her eyes half-closed as she tried to process the mixture of agony and pleasure coursing through her. She no longer knew whether to beg for him to stop or for more, her words dissolving into moans as her hips reflexively lifted to meet him. Levi gave her no choice. He began to move, slowly at first, each thrust calculated to slide deep, making her feel every bulging vein, every hard curve of him brush against her. The friction was unbearable, a fire that burned and ignited at the same time. Her eyes widened, her mouth parted as hoarse moans escaped her, echoing in the basement, the sound mixing with the creaking of the table beneath their weight. He watched her, his teeth bared in a sadistic smile, as he controlled the pace, savoring the way she writhed beneath him.

And then the pace changed. Fast. Brutal. Uncontrollable. Levi gripped her thighs tighter, his nails digging into the skin until he left purple crescent-shaped marks, lifting her with each thrust as if he wanted to break her in half. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the basement—a wet, rhythmic slap that mingled with his guttural groans, low as thunder, and her short, sharp squeals, escaping against her will. The table creaked beneath the violence, the cold metal biting into her back as he fucked her with a ferocity that knocked the air from her lungs.

“You’re so fucking tight…” He groaned, his voice broken, his eyes fixed on the place where they connected. He watched, mesmerized, as she swallowed him whole, her lips stretched around him, liquid dripping in shiny strands that stained the table and her thighs. The wet heat enveloped him, squeezing him with every movement, and he growled like an animal, lost in the sensation.

Irene wouldn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her orgasm hit her like a runaway train, a burst of white light that burned behind her eyes and tore her body to shreds. She screamed wordlessly, without control, a primal sound that reverberated off the walls as her thighs shook violently, her inner muscles squeezing him hard enough to draw a grunt from him. Pleasure tore through her, brutal waves that made her writhe, but Levi didn't stop—he kept fucking her through the climax, each thrust prolonging the waves until she was gasping for air between ragged moans, her wrists bleeding more beneath the handcuffs.

Only then, when she was limp and trembling, her exhausted body hanging from the chains like a broken puppet, did Levi allow himself to fall into the abyss. He buried himself all the way in, his hips pressed against hers, a guttural growl escaping his throat as he poured himself inside her. The thick, hot heat gushed out in strong pulses, filling her to overflowing, the excess running in sticky strands down her thighs, dripping onto the floor in a wet, obscene sound. Irene felt every spurt, every spasm of him inside her, and she moaned softly, her body still pulsing around him, gripping him even as she tried to recover.

He remained there for what seemed like an eternity, his chest heaving, his cock slowly softening inside her, the viscous liquid continuing to leak in a slow, warm stream. When Levi finally pulled away, the wet sound of separation echoed in the silence, and he stared at her with a satisfied, heavy gaze, his lips curved in a smile of victory. Her body was marked—redness on her thighs, blood on her wrists, sweat and semen staining her skin—but Irene’s eyes, when they met his, were already clear again. Cold. Calculating. The pleasure had passed, but the game was only just beginning.

Levi was wet with sweat, his chest still rising and falling rapidly as he collapsed beside her on the table, his muscles relaxed. The flash drive slipped from his pocket, falling to the floor with a metallic click.

Irene watched.

And then, she laughed.

A cold, sharp sound, like broken glass.

“Is that what you called fucking?” — Her voice was hoarse with moans, but filled with a contempt that made Levi rise up on one elbow.

He opened his mouth to respond, but there was no time.

The handcuffs he thought held her were already in her hands—a piece of chain broken during sex, sharp as a blade.

— I'll teach you now. She moved like lightning—his legs still limp, his reflexes slowed by orgasm. The metal loop tightened around his neck before he could scream.

Levi grabbed her wrists, but Irene was already on top, her knees crushing his shoulders, her body still hot and marked by him now her instrument of death.

— This is how you fuck properly, — she whispered, coiling the chain until his knuckles were purple.

He struggled, his eyes wide, his tongue like a dog's. She watched. Every last tremor.

Every last breath.

The basement air still smelled of sex and mold, Levi’s viscous liquid running down her thighs in warm rivulets that dripped onto the floor as she stood, her legs weak but determined. She found the keys to the handcuffs in his shirt pocket, tossed in a corner, and freed herself with a click that sounded like a promise. Before she fled, Irene pulled on Levi’s coat—his scent still clinging to her skin—and grabbed his phone from the floor. She grabbed his phone, her fingers sliding across the bloodstained screen—not hesitantly, but filled with a fury that made her veins throb.

Then the last video opened.

Seulgi.

The cat-like eyes that Irene had once traced with her lips, the mouth that had whispered “I love you” against her bare skin. But there, on the screen, she wore a crooked smile, her eyes glazed and dilated with addiction, as she grabbed an envelope of cash from the dirty hands of one of Levi’s henchmen.

“Did you know she paid me with the profits from the sale?” said the note stuck to the video. “She bought that new shit that’s eating away at her. Pathetic, huh?”

The scene continued, cruel. Seulgi handed over the flash drive – the most secret parts of Irene, the moans that only she knew – and laughed, the hoarse voice of someone who no longer cared.

Irene felt something shatter inside her. It wasn’t the handcuffs – already broken. It wasn’t the flesh – already desecrated. It was something Seulgi had stolen and sold, something she would now pay to have back.

With firm fingers, she put away her cell phone. The basement was crackling with flames behind her when she left, but the inferno in her chest burned brighter. She imagined Seulgi on her knees, begging, her body exposed and vulnerable – and Irene would take her, not with love, but with the same brutality that betrayal deserved.

Two debts to collect.

And Irene always collected… with pleasure and punishment.

[iraot]

Dead On Paper

Pairing: Dawnbreak/Zayne x f!reader Summary: He is hired to kill her, but realized he was born to protect her instead. Genre: Romance, Some Smut, Blood, he's an ASSASSIN GUYS so just... he kills people. Word Count: 17, 896 AO3

A sealed, untraceable burner device chirps once—no vibration, no screen light, just a short mechanical tone sharp enough to pierce the hush of Zayne’s safehouse. He picks it up without hurry, thumbprint unlocking the message buried under four layers of encryption. Coordinates first. Then a face scan, timestamped, taken from a distance with low exposure. She’s walking near a market, head tilted to the sun like someone who’s never felt watched.

Target: a civilian woman. No priors. The file confirms it—no aliases, no history with black-market trades, no contact with arms or laundering circuits. Even her financial records look clean outside of a few late payments, nothing criminal. Her name’s been scrubbed from the brief, redacted by whoever ordered the kill. That’s unusual. Even high-profile jobs rarely erase the subject's name unless there’s heat somewhere.

Zayne narrows his eyes as he decrypts the secondary layer of metadata. The source trails back to a shell entity registered in Singapore—long dissolved on paper but active in deep channels. One of a thousand fake fronts tied to an old laundering tree used by both legacy cartels and the newer syndicate branches that spun off during the post-2008 chaos. He knows the kind. Family dynasties and private enforcers. The kind of people who issue death orders not to eliminate threats, but to humiliate those who failed them.

He reclines back in the steel-framed chair, fingers drumming once on the desk beside him. The image of the woman lingers on the cracked screen—arms full of greenery, face turned just slightly, mouth open in what looks like mid-laughter. Civilian. Young. Alive. And someone wants her very much not to be.

The reward is abnormally high—seven figures for a civilian who’s never touched a gun, never crossed a border under false papers, never whispered a name worth killing over. It makes him pause, green eyes narrowing on the screen like it might flinch under the scrutiny. This isn’t about threat mitigation or cleanup. This is punishment by proxy, and she’s the proxy—collateral born from blood ties to someone who fucked the wrong people and fled before the debt collectors came knocking.

Zayne leans forward, elbows on the metal desk, and reads the fine print again. No time limit. No discretion required. They don’t care how messy it gets. That confirms it—this is about spectacle, not silence. Someone wants her to disappear as a lesson carved into bone, left bleeding in the air as a warning to others who forget who they owe.

He exhales through his nose once, controlled and quiet, and types a single line of reply into the secured channel: I’ll handle it. Four words. Enough to signal acceptance, initiate payment escrow, and launch a countdown no one will trace back to him. But it isn’t final. Not yet. Zayne doesn’t pull triggers on photographs.

He scouts. Confirms. Decides. Always.

Zayne rents the unit under a fake name, cash only, no questions asked. It’s bare inside—concrete walls, no windows, stripped light fixtures. He brings in his own power supply, a collapsible chair, surveillance gear tucked into repurposed moving boxes labeled “kitchen” and “holiday lights.” Across the street, three ordinary-looking orange cones sit angled just right, each one housing high-res lenses wired into a portable server cooled by fans that hum beneath the drone of traffic.

For two weeks, he watches her from behind glass and code, logging everything with sniper precision. She opens the nursery each morning at exactly 6:45AM, sliding the gate open in one smooth motion before disappearing behind a veil of condensation and leaf-shadow. Her routine is seamless. Reliable. She starts her day with chamomile and mint tea in a chipped mug painted with violets, always held in both hands like it centers her.

She plays music through a speaker rigged near the herb section—first soft jazz, low saxophone and brushed percussion, then Spanish ballads after 9AM, lilting and sad. She hums sometimes, unconsciously, her mouth twitching with lyrics she doesn’t say aloud. Her lunch is always packed: boiled egg, vegetables, rice in a reused takeout container. Never any takeout. Never anything prepared by anyone but her.

She doesn’t answer phone calls. The burner she carries stays buried at the bottom of her bag, screen unlit, battery rarely above fifteen percent. Zayne tracks her movements through the rest of her week—short walks, two bus routes, no deviation. Once a week she slips into a hole-in-the-wall bookstore and leaves with worn paperbacks, crumpled bills exchanged with the owner in silence. No credit. No receipts. Just cash.

When her shift ends, she rides her rusted bike home with a basket full of trimmings and dented groceries, her fingernails dark with soil, her posture sagging with work. She greets no one. She never invites anyone in. And behind the nursery, under the old brick archway where vines have begun to grow wild, she kneels with a bowl of tuna for three stray cats—thin things with matted fur that purr when she speaks.

Zayne watches all of this. Records every minute. And finds nothing. No tail, no accomplices. No panic in her steps, no precautions. If she knows someone’s watching her, she hides it perfectly. But he doesn’t think she knows. She looks up sometimes at the sky, eyes wide like someone waiting for a better life to descend gently, green and growing, into her palms.

She’s crouched near a table of succulents, sleeves rolled up, hands dusted with potting soil, when a child comes barreling into the nursery. A boy, maybe five or six, wild curls and mismatched socks, clutching a bruised fern like it’s a treasure. He says something—Zayne can’t hear it through the feed, but her laughter rings out anyway, rich and spontaneous. She throws her head back just slightly, eyes crinkling, lips parted in a way that makes it unmistakable: it’s real.

Zayne blinks behind the scope, momentarily still. It takes longer than it should for his breathing to return to its usual rhythm. He shifts his position by instinct, recalibrating for line of sight, but the laugh echoes in his memory like an anomaly. It shouldn’t matter. It bothers him that it does.

She’s a target. That’s the refrain. Simple. Clean. She exists in this file for a reason—because someone, somewhere, decided her continued breathing was a liability. Zayne doesn’t ask why. Not usually. The 'why' makes the hand shake. Makes the bullet miss.

But something isn’t sitting right this time. Her routine is too open, too linear—no dead drops, no burner swaps, no subtle check-ins with strangers or mirrored surfaces. She doesn’t take alternate routes home. She doesn’t scan the street before she locks up at night. She walks like no one’s ever told her to be afraid. Like she doesn’t know that death is parked across the street in a borrowed van watching her finish a conversation with a six-year-old about aloe and water schedules.

She’s not avoiding being tracked. She’s not hiding. She doesn’t even know she’s being watched and that’s what makes it harder.

He enters the house at 2:14AM, lock bypassed in under four seconds, gloves on, eyes already mapping the interior like a living schematic. The place is small—one bedroom, no signs of luxury, no hidden compartments or surveillance. She sleeps in a bed without a headboard, covered by a faded quilt with stitched vines and leaves, the kind that looks handmade. He doesn’t linger. Just moves like smoke through each room until he finds what he’s looking for.

The shoebox is buried in the closet, tucked behind rain boots and a crate of broken ceramics. No lock, no alarm—just taped shut and sealed with old, half-peeled stickers. He opens it with a scalpel. Inside: a stack of unopened letters, official and bland, with seals from places like “Collection Units,” “Asset Adjustment Services,” and “Financial Intercession Groups.” Corporate euphemisms for legalized extortion. Some are printed on thick cardstock, others typed in sterile fonts, but they all have the same tone—pay what they owe, or we’ll extract it elsewhere.

He flips through them until the photographs start. Surveillance shots. A man and a woman—her parents. Stained shirts, glassy eyes, one of them half-smiling in a gas station mirror. Each image is stamped “DELINQUENT” in red ink. Beside it, a breakdown of debt portfolios: gambling, laundering, crypto fraud, unpaid smuggling tolls. One sheet reads $2.3 million outstanding. Another simply says: ASSET RECOVERY: ALL TIED.

Zayne stares at the handwriting below the photo.

Last known location: UNKNOWN.

So they went dark. Cowards who left their daughter as collateral.

She’s not part of the scam. She’s just the remaining name with a heartbeat. On paper, she’s tied into the debts—accidental proxy, inherited without consent. Her only crime is not covering their tracks for them.

He sits on the edge of her couch, documents spread like tarot cards across his lap, and exhales—slow, silent, like something sharp’s being drawn out of his chest. His code is old, quiet, carved into the marrow: no innocents. No children. No ghosts forced to carry the weight of other people’s bad decisions.

No one deserves to die for the sins of absentee, criminal bloodlines and no one gets to hunt her while he’s watching.

The rental sits to the left of her house, a sun-bleached skeleton with warped siding, blistered paint, and a roof that sighs in high wind. Zayne signs the lease as Elias Tan, a name clean enough to pass background checks and common enough to be forgettable. He doesn’t move in all at once—just a few boxes, a mattress, and the quiet thrum of tools unpacked with surgical precision. Each day he fixes something small: a cracked shingle, a leaking gutter, the stubborn back gate that swings open in storm wind.

He starts a garden along the fence line, nothing flashy—just cucumbers, rosemary, a few heirloom beans in salvaged planter boxes. The kind of thing you can ask advice about, even when you don’t need it. The soil is poor, so he tills it by hand, sweat running down the curve of his spine under worn cotton. It gives him something to do that looks honest.

She sees him for the first time on a humid Tuesday morning, dragging a twenty-pound bag of fertilizer across the gravel path, breath hitching at every uneven step. He’s trimming back lemon balm when he glances up. No words at first—just a look, held for a beat too long.

“You need a hand?” he asks, voice even. No smile. No pressure.

She shakes her head, arms locked around the bag. “Got it.”

He nods and steps back, she passes, and they leave it at that. Non-threatening. Just a neighbor with dirt under his nail a man who builds, instead of destroys.

The second time they speak, she catches him mid-morning, crouched beside a weather-beaten citrus tree he’s trying to revive. He’s trimming back curled, browning leaves with surgical snips, expression focused, hands steady. She walks by, slows, and tilts her head with the quiet confidence of someone who knows plants like they’re kin.

“You’re cutting too close to the node,” she says, nodding at the branch in his hand. “You’ll stress the stem.”

He looks up at her, eyes unreadable but attentive. “I thought it was rot.”

“It’s calcium deficiency,” she replies, stepping closer, brushing her thumb across one of the leaves. “Soil’s probably too acidic. Try crushed eggshells.”

He considers this, then asks, “You ever grafted from a lemon onto an orange base?”

That catches her off guard—in a good way. Her face brightens, eyes sparking like someone who didn’t expect to be taken seriously. “Yeah,” she says, grinning. “You’re braver than you look.”

He doesn’t respond, just returns to trimming, but there’s a flicker at the corner of his mouth, almost like amusement.

A week later, there’s a knock at his door. He opens it and finds her holding a woven basket filled with tangled sprigs of mint—wild, unruly, fragrant from several feet away.

“For tea,” she says, lifting it toward him. “Or whatever it is you drink after sunset.”

He takes it without hesitation. “I make chili jam,” he offers, stepping aside to retrieve a jar from his kitchen. “Want to try some?”

She perches on the edge of his porch while he unscrews the lid. There are no spoons, so she dips a finger directly into the thick, red mixture and brings it to her lips. She licks once, slow, thoughtful, then gasps quietly.

“Oh, that’s—hot,” she laughs, eyes wide. “But really fucking good.”

He says nothing. Just watches her mouth, the shine on her lower lip, the shape of her laugh as it curls out of her like steam. She talks for another minute or two, but he doesn’t hear much of it. Not really.

That image—her finger, her lips, the moment—lodges in his mind like a trigger half-pulled. He files it away with clinical care, like evidence but he doesn’t delete it.

The burner glows faint blue in the dark, a signal pulled through a quiet channel that only speaks in silence. Zayne uploads a high-resolution image of bloodied clothing—a hoodie similar to the one she wore last Tuesday, torn and stained with carefully applied theater blood. He pins it to GPS coordinates leading to an isolated burn site he used three years ago, a gravel pit ringed with trees and ash that no one patrols. No body. No teeth. Just enough residue to imply a conclusion.

The contract broker responds in under forty minutes. Confirmation flags appear, payment clears, and her profile gets an automated status: TERMINATED. Zayne watches the progress bar complete, then files the job under his real alias, Dawnbreaker—signed, sealed, archived with the others. She’s dead now, on paper. Dead enough that no one with a price list will come looking for her again.

He opens the encrypted archive, scrolls down to her original file, and deletes the biometric images from the kill folder. Gone, as protocol demands. But he copies one—the unedited one, the one where she’s smiling at a pigeon from across the street—and drops it into a buried partition in his personal archive. Just in case, he tells himself. Contingency. Not sentiment.

Still, when the screen fades to black, he doesn’t close the laptop right away.He just sits there, staring into the dark, and for once it doesn’t stare back. –

He learns her schedule like a melody—one note at a time, steady, familiar. Not for strategy or escape routes, not anymore. There’s no ambush in his mind, no scope tracking her from across the street. He memorized her routine the way a man memorizes the tide: because it matters to him, because its rhythm softens something he didn’t know needed softening.

She hums when she waters the plants, low and tuneless, like her thoughts are too full to keep silent. He hears it even from his yard, faint through the breeze, sometimes rising into fragments of a melody he never recognizes. She sways gently as she moves, trailing her fingers along leaf edges, like she’s reassuring them that she’ll be back tomorrow. It’s ritual, not work.

On slow afternoons, she reads pest control manuals with frayed spines and penciled notes in the margins. Half the time she forgets them outside, pages curling in the sun until he quietly gathers them and drops them off by her door. She never asks how they get back there. Just smiles, mutters “thank you, plant gods,” and tucks them under her arm like sacred texts.

When snails invade her violets, she crouches with a flashlight and whispers threats like a tired parent. “You little bastards better not touch my orchids,” she mutters, plucking them off one by one and dropping them gently into a tin. She keeps a kill count on a sticky note taped to the windowsill. He pretends not to smile when he sees it hit twelve.

One evening, she waves him over with dirt-streaked gloves and a furrowed brow. “Spider plant’s got something weird on its leaves,” she says, holding it out like a sick child. “You ever seen spots like this?” He leans in, fingertips grazing the edge of the pot, shoulder brushing hers. He tells her it’s fungal. She tells him she’s relieved it’s not a curse. He doesn’t correct her.

— It's late afternoon when the conversation slips past weather and watering schedules. They’re seated on her back porch, her feet bare and tucked under her, Zayne leaning against the railing with a glass of cold water in one hand. The sun is low, casting long gold stripes through the latticework, dust motes swirling in the light between them. She pulls her hair back absently and asks, “So what do you do, exactly? You’re too methodical for accounting, too quiet for customer service.”

He answers without hesitation, calm and rehearsed. “Freelance logistics. Short-term supply chain stuff. Inventory control.” It’s vague but plausible, the kind of job that sounds both boring and too technical to probe deeper. She nods like it makes sense and doesn’t ask more—not because she believes it entirely, but because she doesn’t want to ruin the quiet by making it heavy.

She’s silent for a moment, eyes scanning the small garden bed in front of them. Then she speaks without looking at him. “My parents disappeared six years ago. Took a bunch of other people’s money with them. Left me the mail, the debt collectors, and a name that doesn’t belong to anyone respectable anymore.”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t interrupt, just takes another drink and waits. She exhales slowly, like it costs her something. “I don’t hate them. I did for a while, sure. But mostly I don’t think about them now. It’s like… they were a dream someone else had, and I just woke up in the part where everything’s wrecked.”

He watches her, eyes unreadable but steady. “That’s a heavy inheritance,” he says.

“Yeah.” Her laugh is soft and dry. “Would’ve preferred land or a timeshare. Maybe a haunted watchtower or something. At least that comes with ghosts you can see.”

He doesn’t chuckle, but there’s a shift in his posture, something just shy of warmth. “Most people don’t talk about it like that.”

“Most people try to solve it,” she replies, glancing at him sideways. “Tell me to track them down, sue someone, write a letter, ‘process the trauma.’ You didn’t do any of that. You just… let it sit.”

He shrugs slightly. “Not everything needs fixing.”

She nods, a small smile flickering at the edge of her mouth. “That’s rare. Most men don’t know when to shut up.” He doesn’t say anything to that either. Just watches the way her shoulders loosen when she’s finally said too much and didn’t regret it.

The evening is quiet, heat bleeding off the pavement in slow waves, when she appears at her back door with her arm cradled awkwardly against her chest. She tries to wave him off with her good hand, downplaying it with a weak smile and a casual, “Clumsy me—smashed a pot. Got a little too aggressive with the shelving.” The gash is long, stitched but fresh, the skin around it red and taut, still swollen beneath gauze that’s already soaking through. Zayne says nothing, just nods once, but his eyes never leave the wound.

The cut’s too clean for a terracotta shard—too long, too precise, no drag marks or irregular tears that would come from jagged edges. She was cut with intent, not accident. She moves slower than usual, flinching when she bends, but hides it behind chatty small talk and jokes about tetanus shots. He offers her tea; she declines. Says she’s tired, just needs to sleep it off.

That night, after the neighborhood has gone dark, Zayne pulls a tablet from a false bottom in his tool chest and taps into the nursery’s security feed—something he wired on his second week without telling her. He scans back six hours. There’s a man in the footage, medium height, leather coat, mirrored glasses that don’t reflect the camera. He isn’t browsing. He’s cornering her near the back greenhouse, gesturing wildly while she stands still, arms crossed but shoulders tense.

The feed’s audio is too low for voices, but the body language tells enough—she tries to walk away twice, and both times he blocks her path. She finally pushes past him, hand gripping her forearm tightly, blood already soaking into her sleeve. The man leaves calmly, no rush, no panic, head down. Professional. Former debt collector, Zayne guesses—someone hired to rattle cages, remind her what happens when money owed goes unpaid or unforgotten.

Zayne closes the feed and deletes the last twenty-four hours. Not just the file, but the server metadata. Wiped. Gone. He sits back in the dark of his living room, lit only by the glow of the screen and the soft green flicker of the security router’s heartbeat.

He doesn’t plan revenge. Not yet.

But he writes down the man’s face. And he doesn’t forget.

The trail isn’t hard to follow—not when you know how collectors move, how they drink cheap coffee in laundromats and always overstay their welcome at low-end motels. Zayne pulls surveillance from street cams and ATM clusters, piecing together the man’s route through the city. Credit card pings lead to a port-side warehouse district full of abandoned freight, rusted chains, and stacked shipping containers that haven’t been checked in years. He gets there just after midnight, boots crunching over gravel, gloved fingers tracing the latch of a container with a scent that’s wrong—coppery and humid, like something that’s been left too long.

Inside, the collector is slumped against the back wall, head tilted unnaturally, arms bound with zip ties still cinched tight at the wrists. Blood pools beneath him, sticky and black. His tongue is missing, lips parted as if trying to scream even in death. There are no signs of struggle—just execution. The work is professional, deliberate. Someone wanted him silent, and someone wanted it understood.

Zayne crouches beside the body, eyes scanning the scene without emotion. He didn’t do this. That much is clear. No one kills like him—his method is cleaner, colder, a scalpel where this was a scalping knife. But this wasn’t random. Someone else followed the same scent trail, maybe smelled the same debt. Maybe decided this wasn’t about her anymore. Maybe it never was.

He rises slowly, shutting the container door behind him without leaving a trace. Back outside, the air feels heavier, thicker with something unseen. He doesn’t know who got to the man first.  

But he knows this much now: He’s not the only one watching her.

She knocks just past eleven, a soft, almost apologetic tapping against his doorframe. Rain sheets down behind her in cold, silvery lines, her hoodie soaked through, dark curls of wet hair plastered to her temples. Her fingers tremble around her phone, the screen dim and cracked, useless. “Power’s out,” she says, voice small, breath hitching. “And the storm’s freaking me out. I just… didn’t want to sit in the dark by myself.”

Zayne steps aside without a word, letting her pass into the warmth and light of his kitchen. He hands her a towel first, then a dry shirt, heavy with his scent, and turns to the stove without watching her change. She sits quietly while he brews tea, eyes following the motion of his hands, precise and sure. When he opens a drawer for a spoon, she spots the knitting needles tucked neatly beside utility tools, long metal ones with red-painted tips.

“You knit?” she asks, not teasing—just surprised, intrigued.

He doesn’t answer. Just closes the drawer again. She doesn’t press. The silence between them is soft, not awkward, and when he returns with two mugs, she accepts hers with a nod of thanks.

They sit on the couch, close, steam curling up between their hands. Her shoulder brushes his, light but unmistakable, and neither of them moves away. Outside, the storm cracks across the sky like bone splitting. Inside, she doesn’t flinch. She exhales slow, steady, then turns slightly and rests her head back against the cushion beside his. Doesn’t speak.

When she leaves an hour later, wrapped in a dry coat and steadier than when she arrived, she pauses in the doorway and smiles. Not wide. Not performative. Just quiet, real, like something settled. Zayne watches her cross the gravel back to her house, headlights from the streetlight flickering over her path.

He stares at the door for a long time after it closes

Not thinking. Just feeling.

Like something important nearly happened, and might again.

The night air is thick with late-summer damp, cool on sweat-slick skin but not enough to banish the warmth still radiating from the soil. Overhead, string lights stretch between two fences, swaying faintly in the breeze, casting broken amber light across the backyards. Zayne is crouched near the rosemary, the scent sharp on his hands as he trims back a branch with the precision of a surgeon. Across the narrow space, her silhouette shifts among tomato vines and sprawling mint, dirt clinging to her calves, hair tied messily off her neck, the fabric of her shirt sticking slightly at the small of her back.

They’ve been working like this for nearly an hour—no music, no conversation, just the clink of tools, the occasional rustle of plants being turned or watered. It’s quiet, but not sterile. Comfortable. Her presence is a soft hum in the background of his mind, rhythmic and grounding. He’s gotten used to it—her garden gloves tossed onto the fence post, the way she hums tunelessly when she concentrates, the soft curse when she finds aphids again on her basil. It’s not surveillance anymore. He isn’t watching. He’s just…near.

Then her voice slices gently through the quiet.

“Want to see something?”

He looks up, blinking, surprised by the interruption but not displeased. She stands near her porch, wiping her hands on a ragged kitchen towel. There’s dirt under her nails, smudges on her cheeks, and something lighter in her eyes. “The lavender finally came up,” she says, nodding toward a tray sitting under a makeshift UV lamp. “They’re tiny, but they made it. You said once you never bothered starting them from seed.”

He doesn’t remember saying it out loud, but he nods and follows her across the yard. Her porch creaks under their weight as she leads him toward the table where the tray rests, a grid of damp soil and fragile green shoots barely taller than a fingernail. She kneels beside it, gestures for him to come closer, and starts talking—explaining the mix she used, the spray bottle technique, the humidity dome she rigged out of an old cake cover.

As she looks up to speak again, the porch light catches on a streak of dirt across her cheek. Without thinking, Zayne reaches out. His thumb grazes her skin, a slow wipe from just below her eye to the edge of her jaw, lifting the smudge away in one clean stroke. Her breath catches. She doesn’t lean back.

Her eyes lock onto his, wide and startled—not in fear, but in sudden awareness. He’s still close, hand halfway raised, her skin warm where he touched it. She swallows, then says his name—soft, quiet, almost questioning.

“Zayne.”

He says hers in return. Low. Careful. Like it might break something if he isn’t gentle with it.

There’s a pause. The porch is quiet but for the rustle of nearby leaves and the gentle creak of the wind nudging the wood. Then she steps forward, slowly, her fingers brushing against the edge of his shirt as she closes the space between them. She rises onto her toes and presses her lips to his—light, cautious, but not uncertain. It’s not a question. It’s a confession wrapped in silence.

The kiss lingers. Just lips against lips, the soft, warm pressure of something new testing its weight. She tastes like mint and rain, and something delicate and unnamed trembles between them. He doesn’t deepen it. Doesn’t pull her in or press back harder. He simply lifts his hand again, cups her jaw with deliberate tenderness, thumb tracing along her cheekbone in a way that says he could destroy anything that dared harm her—but he won’t ever touch her like glass.

She pulls away first, breathing just a little heavier, her hand still hovering near his chest. She looks at him like she’s not sure what she just did, but doesn’t regret it. Her mouth opens—no words come. Instead, she exhales slowly and nods.

“I should—” she starts, then stops. “Goodnight.”

He answers, quiet but unshaken. “Goodnight.”

She leaves barefoot, dirt still clinging to her soles as she disappears down the steps and across the lawn. She doesn’t run, but she moves quickly, like something might stop her if she stays.

Zayne remains where she left him, hand still faintly warm, jaw tight. When he finally sinks back into the chair near the table, it creaks beneath him. His fists curl on his thighs, fingers digging in, knuckles white. He doesn’t turn off the porch light. He doesn’t sleep, not because of threat but because he can still feel her lips—gentle and unguarded—like a promise he didn’t deserve and couldn’t bear to break.

—

The evenings fall quiet by the time he shows up, arms full of rosemary, garlic scapes, lemon balm clippings wrapped in damp paper towels. She’s already boiling water or roasting something when he knocks, expecting him without ever saying she is. The kitchen is small but warm, the walls honey-colored with steam curling against the windowpanes, and the scent of earth and spice fills every corner. She gives him a wooden bowl to clean the herbs, humming softly as she stirs miso paste into broth or brushes oil over warm flatbread.

They eat at the small table near the back door, the one facing her little herb patch where wind chimes tangle softly in the breeze. Sometimes she asks if the thyme tastes too strong, or if the eggs cooked long enough, but mostly they eat in silence. It’s not awkward. It’s familiar—the kind of quiet that feels earned, like something shared rather than something missing.

She sits closer now, not quite pressed against him, but near enough that her thigh brushes his beneath the table when she shifts her weight. The first time it happens, her knee knocks into his and she doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t move either. Just takes another bite of soup, slow and measured, while their legs remain gently aligned, a quiet point of contact neither acknowledges out loud.

Once, while she’s scraping lentils from the bottom of the pot, she glances over her shoulder and says, “You don’t talk much, do you?”| “Don’t need to,” he replies, eyes steady on her hands.

She grins without looking at him again. “Good. I like that better.” And he understands then—it’s not that she wants company. It’s that she wants someone who doesn’t demand to be seen while she's still learning to be.

It happens just past midnight. Zayne is in the backyard, securing the last of the hose reels and flipping off the porch lights, the moon heavy and yellow behind a veil of slow-moving clouds. The wind picks up in short, sharp bursts, rustling leaves and bending the tomato stakes at his feet. As he turns toward the gate, his gaze catches on the glass of her greenhouse—just a shimmer at first, but then a shape, dark and still, reflected in the pane.

It stands where it shouldn’t—between the rows of hibiscus and lavender, too tall for her, too motionless for wind. The figure’s not moving, but the angle is wrong, the placement off; it’s not inside, it’s behind her greenhouse, lit by nothing but moonlight. He drops into a crouch before he even thinks, sliding a blade from his boot, eyes locked on the shimmer. But by the time he rounds the fence and reaches the spot, it’s gone. The space is empty. Still. No footprints in the mulch. No broken stems. No sound except the soft rattle of string lights overhead.

Zayne doesn’t believe in coincidence. Whoever it was stood there long enough to study her, to memorize angles, movements, maybe wait for a moment when she’d step into that glass room unaware. It wasn’t random—it was recon. Someone watched her like he once did. But not like him. Not to protect. Not to keep.

He doesn’t tell her the next morning. She’s smiling too easily over breakfast, teasing him about overwatering his thyme, and he lets it lie for now. Instead, he spends the afternoon laying ground sensors six inches beneath her rose beds and reprogramming the micro-cameras he once installed for his own surveillance. Now they feed directly to his secured server, pinging alerts to his burner phone. She doesn’t know he’s building a fence of code and eyes around her life. She doesn’t know yet someone else is trying to slip in through the cracks.

The sun is low, slanting in through the kitchen window, catching dust motes and bathing the room in soft orange. She’s cleaning with casual energy, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, hair messily twisted on top of her head, humming as she sorts mail and shoves worn dish towels into a drawer. Zayne leans against the counter, watching with that quiet stillness that never quite leaves him, offering to help only once. She waves him off with a laugh and tosses a sponge at his chest.

Then she opens the bottom drawer near the floor and stiffens—just slightly, just enough. Her hand lingers a second too long before she pushes it shut with her hip and says, “That one’s just old bills. Junk I keep meaning to shred.” Her voice is breezy, light, but her eyes don’t meet his as she turns back toward the counter. He makes no move to question her, doesn’t even change expression. But he logs it, like everything else.

When she excuses herself to shower, he moves across the room without a sound. The drawer slides open easily—she didn’t bother to lock it. Inside, the papers are folded, some crumpled, others stiff with age and creased from too many hands. Envelopes marked with return addresses he recognizes from years of contract work: Collection Units, Financial Intercession, Recovery Escalation. No names on the senders. No signatures. Just threats. Demand letters. Photocopied photos of her face, her place of work. She called them bills. But they’re warnings. And they’ve been piling up.

The drawer’s contents spill like a confession—torn envelopes, hastily folded sheets, paper still dusted with the residue of anger. Each one is different in format—some printed on faded company letterhead, others handwritten in thick black marker like a ransom note. No return addresses. No official seals. Just half-legible demands scrawled in frantic script, the kind that smudges when written too fast, too hot with rage to wait for the ink to dry.

Some pages are short, just one or two lines. “You’ll pay what they owe.” “Blood knows where to find blood.” Others are longer, bulleted, spiraling with accusations and threats of “enforcement visits,” thinly veiled beneath legalese. One page simply reads “RUN. IT WON’T HELP.” in red ballpoint, the letters jagged, pressed so hard into the paper it left grooves on the envelope beneath.

Zayne doesn’t react. He sifts through the pile like an archivist, hands careful, eyes scanning each word without giving away a thing. The rage behind them is unmistakable—not the cold precision of hired killers or corporate silence. This is desperate fury, the kind that comes from men whose money’s gone, whose power’s cracked, lashing out at anything left to punish and all of it points back to her. Not because she did anything wrong, but because she’s still visible. Still reachable and someone—more than one—wants to remind her of that.

Zayne returns to his safehouse just before dawn, slipping in through the side entrance beneath the vines. The sky’s beginning to pale, but his thoughts stay anchored in the dark. He powers on the encrypted terminal hidden behind a false panel in the wall, fingers moving with practiced ease through layers of security. He isn’t looking for names. He’s looking for shape—slant, pressure, pattern. The way certain letters lean too hard to the right. The way the lowercase “f” never crosses fully. The handwriting in the threats burned itself into his mind the moment he saw it.

It doesn’t take long. He opens an old dossier from six years back, a failed collection job out of Detroit, and there it is—black and angry across a confession letter, nearly identical. Same pen pressure. Same malformed “r.” The signature at the bottom: Victor Dunn. Former enforcer. Known for using fear before force, humiliation before blood. Tied to the Mendez line—a syndicate with long money and short patience, the same one that sent the kill order on her weeks ago.

Zayne stares at the file, jaw tight. Dunn shouldn’t be active. Last he heard, Dunn had gone underground after botching a protection job and leaving a trail of bodies no one wanted cleaned up. But if he’s resurfaced, if he’s part of the threats then this isn’t coincidence. 

 It’s legacy. 

Vengeance and he’s not the only one circling her at least not anymore.

—

Victor Dunn dies on a Wednesday.

The bar is a low-lit dive on the edge of the industrial quarter, a place where the floor sticks and the jukebox eats quarters. Dunn sits at the far end, nursing cheap bourbon from a cloudy tumbler, the type of man who drinks alone because it makes him feel harder. Zayne walks in unnoticed, hood up, the weight of a flask already resting against his palm. The bartender never sees the sleight of hand—how the bottle Dunn brought in for himself ends up dosed with an odorless sedative laced with synthetic aconite.

The fight starts ten minutes later, as planned—two hired drunks swing at each other just behind Dunn’s stool. Shouting. Glass breaks. Chairs screech. In the commotion, Zayne nudges the bottle an inch closer to his target’s hand, lets the chaos cover the moment Dunn tips the rest of it back and grimaces. It takes eighteen minutes for his throat to swell, his heart to stutter. He’s dead before he hits the floor. To the rest of the room, he just passed out. To the police? Another overdose in a city full of them.

Zayne slips out through the back and walks five blocks before ditching the hoodie in a trash bin. No fingerprints. No witnesses. No security cameras facing the alley. Dunn’s death is ruled as accidental. Case closed in under forty-eight hours.

Zayne doesn’t relax. He watches the digital trail. Waits. And someone else keeps watching her—another set of eyes in the dark, patient, methodical. Whoever they are, they haven’t moved yet. Haven’t struck.

Which means they’re waiting for something.

Not her death.

Her vulnerability.

And Zayne knows now—this isn’t about if they’ll try again.

It’s about when.

-

The camera feed comes in just after 2:00 a.m.—a whisper of movement pinging Zayne’s encrypted server. The alert is faint, almost subtle, not the kind that would raise alarms for anyone but him. He’s already half-awake, seated at his desk, sharpening a blade he doesn’t need to use tonight. When the motion alert flashes, he taps the key, leans in, and watches.

The footage is black and white, softened with the grain of lowlight exposure, but the figure is clear. A dark sedan idles across the street from her house, tucked just far enough into the alley to avoid the streetlamps. The headlights are off. Engine silent. It wasn’t there five minutes ago. The driver doesn’t exit. He leans forward against the wheel, elbows propped, gaze fixed not on the front door, but the side yard—the greenhouse. Zayne’s chest tightens as he realizes the man isn’t surveying the house. He’s watching her route. He knows her pattern.

Zayne magnifies the feed, enhances the angle. The man’s face is partially obscured by shadow and tinted glass, but he’s clean-shaven, short dark hair, wearing a collared shirt and gloves. Not street muscle. Not a junkie collector. Professional. His posture is too composed. Too deliberate. There’s no fumbling with a phone, no cigarette, no nervous shifting. He’s not casing the house. He’s confirming something.

The car doesn’t idle long. After exactly twenty-three minutes, the headlights flash once—low beam, quick flick, not an accident. The engine murmurs to life, soft as a cat’s breath. By the time Zayne bolts out the back door and crosses three yards in a straight sprint, the car is gone. Not a sound of tires screeching. Not a trace of burned rubber. Just absence, clean and surgical.

He checks the camera playback, frame by frame, until he gets a brief shot of the license plate—centered, perfectly lit by the greenhouse flood light. He runs it through two firewalled databases, both civilian and military. The number pings back: valid registration, leased vehicle, no name attached. Clean. Too clean.

No traffic tickets. No parking violations. No servicing record. The plate’s not fake—it’s sanitized. Zayne leans back in his chair, eyes narrowing at the blank digital report. That’s worse than fake. It means the plate’s real, but protected. Government issue or black market protected. Which means someone has reach. And they know where to look.

He watches the footage again, this time focusing not on the car, but on the angle. The driver wasn’t just watching the greenhouse. He was watching her window. The one with the chipped paint and the vine pressing against the pane. The one she leaves cracked open at night because she says she sleeps better with fresh air.

Zayne’s fists tighten. He tells himself it could be a coincidence. A passerby. A curious neighbor who parked in the wrong place but he doesn’t believe it. Coincidences don’t sit motionless in the dark for twenty-three minutes and drive off without a headlight blink of confusion.

He doesn’t tell her. Not yet. In the morning, she’ll hand him a sprig of sage, smiling, saying it helps with pests.

Instead, he spends the rest of the night on his laptop and gear, rerouting the greenhouse camera feed to a secondary off-site server. He replaces the standard motion sensor with a military-grade proximity net and walks the perimeter twice in silence. Then he loads two guns—one for open carry, one for his ankle—and sets a third beside the couch where he pretends to sleep. He watches until the sun comes up because someone else is watching her and Zayne doesn’t share.

—

The evening is soft with heat, the kind that lingers even after sunset, wrapping around bare skin like a second shirt. They sit outside on her back patio, tucked beneath the overhang strung with mismatched glass lanterns that cast warm colors across the worn wooden table. The wine is red, rich, sweating in mismatched tumblers that catch the flicker of citronella candles. Zayne sips his slowly, eyes fixed on the curve of her throat as she speaks in half-hushed tones, like the words are fragile, easily shattered if said too loud.

The air smells like grilled zucchini—charred skin, oil, cracked salt—and she nudges a plate toward him without looking. Her hands, usually so steady when repotting basil or coaxing root bulbs from old soil, tremble slightly as she wipes her fork clean with a paper napkin. She doesn’t notice the shake, but he does. His fingers pause on the stem of his glass, silent, alert.

“They knew what they were doing,” she says finally, not looking at him. “They knew how deep they were in, and they still signed everything under my name.” Her voice is calm, but her shoulders are locked tight, posture stiff like she’s bracing for an argument she’s already lost. “Because it’s easier to disappear when you leave someone behind to clean up the wreckage. Easier to vanish when there’s a name on the books who isn’t yours.”

Zayne says nothing. Just watches her, head tilted slightly, green eyes unreadable but focused. The air between them grows heavier, no storm—just tension, memory, the weight of past decisions she had no part in. She takes another sip of wine, this time with both hands, like she’s steadying herself on the glass alone.

“They left like it was a heist. Neat, silent, timed.” She laughs once—sharp, brittle. “But I got the aftershock. Collection calls. Doors kicked in. People who didn’t care that I didn’t even know how deep it went. Just that I was easier to find than they were.”

Zayne shifts, just slightly, leans his forearm on the table and says, low and level, “Do you think they’re still alive?”

She hesitates. For once, her voice falters. “I don’t know. And I’m not sure I care anymore.” Her eyes lift to meet his, and for a moment, she looks older, worn down—not tired from work, but tired of surviving other people’s messes. “If they are… I hope they’re scared. Just a little. Like I was.”

He nods, slow. Doesn’t offer comfort. Doesn’t tell her they’ll get what they deserve. He just holds her gaze until her breath steadies, until her grip on the fork eases, and the wind carries the scent of burnt herbs off into the dark and in that stillness, she starts breathing like she finally has room.

He doesn’t speak when she finishes. Doesn’t offer apologies or platitudes, doesn’t reach for her hand or murmur something sweet to bridge the quiet. He just watches her—eyes unmoving, green and sharp in the flicker of candlelight, studying her face like it’s a map that leads somewhere dangerous. Every word she’s spoken, every hitch in her breath, every time she swallowed hard before saying something honest, he files it away. Like evidence. Like a puzzle that, if assembled correctly, will reveal where the next hit is coming from.

She looks down at her plate and pretends to be done with the conversation, but he knows she’s still bleeding inside from it. She changes the subject, asks him about companion planting, jokes about the weird bug she found in her kale earlier that morning. He goes along with it, nods when he needs to, offers a few soft, dry answers that won’t pull her back toward the hurt she’s trying to bury under grilled vegetables and red wine. But his mind is already elsewhere—clicking through shadows and data points, building patterns she doesn’t know he’s seeing.

Later that night, when the house is dark and she’s asleep behind closed curtains, he sits in his own kitchen with only the glow of his laptop for company. No lights. No music. Just the soft mechanical hum of the air conditioner and the steady tap of keys beneath his fingers. He reroutes a former fixer—an old contact who owes him silence more than favors—redirects him off his current surveillance gig and toward a new assignment: run traces. Not on her.

On everyone else.

Every property sale within a five-block radius. Every background check that’s touched her name in the last ninety days. Every camera that picked up the black sedan. He doesn’t just want to know who else is watching her. He wants to know how long they’ve been in his orbit. and if someone else is circling her, they’re already living on borrowed time.

It arrives in a plain white envelope with no stamp, no seal, no sender. Just her name written across the front in sharp, slanted letters—bolder than the last ones, as if whoever wrote it didn’t care about hiding anymore. She finds it that morning nestled between junk coupons and the local circular, her fingers pausing mid-sort when her eyes catch the handwriting. Her chest tightens before she even opens it. Some part of her already knows this one is worse.

Inside is a single sheet of glossy paper. No words. No warning. Just an image: her, walking home, head down, grocery bag in one hand, keys in the other. The angle is low, taken from behind a row of hedges. She remembers that day—it was raining lightly, and she paused at the gate to shake water off her shoulders. She never looked back. The timestamp in the corner is from forty-eight hours ago. Whoever took it was close. Watching. Waiting.

She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t throw the paper away. She stumbles inside, locking the door with trembling fingers, and makes it as far as the kitchen before her knees buckle. The letter crumples in her fist as she slides down against the cabinets, back hitting the cold tile with a soft thud. Her breathing is shallow, uneven, and her eyes won’t focus—she keeps glancing at the door like it might open, like someone might already be standing on the other side.

That’s how Zayne finds her. He doesn’t knock—he hears the change in her pattern from outside, hears the absence of movement where there should be footsteps, humming, her usual distracted energy. When he opens the door and steps into the kitchen, he sees her on the floor, knees pulled up, the paper clenched so tight in her hand it’s creased through the ink. Her eyes snap up to him, wild and wide, and for a second she doesn’t say anything. She just stares.

“I didn’t see them,” she whispers, voice frayed. “They were right there, and I didn’t even feel it.”

Zayne crosses the room slowly, crouches in front of her with a stillness that feels like a held breath. He doesn’t ask questions. Just pries the paper gently from her hand and scans it once.

He memorizes the angle. The distance. The background blur. Then he folds the letter and tucks it into his jacket. He says nothing. But the look in his eyes tells her: someone is going to pay for this.

He doesn’t ask if she wants to get up—he simply acts. In one fluid motion, he leans down, slides an arm beneath her knees and another around her back, and lifts her as if she weighs nothing. She makes a quiet sound in her throat, not quite protest, not quite surrender, her hands clutching at his shirt before she can think better of it. Her face burrows against his collarbone as he carries her into the next room.

The couch creaks softly beneath them as he sits with her still curled against him, his body solid, unmoving, wrapped around her like a wall. He grabs the knit throw folded over the back—gray, soft, worn in places—and pulls it over her shoulders without ever letting her go. She trembles under it, breath ragged, fingers gripping the front of his shirt in tight, stuttering motions. He doesn't speak. Doesn’t shush her. Doesn’t offer hollow words.

He just lets her cry.

His hand comes up once to the back of her head, palm wide and steady, thumb brushing her cheek. He holds her like armor, like gravity, like silence itself. And all the while, his eyes stay open, fixed on the front door—not to watch for danger but to dare it to come through.

It starts small—barely-there touches that could be passed off as accidental. A hand grazing his shoulder as she walks past him in the garden. Her fingers brushing the inside of his elbow when she leans closer to show him the pest bites on a leaf. She laughs more now, and when she does, she’ll rest her palm lightly on his forearm, like it’s instinct, like her body forgets he’s supposed to be a stranger.

Zayne never flinches. He doesn’t lean into it, but he doesn’t move away either. He allows it, absorbs it, and stores the sensation like a secret kept under his ribs. Her touch is light, never lingering too long—yet somehow, he feels it hours after it’s gone.

When she talks, especially when she’s animated—telling him about a plant’s root system or the nightmare customer who tried to haggle over a bag of soil—he finds his gaze drifting. Not to her eyes. Not to her hands. To her mouth. The curve of it when she smiles. The way she presses her lips together when she’s thinking. He watches, quiet and still, never interrupting and she notices. He knows she does—sees it in the flicker of her glance, the subtle way her teeth catch her bottom lip, the way her words slow, like she’s suddenly more aware of how they leave her but she doesn’t stop. If anything, she speaks softer. Holds his gaze longer. Like she wants him to keep looking.

She finds the box propped against her back door one morning, unmarked except for her name written in clean, deliberate handwriting across the top. No return address, no company logo—just the weight of something personal wrapped in plain brown paper. Her boots crunch lightly over gravel as she picks it up, tucking it under her arm while balancing a tray of seed starts in the other. It’s still early, the dew clinging to every leaf like breath, and the sky hasn’t fully decided if it wants to be blue or gray.

She opens it in the garden, seated on her overturned bucket stool between rows of kale and sunflowers. Inside: a pair of gloves, not the flimsy canvas ones she’s always buying in packs of three, but stitched leather, supple and strong, padded across the palms, designed for real work. They’re her favorite shade of green—the kind that matches the moss creeping up the base of her fence. A folded note sits on top, small, simple, scrawled in his tidy, unassuming hand: “These should last longer.”

Her throat tightens immediately. She blinks fast, head bowed as she turns the gloves over in her lap, running her thumbs across the seams like they might split under her touch. The tears come before she can stop them, sharp and hot. She bows her head lower, lets her hair fall forward to hide her face from no one.

She doesn’t go inside. She doesn’t wipe her cheeks. She just stays there in the garden, knees in the dirt, pretending the wind is too strong today. Pretending it’s the pollen in the air. Not kindness that broke her open.

– It’s early morning when Zayne notices the disturbance—just after sunrise, dew still clinging to the blades of grass, the garden glazed in silver light. He’s doing his usual perimeter check, nothing new expected, just routine. But then he sees it: bootprints, fresh and deep, sunk into the soft mulch along the side of her greenhouse. Not his. Not hers. The spacing’s wrong. The tread is military-issue, not casual—a brand he recognizes from tactical catalogues used by low-visibility ops teams.

The prints stop just beneath the greenhouse window, the one she always opens a crack when the humidity gets too thick inside. He kneels, fingers brushing the edges of the sole mark. There’s no attempt to hide the approach. No backtracking, no scuffing. Whoever it was wanted a clear view—inside the structure, toward her workbench where she drinks her morning tea with her legs curled under her on the stool.

Zayne glances through the pane, and it hits him: from that spot, at that distance, they could see everything. The mug she favors—white with a faded botanical print. The way her shoulders curve as she leans over soil trays. The damp strands of hair that fall along her neck while she works, sweat collecting at the hollow of her throat. Whoever was there stood close enough to see details, not just surveillance patterns.

He rises slowly, eyes scanning the surrounding fence line, the street beyond, the way the shadows fall in angles too familiar now. Someone’s testing proximity—measuring comfort. They weren’t just watching anymore. They were imagining the moment they’d step through the gap and reach for he and that makes this different.

This isn’t recon.

This is intention.

Zayne adjusts his schedule without a word, slipping into a rhythm that most soldiers take years to master—three hours down, three hours up, cycling through the night like a machine with a heartbeat. He builds his waking hours around hers, always keeping her within reach, eyes on the monitor even when she’s asleep. When she’s awake, he’s calm, present, making tea or trimming basil. But the moment she closes her door for the night, he becomes something else—watcher, hunter, guardian with no uniform but instinct.

One evening while she’s inside humming along to a jazz record, he climbs the side of her house in silence. Gloves on. Tools tucked into a roll at his belt. The eaves give just enough shadow to conceal his work, and within minutes he’s mounted a pinhole camera barely wider than a screw head, tucked into the weathered fascia above her back porch. It syncs directly to his private relay, filtered through a triple-layer proxy chain. No sound. Just a live feed. Just enough.

She never notices. Not the shift in air when he slides past her window, not the faint scrape of metal against wood. She trusts him. Enough to lean on him, laugh with him, fall asleep knowing he’s next door. And he hates how easy that trust comes, how effortless it is to exploit  but he keeps the feed up anyway.

 Because her safety isn’t a luxury anymore.  It’s a line in the sand.

And he’s already killed for it.

—

The sky outside is bruised purple, the last edges of daylight fading into shadow, and the kitchen smells faintly of rosemary and something sweet she baked earlier—he doesn’t know what, didn’t ask. Zayne stands by the table, fingers brushing the spine of the manila folder he set there minutes ago, unopened. A small USB drive rests on top, matte black, unmarked. He doesn’t sit. Doesn’t move toward her. Just waits until she finally looks up from her tea and catches the seriousness in his posture.

“What’s that?” she asks, her brow furrowed, her voice hesitant like she’s bracing for bad news.

He gestures once, a slight incline of his chin. “It’s a new name,” he says, voice low but steady. “Driver’s license, social number. Birth certificate. Clean record. There's a bank account with a work history already attached—quiet, believable, enough in it to not raise flags.”

She stares at the packet like it might bite. “Zayne… what is this?”

He doesn’t blink. “In case you ever want to leave everything behind,” he replies. “Walk away. Start somewhere else. Some people get to choose. You haven’t had that in a long time.”

Silence falls between them, soft but sharp around the edges. Her fingers toy with the rim of her mug, eyes locked on the papers like they carry weight she can’t lift. “You think I should run?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

“No,” he says, and for once, there’s something warmer under his tone. Not soft, exactly. But protective. “I think you should have the option. I think you deserve to choose what happens to you next.”

She doesn’t answer. She just stands and walks the two steps between them, then presses her arms around him—not polite, not casual, but full-bodied and immediate, like she’s anchoring herself to something solid before the floor can fall out again. Her face buries against his chest, and he stands still for a second, surprised. Then his arms wrap around her, slow but firm, like drawing a line between her and everything that still wants to claim her.

“Thank you,” she murmurs against him and he doesn’t say anything back. He doesn’t have to.

—

The broker’s flat is a third-story walk-up tucked between a shuttered liquor store and a dog grooming parlor with flickering neon. It smells of stale coffee and burnt wires, the kind of place people choose when they don’t want to be found. Zayne gets in without a sound—lock picked, gun holstered, no mask, no hesitation. The broker doesn’t even look up until Zayne’s already inside, standing by the window, the glint of a syringe caught in the room’s weak yellow light.

“Zayne?” the man croaks, half-rising from the chair. His laptop is open, cursor blinking over a series of encrypted message logs. He doesn’t answer. Just steps forward, grabs the back of the man’s neck, and drives the needle in cleanly behind his ear. The body slumps. No struggle. No sound. Just a heartbeat that fades and never returns.

Zayne glances at the laptop, fingers already working over the keyboard. Not for records of the original contract—he’d already erased those weeks ago. He’s looking for names. Echoes. Anyone else who accessed the job file after it was marked “complete.” What he finds sends a cold ripple through his spine: a mirrored access code. External. Burned through an anonymizer but still traceable in the backend metadata.

There’s a name. A digital fingerprint. A secondary inquiry logged by someone who had clearance—but not from the same family. Different domain. Different scent. The man in the black sedan. The one at the greenhouse.

Not working for the same people. Not following orders. Acting alone.

Zayne wipes the terminal clean, removes the drive, and closes the laptop with slow, surgical care. The body goes into the back of a van he parks behind a condemned warehouse two blocks over. That night, it’s buried six feet under an abandoned greenhouse outside the city, compost shoveled in thick layers over the grave.

He scatters lily bulbs across the soil. By spring, they’ll bloom blood-red.

There are no loose ends now, except for one and Zayne has a name,  a name, a face, and a promise: No one else touches her.

Not ever.

—

The blanket they lie on is old, worn soft by time, with its corners curled and stitching coming loose in places. She’d pulled it from the hall closet earlier that evening, laughing that it smelled like rosemary and mildew, but it had served its purpose well—spread across the patch of grass beneath the oak, away from the porch lights, half-wrapped in shadow. The air is cooler now, touched by the first hint of autumn, and the grass beneath them carries the damp memory of the day's heat, breathing up through the weave of the fabric. Above, the sky is wide and open, a dark indigo ocean scattered with stars that blink slowly, half-hidden by shifting branches that cast long, reaching silhouettes across their legs.

They’re both stretched out in parallel, shoulders just shy of brushing, but the space between them feels electric—charged, not by nerves, but by awareness. No phones buzz, no music hums softly from a speaker. There is only the steady, organic chorus of the night: cicadas rasping in waves from the treeline, the soft whisper of wind through the tall grass, the occasional rustle of leaves disturbed by some unseen thing. It’s the kind of quiet that doesn't demand conversation, only companionship, a kind of stillness neither of them had known in other lives, and they lie there suspended in it, neither moving, neither speaking, but completely present.

Zayne rests with his hands folded behind his head, eyes half-lidded, not quite closed, his breathing deep and even. To an outsider he might appear relaxed, lost in the stars like she is—but beneath his skin, every sound still registers with sniper clarity, every leaf that shifts too sharply, every break in the rhythm of the wind. His mind never fully softens, even here. But her presence at his side makes the edge duller, the silence less like a battlefield and more like a held breath he doesn't mind waiting through.

She’s quiet for a long time, fingers tangled loosely in the fraying edge of the blanket, eyes fixed upward with a look that doesn’t quite belong to the moment—distant, wide, searching. And then she speaks, barely louder than the wind, her voice steady but pulled from somewhere vulnerable.

“I think I’m falling for you.”

The words hang in the air, light but impossible to ignore, like the scent of something blooming after dark—unexpected and intimate. She doesn’t glance at him after she says it, doesn’t gauge his reaction. Her eyes remain fixed on the stars, as if it’s safer to address them than face whatever might be in his expression. Like saying it aloud was hard enough without inviting confirmation or denial. Her breath catches slightly at the end, not quite a hitch, but a subtle tension in her chest as she waits—maybe not for an answer, but for the weight of having said it to settle somewhere inside her.

Zayne doesn't answer, at least not with words. He doesn’t shift to meet her gaze, doesn’t offer the easy comfort of reciprocation. But after a long pause, he moves his hand from behind his head and reaches across the space between them, finding her hand with a certainty that is quiet but unmistakable. His fingers thread between hers—not tentative, not testing, but firm, as if this gesture alone is his reply. Not a promise. Not a confession. But something with gravity.

She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away or speak again. Her grip tightens slowly, gently, like she’d been waiting for something to anchor her. Her thumb brushes over his knuckles once, a silent thank-you, and though the words still echo softly between them, neither of them breaks the quiet.

And under the endless dark sky, with their hands linked and hearts laid bare in the hush of cicadas and shifting wind, neither of them moves, because whatever this is, it’s real now and neither of them is ready to let go.

–

The storm rolls in heavy, all color stripped from the sky and replaced with bruised clouds that churn and flash with the promise of something violent. Rain comes in sheets, sudden and unforgiving, hammering rooftops and rattling downspouts with a wild rhythm that turns the air electric. Zayne hears it long before the knock—feels the shift in pressure, the air thickening, the scent of ozone and soil rising through the floorboards like a warning. But it’s her silhouette in the window that tenses his shoulders, the shape of her framed in shadow and lightning.

She’s barefoot when he opens the door, toes wet and mud-speckled on the porch, the hem of her thin cotton dress clinging to her knees. Her hair is damp, curls plastered against her cheek and forehead, cheeks flushed and mouth slightly open, chest rising with the rush of running through rain. She doesn’t step inside immediately—just stands there grinning, half breathless, like this is all one big dare she hasn’t decided if she regrets.

“Tea,” she says, voice pitched with amusement, as if the word excuses everything. Her smile is crooked, teasing, but there’s something in her eyes that betrays her—something uncertain, raw, wanting. The kind of look you don’t wear for a drink. The kind of look you give someone you don’t want to leave alone anymore.

He doesn’t ask why she came. Doesn’t tell her she’s wet, doesn’t hand her a towel. He just steps aside, lets her in, and shuts the door behind her with the same quiet finality he reserves for chambering a round.

They don’t bother with the kettle because what she really came for has nothing to do with tea.

The door has barely latched behind them when she turns, still flushed from the run through the storm, rain dripping from her lashes, chest heaving beneath the cling of soaked fabric. Her fingers twitch like she wants to reach for him but hasn’t given herself permission—until she does. A hand rises, hesitant, then decisive, touching his chest just above his sternum, and she leans in without ceremony. The kiss is soft at first, trembling with restraint, a question wrapped in heat. She tastes like rain and something sweeter—like surrender held between teeth.

Zayne doesn’t hesitate. The moment her lips part against his, he steps into the space between them, crowding her back until she hits the wall, hands sliding firmly to her waist like she belongs beneath his grip. His mouth finds hers again, deeper this time, answering the question she didn’t dare ask with something elemental and sure. His breath is hot against her temple when he breaks for air, the kind of exhale that shudders through him like restraint cracking at the edges.

She gasps when he lifts her—shocked more by how easily he does it than the movement itself—her legs instinctively winding around his hips, bare thighs tightening at his sides. His hands are under her now, one bracing the small of her back, the other cupping beneath her thigh as he carries her across the room like she weighs nothing, like he’s been waiting to do this since the moment she first smiled at him over seed trays and spilled tea. Rain hammers against the windows, thunder shaking the panes, but inside the world has gone narrow and burning.

He sets her on the kitchen counter, the cold marble making her arch with a startled sound that dies against his mouth. His body presses into hers, solid, overwhelming, and her fingers dive into his hair like she needs to anchor herself to something real or drown in it.

And Zayne? Zayne feels like he’s not kissing her—he’s claiming her. With his mouth, his hands, his breath and she lets him.

The counter is slick with condensation from her skin and the rain still clinging to her dress, and he doesn’t rush—he doesn’t need to. Zayne kisses her like it’s been etched into him, mouth dragging slow and deliberate along the curve of her jaw, then down her throat where he lingers, tasting her pulse. His hands work at the thin fabric clinging to her, sliding it up inch by inch, exposing her like an offering, like she’s something to be unwrapped not with urgency, but with reverence. When he pulls the dress over her head, he does it with the precision of someone unwrapping something sacred, not hurried, not rough—just steady, determined, sure.

She’s already trembling, the cold of the air mingling with the heat rising in her, her legs parting instinctively as he lowers her onto the cool countertop. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t smirk. Just slides his hands down the sides of her thighs, fingers drawing invisible lines, mapping every shiver like it’s telling him something. His mouth finds her collarbone, her sternum, the dip of her navel—and then lower, lower, until she’s gasping just from the proximity of his breath.

When he kisses the inside of her thigh, her body jerks, tension melting into something deeper, needier. He doesn’t go straight to where she wants him. He teases—devours the soft skin at the bend of her leg, tongue tracing fire that only delays the inevitable. And when he finally moves between her, when his tongue finds her—slow, firm, consuming—her breath hitches, then breaks.

She lets out a sound that isn’t a moan, not at first, but a whimper, a soft, shocked exhale like she wasn’t prepared for how it would feel to be wanted like this. Her fingers dive into his hair, gripping tight, hips lifting against his mouth as if her body is trying to keep pace with what he’s doing to her. Her voice fractures with each flick of his tongue, each deep stroke, each pause where he watches her with dark, focused eyes before continuing. 

Outside, thunder rolls like a heartbeat, but inside—she’s the storm, when she comes, it’s not a scream—it’s a surrender. A low, shuddering cry pulled from her very center, her thighs locked around his head, her hands shaking, his name lost somewhere in the breath she can't quite catch. And Zayne? He keeps going. Until he’s sure she won’t forget that this—his mouth, his hands, his hunger—belongs to no one else but her.

Her breath is still uneven, chest rising in shallow pulls, skin flushed from where his mouth left a trail of devotion across her body. Her fingers twitch where they rest on his shoulders, gripping the cotton of his shirt like she’s afraid to let go, like she’s not ready to lose the weight of him against her. He kisses her again—not her mouth this time, but her ribs, her hip, the inside of her wrist—each one quieter, more reverent, like punctuation in a language only they understand. And then he’s above her, between her, his gaze locked on hers with a kind of focus that borders on unholy.

He slides into her slowly, deliberately, with a groan that catches in his throat and dies against the warm skin of her neck. Her body arches into his, welcoming, trembling, wrapping around him as if she’s known this weight her whole life but never had the name for it until now. His thrusts aren’t fast, aren’t greedy—they’re measured, deep, a rhythm built on the unspoken. Each one presses the breath from her lungs, not from force, but from how close he feels—how real.

He doesn’t whisper dirty promises. Doesn’t say her name over and over like a chant.

He’s quiet—achingly so—but everything he doesn’t say is in the way he holds her, the way he presses their foreheads together and closes his eyes like this is the only place in the world he can be still. He isn’t trying to leave a mark. He isn’t trying to conquer.

He’s just… there. Fully. Undeniably.

Inside her in a way that feels less like sex and more like something old, something foundational. As if, in this moment, with her wrapped around him and her hands buried in his hair, he's saying without speaking: You’re mine. Even if you never know it. Even if you never say it back.

You already are.

She moans softly into his neck, the sound muffled by skin and storm, her fingers sliding from his shoulders to his back, nails dragging just enough to feel him shudder. Her legs tighten around his waist, holding him to her like she’s afraid he might slip through her fingers, like if she lets go the moment might dissolve. But Zayne doesn’t move fast—doesn’t chase it. He stays inside her, steady, his hips rolling with the kind of control that makes her fall apart all over again with every deliberate thrust.

Each movement sinks deep, unhurried, like he’s carving her into memory. There’s no rush in his touch—just reverence, heat, weight. His hand finds hers above her head, fingers threading through tightly, anchoring them both. She opens her eyes and sees him watching her—really watching—and something in her chest cracks open, wide and silent, like this isn’t just a man holding her. It’s him staying. Rooted.

Their bodies move together like they've done this a thousand times in some other life. He shifts just slightly, hips angling different, and her gasp punches out like it surprises her. Her back arches, and he swallows her next sound with a kiss, slow and deep, like the rhythm of his body inside hers. His other hand is on her waist, thumb brushing her skin, grounding her in a moment that feels impossible—too full, too real.

She whispers something—maybe his name, maybe nothing at all—into the shell of his ear, and it makes him tremble. Not from lust, not from control slipping, but because she wants him like this. Sees him. Without question. Without fear.

He groans again, lower this time, buried against her throat, body tightening with the weight of what he’s feeling but can’t let out. His release comes quietly, teeth clenched, muscles locked, like he doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want the moment to leave him. He stays inside her afterward, still hard, still trembling faintly, his face tucked into the crook of her neck, their breath tangling in slow, uneven waves.

Neither of them speaks.

She just runs her fingers through his hair, soft and absent, the same way she touches seedlings before she sets them into fresh earth. And Zayne breathes with her—in sync, shared, like he’s been chasing silence all his life and finally found a version of it he doesn’t want to escape from.

—

She thinks it’s a whim—an idea born over too many late dinners and the restless quiet that settles over them after midnight. Just a weekend trip, she says with a half-smile, somewhere green where they can drink tea outside and pretend the world doesn’t exist. She talks about wildflowers and maybe picking up a packet of heirloom seeds if they find a roadside market. Zayne nods, offers to drive, listens to her dream out loud like it wasn’t already carved into the next steps he’d laid weeks ago.

Long before she brought it up, he’d already selected the house—a two-bedroom cottage tucked into a grove off a dirt road no one travels without intention. He booked it under a shell name four identities deep, a registration that doesn’t trace to anything real. The payment was routed through a layered system of burned cards and buried crypto accounts, untraceable, disposable. While she packs clothes and gathers jars of herbs, he sits at his terminal wiping her forwarding address from three databases, planting a redirect in its place: an empty apartment in another city, already rigged to show false movement on security footage.

He doesn’t tell her what he’s doing. He doesn’t need to. Her hands are busy folding sweaters into a canvas duffel, her mind already halfway to the scent of loamy earth and morning dew. She trusts him—implicitly, without hesitation—and that’s something Zayne doesn’t take lightly. He watches her from the doorway for a moment longer than necessary, memorizing the soft hum in her throat as she packs, the way she tucks one sock into another like ritual.

When they leave just after dawn, her eyes are bright with the thrill of escape, her window rolled down to let the wind mess her hair. She doesn't ask why he takes the longer route. She just rests her hand on his knee and starts pointing out birds on fence posts, talking about names for a garden they haven’t even walked through yet. Zayne keeps his hand on the wheel, his other curled loosely around hers, and behind his calm silence, he’s already watching the road in layers—routes in, routes out, no cameras, no tails because this isn’t a break.

It’s the extraction and he’ll make sure she never has to return to what they just left behind.

The road stretches out like silk ribbon unwinding beneath the tires, long and quiet, lined with pine and low-slung fog. The sun hasn’t broken fully yet—just a pink bruise on the edge of the sky—and the cabin is filled with the steady hum of the engine, the occasional shuffle of her shifting in her seat. She sleeps curled toward the window, cheek pressed to her shoulder, breath soft and even. He keeps one hand steady on the wheel, but the other drifts—light brushes against her thigh, small, absent touches that ground him more than he’ll ever admit.

She murmurs in her sleep once, the sound slurred, soft. His name. Not his alias. His name. The real one she doesn’t know she knows. His fingers pause where they rest, a breath catching somewhere beneath his ribs. He doesn’t react outwardly, but in his mind the syllables echo—Zayne—and he files it away, precise and quiet, like tucking a blade into a belt. Not for violence. But for proof. That even in dreams, she’s reaching for him.

The moment they pass the crooked county line sign, he hits the first trigger. GPS signal reroutes through a spoofed beacon on a highway two states south. He doesn’t slow down. Just tilts his phone screen once, confirms the signal bounce, then opens the secondary server tethered to the signal relay. Purge begins. Encrypted logs are scrubbed. IP pings rerouted. Facial recognition masks uploaded to rerun loops of her entering false locations—libraries, coffee shops, train stations—all automated ghosts that will confuse any tracker with less than government-grade clearance.

Then he plants the breadcrumbs. Three separate data points: a credit card ping in Chicago, a burner number attached to a cabin rental in Oregon, and a fake pharmacy script logged under her new name in Nevada. Each one clean, shallow, intentional. Not enough to catch, just enough to chase.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t shift his expression. Just drives, knuckles pale, eyes calm, the woman beside him sleeping like there’s nothing left in the world trying to find her. And if Zayne has done his job right, there isn’t.

The town unfolds slowly, like a secret kept between hills and tree lines, tucked too deep into the folds of the land to show up on anything but paper maps or memory. Cell reception is thin. Gas stations have mechanical pumps. The post office shares a roof with the general store, and everyone waves at everyone whether they know them or not. The signs are hand-painted and chipped, boasting names like “Pine & Petal” and “Cassie’s Feed & Fix,” and the only currency more stable than cash is reputation—earned through presence, not paperwork.

The nursery is just past the edge of town, where the gravel road curves between two weeping willows. The sign out front sways gently in the breeze, its paint faded and soft, the script curling around a hand-painted sunflower. On her first day, Zayne walks her there, not because she needs help finding it—but because he needs to see it. Needs to know what kind of people she’ll be surrounded by, what kind of ground she’ll be standing on when he isn’t right beside her.

She meets the owner—a stout, sun-tanned woman with a voice like velvet and dirt under every fingernail—and within five minutes, they’re laughing like old friends. Zayne watches from the corner of the greenhouse as she unpacks starter trays with practiced ease, her fingers quick and sure. He listens as she tells a half-true story about growing up surrounded by bad decisions, about how the only thing that made sense back then was soil. “People ruin things,” she says, smiling softly, “but plants just… try to live. Even in the wrong place.”

The owner nods. Offers her the job before she finishes the sentence.

Zayne doesn’t say anything. Just slips away before she can look for him, leaving her with a clipboard, a watering schedule, and the first real piece of peace she’s been allowed in years. He walks back home the long way—through the woods, eyes scanning shadows—not looking for threats. Just making sure there aren’t any.

The path home winds along a dirt road lined with blackberry brambles and old fencing, the boards warped by sun and time. She walks beside him with her hands in the pockets of her dress, shoulders relaxed in a way they rarely are, the tension that usually knots between her shoulder blades finally smoothed out. The late afternoon light catches on her cheeks, and there’s a smudge of soil across her jaw that she hasn’t noticed. She doesn’t talk much, but when she does, her voice is lighter, like it no longer has to push through static just to be heard.

She smiles, the kind that isn't polished or guarded, just open, and tilts her head toward him as they near the cottage. “I forgot what it feels like,” she says, half-laughing, half in awe. “To breathe with both lungs. Like I’m not waiting for the next hit.” She doesn’t cry. But her eyes shine like she might, if she wasn’t so busy memorizing how safety feels on her tongue.

Zayne doesn’t respond. Not with words. He watches her, nods once, and reaches ahead to open the front door before she can. It’s not ceremony—it’s ritual now, the smallest act of shelter. Inside, he takes off his boots, washes his hands, and begins pulling ingredients from the pantry. Onions. Rice. Stock. His movements are fluid, practiced. He doesn’t say it, but everything in how he dices, simmers, stirs says: you’re home now.

She hums as she waters the rosemary in the windowsill. Not to fill the space. Just because she can.

He builds it behind their cottage, just beyond the blackberry hedge where the grass grows thick and the ground is soft from years of being left alone. The greenhouse rises slowly, beam by beam, frame by frame, salvaged lumber hauled from an old barn a few miles out—wood worn smooth with age but still strong. He doesn’t use power tools, doesn’t rush the process. Each cut is deliberate, measured with a craftsman’s eye and the kind of care he never shows when he's breaking bones or snapping triggers. His knuckles split more than once from splinters and hammer strikes, blood drying in thin lines across his skin.

He never wears gloves. He wants the ache. 

Wants the realness of it.

She comes outside in the mid-mornings when the light is gold and clean, balancing a mason jar of cold water with lemon slices and a little mint plucked from the porch planter. She leans against the half-finished frame, watching him work with amusement softening every edge of her voice. 

“You’re going to burn like a fool,” she says, smirking as she catches sight of his reddening shoulders and the sweat beading along his neck. 

He glances up at her, shrugs once without breaking rhythm, and keeps hammering, jaw set in that quiet way of his that means I’d rather blister than be soft. She rolls her eyes and sets the jar down beside his tool kit anyway.

He’s halfway through anchoring one of the side panels when the hammer slips, catching his thumb with a vicious crack. The hiss he lets out is low and bitten off, more pain than he usually allows to show, and he presses his mouth tight to the back of his hand as if to seal it in. She startles at first, then covers her mouth with her soil-streaked fingers and laughs—full, unrestrained, the kind of laugh that leaves her slightly doubled over. “That,” she says between giggles, “was dramatic.” Her grin is so wide it lights her whole face.

He turns to her, breath still tight, but that laugh hits something inside him hard—softer than bone but just as permanent. He doesn’t speak. Just steps forward and kisses her without warning, without plan. His hands are rough and still stained with sawdust, his mouth insistent, hungry in the quiet way only he can be. It isn’t a thank you. It’s a vow. Built beam by beam with everything he doesn’t say.

The frame is finished by dusk, clear panels slotting into place like held breath finally exhaled. The inside smells of sawdust and warm earth, of work and beginnings. The soil in the beds is freshly turned, dark and damp, rich with compost he mixed by hand. There’s no ceremony when she steps inside barefoot, hem of her dress brushing the floorboards, trowel in hand. Just a quiet kind of reverence as she kneels in the corner where the light falls best at sunset, and presses the roots of the first cutting into the earth.

Lavender, of course—soft and stubborn, fragrant even when bruised. She hums to herself as she pats the soil around it, fingers stained with the same dirt she’s been working into her new life. The leaves shiver slightly under her breath, like they know they’ve been placed somewhere safe. When she looks up at him, there’s a smudge of soil on her cheek and peace in her smile.

Zayne steps forward, silent as always, and takes the watering can without a word. The spout tilts, a slow, steady pour soaking into the roots, the water catching light like glass. He uses his right hand—the same one that had held a gun only weeks ago, finger steady, gaze cold, ending the last man who knew what her name used to be. That hand, now dappled with dirt and dew, moves with surprising care.

She watches him with quiet wonder, like she knows but doesn’t speak it and in the hush of the new greenhouse, among seedlings and shadows, he waters the first bloom of the life they’ve stolen back together. Not as a soldier. Not as a killer but as a man learning how to grow something he never meant to keep.

They’re sitting on the porch steps, the evening sun filtering gold through the trees, casting long shadows across the overgrown path leading back to the road. She’s barefoot, toes curled against the wood, sipping from a chipped glass of red wine she keeps swirling like it might reveal something at the bottom. The air is quiet, slow-moving, a hush that’s become routine between them—comfortable, unspoken, full of weight. He’s beside her, one hand resting against her thigh, thumb stroking slow arcs over the fabric of her dress.

She speaks softly, like she’s not sure it’s worth mentioning. “There was a man at the nursery today. Older. Said the violets looked like they’d been raised on patience.” She chuckles once, but it fades quickly. “Then he asked if I’d always worked with my hands. Said it like he already knew the answer.”

Zayne freezes. Completely. His wine glass hovers midair, motionless, the red liquid catching the light like blood on glass. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe. Every sense in him sharpens, collapses inward to the single name he’d memorized and buried: Rian Sorn. Not Caleb. Rian. Older brother. The last enforcer. Disavowed from his house after their father’s death but known for keeping blood promises long past when they were due.

“Had that strange smile,” she continues, absently. “You know the kind. Not friendly. Not creepy. Just… like he knew me. Like he was waiting to be remembered.”

Zayne slowly lowers the glass, sets it on the step without looking. His pulse doesn’t quicken—it concentrates. Thoughts click into place behind his eyes like a scope narrowing, cold and silent. He nods once, just enough for her to stop talking, and then gently shifts the conversation to something else—soil pH, basil rot, anything—because she can’t know what’s coming. Not yet but in his mind, he’s already reaching for the old tools. The knives he hasn’t touched since the last death. The burner phone no one knows he reactivated because if Rian Sorn is here, he didn’t come for flowers.

He came to finish the contract Zayne already buried and this time, Zayne doesn’t intend to leave a body anyone can find.

Rian Sorn isn’t like the others—he doesn’t work for contracts, doesn’t answer to syndicates, doesn’t need a reason beyond the weight of unfinished blood. He’s the kind of man who kills out of inheritance, not obligation. His name never appears in records; there’s no heat trail, no payment logs, no messages. Only results. Silent disappearances. Houses burned down with no arson trace. Entire bloodlines snuffed out under the guise of accidents. Ritual violence—methodical, clean, personal. And if he’s close enough to make small talk about violets, then he’s already mapped the house, the exits, the blind spots. He already knows where she sleeps.

Zayne moves differently that night. There’s no panic, no rushing—just a complete shift in rhythm, like gears locking into place. He walks the property twice, barefoot, ears tuned to every creak of wind, every bird that doesn’t sing. Inside, he checks the locks—not once, but twice, fingers brushing along bolt edges, making sure the screws haven’t been tampered with. He flips the window latches. Secures the basement access. Even resets the motion detectors, narrowing the radius to just beyond the treeline.

In the quiet of the bedroom, she’s already asleep, curled on her side in the dip she’s worn into the mattress beside his. Her breathing is slow, lips parted slightly, one hand resting across his pillow. He watches her in the dark for a long moment, reading every line of her body like scripture—where she’s most vulnerable, where she trusts without thinking. Where he’d bleed the world dry to keep her untouched.

The knife he hides beneath the bed isn’t the folding kind tonight—it’s longer, sharper, a single-edged Karambit wrapped in oil cloth. He sharpens it slowly at the kitchen table while the kettle whistles and the lights stay off. Then he places it within reach, exact angle, practiced muscle memory. When he finally lays down, it’s not to rest. It’s to wait.

He doesn’t sleep not until the sky begins to pale. Not until he’s sure Rian hasn’t come to claim what Zayne has already marked as his.

Zayne picks up the trail in silence, without fanfare, relying not on devices or drones but on the patterns that live in muscle memory. He doesn’t need GPS when he knows how a predator moves—doesn’t need a name when he has behavior. Caleb—or Rian, he knows now—has been cautious, skilled, leaving no digital trace, but he’s not invisible. Zayne catches the first break when he spots the faint shimmer of heat in a parking lot near the edge of town—an exhaust signature too fresh for how still the car looks, parked at a blind curve near the woods. The thermal haze rises in waves from the tailpipe, subtle, nearly lost in the afternoon glare. It’s a trick he learned in Prague, when heat was the only language you could trust and every breath might get you killed.

That night, Zayne uses one of the few remaining contacts he hasn’t burned—an old fixer who owes him for a job that saved her life and took someone else's. The message is simple, clean: a digital tip-off that the girl is using an alias and just got spotted in New Mexico. Zayne even attaches a blurred photo—low resolution, plausible enough, timestamped for twenty minutes in the future and pinged through a burner signal off a modified dashcam.

The bait is too perfect to ignore, and the timing is surgical. Rian, meticulous and hungry for closure, takes it. By the time he moves—quick but not rushed, confident enough to fall for the misdirection—Zayne is already one step ahead. The false sighting routes him toward the old nursery’s delivery zone, an overgrown backlot once used for storing soil, pallets, broken tools. It's a dead space now, no witnesses, no cameras, a fence with a single weak link that only someone tracking a trail would push through.

Zayne waits in the shadow of the half-collapsed greenhouse, crouched behind a rusted steel rack, heartbeat steady, knife ready, eyes fixed on the path. The wind stirs loose paper and pollen. The dirt here smells like memory and rot. And when Rian steps into the clearing—silent, curious, reaching for the last breadcrumb—Zayne moves because this is where it ends. Not in bloodlines. 

Not in threats, but in a grave no one will dig but him.

The clearing is silent but tense, every insect gone still, the branches holding their breath. Zayne doesn’t give a warning—there’s no sharp callout, no monologue. Just movement, explosive and lethal, as he lunges from the greenhouse’s ruined frame like a blade in motion. His boots skid across packed dirt as he closes the distance in three quick strides. Rian barely registers the shape bearing down on him before instinct kicks in, knife flashing out from beneath his jacket, but it’s too late—Zayne is already on him.

Their bodies collide with a bone-jarring crack, momentum carrying them both sideways into the delivery shed’s rusted wall. Zayne drives a knee into Rian’s ribs, catching the wind out of him, then follows with an elbow to the temple that makes the other man grunt and stagger. Rian recovers fast, trained—he swings low with the knife, a practiced arc aimed for Zayne’s thigh. Zayne twists, the blade grazing cloth, not skin, and responds with a brutal hook that snaps Rian’s head back. There’s no choreography here—this is dirty, close, every blow meant to maim or drop.

Rian spits blood, face curling into a grin that’s half malice, half respect. “Knew it’d be you,” he growls through grit teeth. Zayne says nothing. Just slams his forearm into Rian’s throat, knocking him into a stack of plastic pots that scatter with a crash.

They wrestle into the mulch beds, slipping in compost, the smell of fertilizer sharp in the air. Rian lands one solid punch to Zayne’s jaw—makes his vision blur white at the edges—but Zayne absorbs it, turns the pain inward, and redirects the force with a twist of his hips. His knife comes up, low and brutal, slicing across Rian’s abdomen in a single, controlled stroke—hip to sternum. The sound isn’t dramatic. Just wet. Final.

Rian staggers backward, clutching his guts like they’ll stay in place by sheer will. His legs buckle. He drops to his knees in the dirt, fingers twitching in the mulch, trying to rise again even as blood pools beneath him. He gasps—chokes once—then folds forward, face pressing into soil.

Zayne watches, chest rising slow, calm. His hand doesn’t shake. His breath doesn’t falter. He looks down on the dying man like a gardener pulling weeds by the root. No rage. No gloating.

Just precision.

Just necessary removal and when Rian’s final breath rattles out through blood and spit, Zayne kneels. He grips the body by the collar and begins dragging it into the dark edge of the clearing—toward the shallow pit already carved beneath the compost tarp, because this isn’t vengeance.

It’s maintenance 

The wind shifts just enough to carry the sound of something wrong—metal scraping, a grunt swallowed by mulch, the final wet thud of a body hitting ground. She sets down the seed trays she was sorting, suddenly breathless, the hairs on her arms lifting like static. No one called her name. Nothing in the air says danger aloud. But she moves anyway, slow but certain, down the overgrown side path that leads to the back of the old nursery where she was told not to go.

Her boots crunch over shattered pots and torn landscape fabric, the scent of blood sharp and out of place in the sun-warmed dirt. When she rounds the corner of the collapsed greenhouse frame, her breath catches—but she doesn’t cry out. Doesn’t collapse. Doesn’t run. Zayne is there, crouched low beside the body like a storm paused mid-movement. His shirt is torn across one shoulder, blood slick down his arms to the elbows, one hand still clutched around the hilt of a blade so red it glistens.

He looks up, and in that moment, he doesn’t look like the man who fixes her sink or makes her tea or knows how she likes her toast just barely burnt. He looks like something older, carved from ash and oath, shaped by violence in the quiet way war is—not fire, but pressure. His eyes are not pleading, not defensive. Just watching. Waiting.

Her gaze shifts from the body to his face, then to the blood on his hands. She doesn’t ask who the man was. Doesn’t ask what he did. She knows. She’s always known and instead of breaking under the truth, she simply breathes it in.

“You did that for me,” she says, voice barely above a whisper, but carved from something unshakable. It isn’t a question. It’s a truth, spoken like a thread pulled taut and tied.

He says nothing. He couldn’t explain it if he tried. He just looks at her with the weight of everything he’s done—for her, to keep her, to build a life neither of them believed they’d survive long enough to live. There’s something unspoken in his expression, burning low and furious, like he’d do it all again and not blink and then she does the only thing that matters.

She steps into the bloodstained quiet, past the corpse, past the fear, past the violence, places her hand on his face, and holds him. Not like a man who’s broken.

But like one worth saving.

The porch is quiet beneath them, the night air soft and threaded with the scent of soil and cut grass. The moon hangs heavy and full above the treeline, its light glinting off the rim of her mug as she cradles it in both hands. The tea has long gone cold, but she hasn’t let it go, just rests it on her knees like a keepsake she’s not ready to part with. Her eyes are half-lidded, the exhaustion of the day tucked just behind her quiet, steady breathing. She hasn't spoken in a while, and he hasn't filled the silence—he never does. Some part of him knows silence is a kind of safety, too.

Zayne sits beside her, legs braced apart, elbows resting on his knees. His hands are scrubbed raw, fingertips still faintly pink from the cleaning they took after Rian. The scars across his knuckles are old but tight tonight, skin stretched and healing slow. There’s a kind of stillness to him that’s different from calm. Like he’s holding his breath somewhere under his ribs, waiting for something to finish settling in the air around them.

Without ceremony, without pause, he pulls something from his pocket. Not the usual folded paper, not a new ID packet. Just a small, square box—worn at the corners like it’s been in his coat too long. He holds it in his palm for a second before handing it over, gaze fixed not on her but the shadows moving just beyond the porchlight.

“This isn’t backup,” he says, voice low. “It’s not about running. It’s not a new name or a file to burn.” He glances at her now, just once, eyes fierce with something he rarely lets show. “It’s a future. If you want it.”

She looks down at the box in her hands, not moving, not breathing, then opens it with fingers slow and careful. Inside: a ring. Simple. Silver. Worn like his hands, forged for use, not flash. But beautiful, in the way something becomes beautiful when it’s meant.

Her throat tightens. Not from surprise. From understanding. From the weight of everything he’s never said until now. “You had this?” she whispers, voice cracking like the night itself.

He nods once. “A while.” Then, softer: “I didn’t want to offer it until I knew I could protect what it meant.”

She says nothing at first. Just reaches out and places the box down beside her, then shifts and leans fully into him, head against his shoulder, hand slipping down to find his. She squeezes. Hard. Like grounding herself to the moment so it doesn’t vanish.

“You really think we get that?” she murmurs. “A future?”

 He closes his eyes for a second, then opens them again—sharp, green, unblinking.

“Since you,” he says. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.”

She doesn’t say yes. She doesn’t have to,  just laces their fingers together and stays pressed to his side until the moon slips west and the mug in her lap is cold and forgotten.

And Zayne, for once, lets himself hope.

The ceremony is unceremonious in the way only the truest things are. No audience. No rehearsed lines. Just a morning that begins like any other—with coffee that she forgets on the windowsill, and him quietly ironing his one good shirt at the kitchen table, jaw tight with concentration as he avoids the patch that never quite sits flat. Her dress is simple, linen the color of rain-bleached stone, and her hands still carry the soft scent of mint and clay from the greenhouse—because even on the day she marries him, she couldn't resist tending her seedlings.

They walk out together just past noon, barefoot in the grass still wet from the morning’s dew. The old oak at the edge of the property stands like a sentinel, its branches heavy with age, framing the clearing where bees hum low around wildflowers in accidental rows. There’s no music, just birdsong and wind and the sound of her breath hitching when he takes her hand. He’s not holding a script. There is no officiant. Just them, and the silence of something sacred blooming without spectacle.

They stand beneath the tree and say nothing for a long while. No promises out loud. No recited declarations. Just the look they share—a gaze full of every night they spent surviving, every morning they chose to stay. When it’s time, Zayne doesn’t say “I do” like he’s reciting a ritual. He says it low, quiet, voice grounded like the soil beneath them.

Like he’s not just agreeing to love her but swearing to root himself beside her. To grow something together that no one—not ghosts, not debt, not blood—can dig up again. She doesn’t cry. Just steps forward, slips a small sprig of rosemary into the loop of his belt where a blade once rested. 

“For remembrance,” she murmurs, fingertips brushing his waist.

He catches her hand, brings it to his lips, and kisses her palm like it’s the center of the world, like it’s already his and in that patch of wild grass and wind, they are married—not by law, not by witness, but by the earth itself.

The cottage is warm with a kind of hush that feels earned, stone walls holding the heat of the fire flickering low in the hearth. The logs crack softly, throwing ribbons of orange across the wooden floor, across the bed they made themselves earlier that day—simple sheets, thick wool blanket, lavender tied with twine above the headboard, perfuming the room like memory. Rain whispers against the windows in gentle pulses, steady, private. The storm isn’t wild. It’s intimate. Like it came only to witness this.

She steps away from him without a word, untying the sash at her waist with slow, sure fingers. The linen dress slips from her shoulders, puddling around her ankles as she stands in the firelight—bare, unhurried, her skin kissed gold by the flicker of flame. She doesn’t cover herself. Doesn’t shy away from the way he’s looking at her. She just watches him watching her, the shadows moving across her collarbones, the slight swell of her breath. And when she climbs into his lap, one knee on either side of his thighs, she does it like ritual, like every inch of her already knows where to go.

His breath catches the moment she sinks down onto him, a soft, broken sound exhaled against her throat. Her hands brace against his shoulders, steadying herself as she takes all of him in one slow, aching stroke. He groans, low and guttural, pressing his forehead to her chest as his hands slide up the smooth length of her back, then down again to grip her hips with the kind of strength that says I will never let you go. Not in this life. Not in any.

She begins to move—slow rolls of her hips, deep and deliberate—and he doesn’t rush her. Doesn’t take control. He just watches. Watches the way her mouth parts, the way her lashes flutter, the way she bites back soft, strangled sounds when he shifts just right inside her. Each thrust is measured, more pressure than pace, his hands guiding, grounding her. She whimpers his name, voice thin with pleasure, full of trust.

And then he says hers.

The first time.

Rough and reverent, like something pulled from the bottom of his chest—something he never dared give voice to until now. Like it’s not just her name. It’s his home. tags: @blessdunrest @starmocha

[sunshowersanddandelionwine]

au where the Riley family lives and simon gets into some Deep Shit™️ with some sort of group, whether it’s cartel or a terror org or what have you. And despite his and price’s and laswell’s best efforts, even the most privileged information eventually makes its way to the highest bidder. Which means that when this amorphous Group wants to hurt the ghost, they go after his most tender weak point.

They snatch Joseph Riley on his way home from school one day, and he’s terrified. He knows what his uncle does (vaguely and highly sanitized), enough for a kid his age to understand the gravity of the situation. So he has some idea of what’s about to happen.

Joseph doesn’t really have a good gauge on the passing of time, trapped in a dank, moldy cell in the ground with a single dirty window that doesn’t let in much light. The cuffs around his wrists are too tight, chafing against the thin skin. He’s hungry, thirsty, tired, but not scared. Okay, he’s a little scared but not as scared as he should probably be. Because he knows that come hell or high water, Uncle Simon is on his way.

That is, until the Group gets tired of waiting for Ghost to make a move and decide to send a message. They grab Joseph by the scruff and drag him out of the cell he’d memorized every inch of through the building. Joseph doesn’t know what’s happening, but whatever it is can’t be good.

And it isn’t. The door they come to is large, looks like it’s solid steel but with a weird sheen to it. There are claw marks digging into the frame and the ground. And a low, persistent growl echoes from behind the metal. Before Joseph can even think to speak, to beg for his life, one of the men unlocks the door, throws Joseph to the ground, and slams it shut behind him.

He falls in a crumpled heap, panting and coughing into the darkness around him. And then he freezes. Because the room is silent. The growl is gone. With the last bit of courage he has, he lifts his head from the dirty, iron-smelling floor and locks eyes with two bright blue irises glowing in the dark.

He’s heard stories of the wolves before, caught somewhere between man and monster. Some had come from Uncle Simon, some where rumors floated around school, some were just stories told to scare children. The stories all talked about the ferocious majesty of wolves, massive frames and thick fur and pearly white, razor sharp fangs.

This wolf is entirely unlike those stories. In the barely-there light leaking through the seam of the door, he can see just how bad the wolf is. His fur is ragged and hanging off his skeletal frame. Barely healed scars cut deep gouges into his face and flanks. And his eyes have no keen intelligence left, just base animal instinct. He’s watching Joseph silently, unmoving.

Joseph knows the wolf is starving, and he’s the unwilling lamb led to slaughter.

But the wolf doesn’t pounce. He inches forward, nosing gently at the bruises and scratches on Joseph’s face. He whines quietly when Joseph hisses from the movement. And he herds Joseph away from the door towards a tangled pile of dirty blankets and straw, curling around his shivering body with eyes pinned to the locked door.

Wolves are pack animals, and werewolves are no exception. When one werewolf soldier Sergeant MacTavish was drugged and captured, the Group thought they had themselves a mindless killing machine. They thought they could throw a child at a lonely, feral wolf and send the Ghost a gruesome message. They either didn’t know or didn’t care that pups, no matter the species, are precious to the pack. They gave Soap a pup, and he would protect that pup with his life.

(And when Ghost bursts into the cell not long after, blood soaked and wild eyed, he doesn’t expect to see his nephew, alive and relatively unharmed, with a massive guard dog curled around him. He doesn’t expect that guard dog to change back into a man. And he doesn’t expect that guard dog to stick around once he’s back on his feet, sticking to his side like he’s got no where better to be.)

[almostfoxglove]

I wish you would bless us by writing a lil drabble about Javi

You two dated but you got sent back to the states and he had to stay in Columbia. You go back after a year and pick up where you left off and it's sweet and lovely because so much happened to him in that year

✉️ I wish you would write...

HI HONEY BEE omg. okay. listen. you know how I feel about javi & angst but also javi & love so HEAR ME OUT HERE OKAY, JUST STICK WITH ME. I'm gonna have to pop this under a cut because I've never once in my life been concise.

let's say you're the same girl javier falls for first,

and you used to work at the us embassy, one floor below his desk. spent your days with your head down and no small number of nights waiting up after javier called, telling you he was on his way. you only ever got twenty minutes warning, tops. often less. sometimes you wondered if he'd called you from the car, like he'd taken off toward you apartment before remembering to tell you he was coming.

for a year, you fucked on and off as his job or interest allowed. for you it was the perfect, pressure-free release. for javier, it was torture. having you like that, taking you apart as you unraveled him, always plagued by this nag at the base of his skull, greedy and vicious, that wanted more. he thought you'd eventually ask him to stay the night, or ask him for coffee, breakfast, anything, but you never did.

then your dad got sick. or your mom? he doesn't know. all he knows is that one day he goes into work and on his casual, totally unrelated but necessary loop past your cubicle, you are gone. desk cleared off. that little photo frame of you and another girl—your sister, he always guessed—vanished. your coworker, when they catch him staring, says you had to leave. that someone is dying back home and you went back to be with them while you could.

he nods, maybe grunts, and is gone, a cigarette already lighting itself in the cup of his hand. swallowing the bitter scorn he briefly feels rising in his throat that you didn't tell him shit. didn't even bother to say goodbye.

because you didn't have to, he thinks. he sure as hell hasn't told you shit about his life back in the states. so why the fuck should he care? why does he?

he doesn't have any way to contact you, but javier knows himself. he wouldn't call even if he did.

a year later, you return to colombia and cross the concrete slab outside the embassy. in your absence, escobar has died and the cali cartel has risen like cerberus in his place. you steel yourself as you approach the pewter steps, hoping you might slip back into the routine of the job you left behind without any fanfare. you don't want to explain your absence—you want to pretend it never happened. you just want to do your job.

but javier is smoking on the steps, and he sees you coming. and though neither of you ever really acknowledged each other at work in all the time you slept together—not even passing hellos—you watch in mild horror as he drops the cigarette from his hand, crushes it under his polished shoe, and stomps down the steps in your direction.

he looks different. you've never seen him in a tie, let alone a whole suit. your steps slow as his legs scissor the distance, crossing the courtyard as if nothing at all exists beyond the two of you. your frown doesn't phase him, your halting. nor the half-baked "what the hell are you—" that you get out before he's made it to you and yanks you against his chest.

he reeks of smoke and nerves. the only time you've felt the iron-grip of his embrace this tight is during particularly vigorous fucks, and they always, always unlatched the moment you were both done.

and yet javier is hugging you, tightly. out here in the open, with other people milling about, sometimes turning their heads to catch a sidelong glance at the man who mumbles into your hair, "m'sorry" with a strange awe in their eyes, like he's some kind of celebrity.

his voice, though, carries none of that vanity. he sounds throttled, ruined, wrecked. it is the shock, you think, that has you allowing this display. that has your arms cautiously, loosely wrapping around his waist, too stunned to process anything but a single question: what the hell happened to him.

you don't know what he's apologizing for. you don't know what strange, alternate dimension you've found yourself in. "javi—" you whisper eventually, arms slacking as if to pull away, but javier's grip only crunches tighter around your frame.

you aren't sure why your heart skips over itself.

you aren't sure why a little part of you, dazed as it might be, likes that he won't let go.

"hermosa," he mumbles, his breath hot in your hair. "m'sorry."

[andy-15-07]

Hiiiii hru??? I saw your post that requests were still open (if not, please ignore this) but I would love something where Javier Peña or Joel Miller save reader from something? (From (being kidnapped by Pablo, or an accident, whatever) something with a lot of angst ahahah

Thanks in advance 🫂🥹

Under Fire and Shadows

Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader

Word Count: 1246 | requests are open (send requests, I will gladly answer them all)

Pedro Pascal Masterlist

The hum of the ceiling fan barely cut through the oppressive heat of the Medellín afternoon. You leaned against the cool surface of the bar counter, a bead of sweat sliding down the back of your neck. It was supposed to be a simple job—slip in, pass along the intel, and slip out before anyone could ask too many questions. Yet, here you were, stuck in the lion’s den, your escape route compromised.

“You look like you’re ready to bolt,” the bartender said, his voice tinged with curiosity.

You forced a tight-lipped smile and took a sip of your drink. “Long day, that’s all.”

But your gut churned. You could feel the weight of their eyes on you. The cartel’s men, stationed strategically throughout the room, weren’t just watching the entrance anymore. They were watching you.

“You shouldn’t have come here.” His voice was calm, but the steel in his tone sent a chill down your spine. You didn’t have to look to know who it was. Javier Peña.

“What are you doing here?” you hissed, barely turning your head.

“Saving your ass, apparently.” He slid onto the stool next to you, his presence drawing the attention of the room like a magnet. Javier had a way of owning any space he walked into, and you hated him a little for it.

“I had it handled,” you snapped under your breath, though your clenched fists betrayed your nerves.

“Sure you did. That’s why half the room’s ready to pounce on you.” He signaled the bartender for a drink, his nonchalance making your frustration boil over.

“You’re going to get us both killed.”

“No, you were going to get yourself killed. I’m just here to make sure that doesn’t happen.” His voice dropped, his eyes locking onto yours. “Now, do you want my help or not?”

The sound of a chair scraping across the floor broke the tension. One of the cartel’s men was approaching, his hand resting too casually on the holster at his hip. Javier shifted, his posture relaxed but his eyes sharp.

“Time to go,” he muttered, grabbing your wrist and pulling you off the stool.

“Peña, I swear—”

“Shut up and move.”

The two of you weaved through the crowd, Javier’s grip firm and unyielding. You could hear the murmurs behind you, the rustle of movement as more men followed. Your pulse raced as you stepped out into the blinding sunlight, the noise of the street momentarily disorienting.

“This way,” Javier said, pulling you into a narrow alley.

“What’s the plan?” you asked, your voice laced with panic.

“Plan?” He gave you a lopsided grin. “The plan is to not die.”

“Great plan,” you muttered.

The sound of footsteps echoed behind you, and you barely had time to react before Javier was shoving you against the wall, his body shielding yours. His hand came up, gun drawn, and you could feel his breath against your cheek.

“Stay quiet,” he whispered, his voice low and commanding.

You nodded, your heart pounding in your chest as the footsteps grew louder. Javier’s body was tense, every muscle coiled like a spring. You wanted to argue, to tell him you could handle yourself, but the truth was, you were terrified.

The men passed by, their voices fading as they continued down the alley. Javier didn’t move until the silence settled like a weight around you.

“You okay?” he asked, stepping back.

“Yeah,” you said, though your voice betrayed you.

He studied you for a moment, his dark eyes searching yours. “You shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” you shot back. “Not everyone has the luxury of calling the shots, Peña.”

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he took your hand and started leading you down the alley.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe,” he said, his tone leaving no room for debate.

The “safe place” turned out to be a dingy motel on the outskirts of town. Javier checked you in under a fake name, his hand never straying far from his weapon. Once inside, he locked the door and pulled the curtains shut.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you said, looking around the shabby room.

“What were you expecting? The Ritz?” He dropped onto the bed, running a hand through his hair. “It’s temporary. Just until things cool down.”

You crossed your arms, leaning against the door. “You didn’t have to follow me, you know.”

“Yeah, I did,” he said, his voice softening. “You think I’m just going to let you get yourself killed?”

“Why do you care?” The question came out sharper than you intended, and Javier flinched slightly.

“Because I do,” he said, his eyes locking onto yours. “I don’t need a reason.”

The room fell into a tense silence, the air between you thick with unspoken words. You wanted to yell at him, to tell him he had no right to interfere, but part of you was grateful. Grateful that he cared, even if you didn’t understand why.

“Get some rest,” he said finally, lying back on the bed. “We’re going to have a long day tomorrow.”

You didn’t argue. Instead, you sat down in the chair by the window, watching him as he closed his eyes. Despite the chaos of the day, there was something comforting about having him here. And as much as you hated to admit it, you felt safer with him by your side.

The next morning came too soon, the faint light of dawn filtering through the threadbare curtains. You had barely slept, every creak of the motel and distant sound on the street keeping you on edge. When you finally looked over, Javier was already awake, sitting up on the bed with his gun in hand, his eyes sharp.

“You’re up early,” you said, your voice hoarse.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he replied, not looking at you. “Too much to think about.”

You didn’t ask what was on his mind. Instead, you stood and stretched, the tension in your shoulders refusing to ease.

“We need to figure out our next move,” you said, crossing your arms. “I’m not sitting in this dump all day.”

Javier finally looked at you, his expression unreadable. “The cartel’s not going to stop looking for you. You know that, right?”

“I know,” you said, your voice firm. “But I’m not going to hide forever. There’s too much at stake.”

“You’re stubborn as hell,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Fine. But we do this my way.”

“Your way?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” he said, standing and slipping his gun into its holster. “Because my way keeps us alive.”

You wanted to argue, but the determination in his eyes stopped you. Javier might be infuriating, but he knew what he was doing. And as much as you hated to admit it, you trusted him.

“Fine,” you said, grabbing your bag. “What’s the plan?”

“First, we get out of here,” he said, moving to the door. “Then, we make them think we’re going one way while we head another.”

“And after that?”

“We figure it out as we go,” he said with a smirk. “Now, let’s move.”

You followed him out into the morning light, the weight of the day ahead settling heavily on your shoulders. But for the first time in a long time, you didn’t feel completely alone. And as much as you hated to admit it, that made all the difference.

[canadian-pug-cartel]

Houston and Dallas (not my best work but also fuck digital)

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[athenagc94]

Dear Daddy Long Legs - Chapter 12

Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

TW: Firearms and some violence

First | Prev | Next

Chapter 12

No guns.

Not tonight.

Jason savored the way his fist connected with another man’s jaw. A second thug grabbed him from behind. He grunted as a knife dug into the padding of his uniform, narrowly avoiding a pierced kidney. His team teased him for the added bulk in his uniform. He wasn’t as nimble, but he wasn’t blessed with skin harder than steel or Amazonian strength. At the very least, he wouldn't need stitches every other week.

Knocking the blade from his hand, Jason had the thug laid out flat in under ten seconds. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, his basest instincts taking over. Punch, dodge, kick, punch, block. He didn’t have to think. His body just moved.

Tonight should have ended differently. He planned a stake out at this abandoned warehouse to gather intel on a new cartel that popped up under Black Mask’s purview. Sionis had been notably quiet since Jason returned to Gotham, but he was making moves again. This new cartel wasn’t a real threat, nothing to do with Black Mask was, but pending what he learned tonight, he might have tried to bring them under his purview instead. That idea went out the door the second he got caught snooping around their wares.

It was a stupid mistake.

A misstep.

He’d been having more of those as of late.

Several weeks later, he’d yet to fully recover from his episode at the club. He edged the darkness that threatened to consume him, lost time, a few hazy memories to string one moment into the next. The itch of his more volatile emotions lingered at the back of his mind, wanting to step in and take the reins. Sometimes it was sadness, other times desperation or hopelessness, but tonight, anger burned in his veins.

Jason kept it in check, if just barely, but the trouble with control is that his was finite.

He should be resting. Taking proper care and time to recover, but the thought of sitting at home with his thoughts made him restless. This was the alternative. Child’s play, all things considered, but he knew it was a far cry from productive.

His comm beeped before automatically connecting. “Hood.”

Babs.

Jason gritted his teeth. “Kinda busy here.”

“Your vitals are spiking. Do you need assistance?”

“No.” He knocked another thug off his feet, their temple cracking on the corner of a steel crate. His chest heaved as he whipped around, searching for more. His vision narrowed, the edges going a little fuzzy.

“Your heart rate is—”

“I’m fi—”

A bullet grazed his helmet. Jason dove behind the crate, breathing ragged. It took a second for his vision to refocus. He was fine. Of course, he was fine. His helmet protected him from these things, but that was a little too close to home for his liking.

“Hood? Was that a gunshot? Shit. I’m sending backup. Stand by.”

The line went dead before he could argue. Learning that she had a read on his vitals shouldn’t have surprised him. This was Babs, but he felt the prickle of irritation raise the hairs on the back of his neck. Who was she to treat him like a full-fledged member of the big, happy family. Jason was an estranged uncle at best.

He snarled, “Damn it.”

Now, he had a time limit. Finish this and get out before a member of the Bat-brigade showed up to lecture him. He reached for the gun on his hip. So much for no guns.

“Who the hell said you could bring a gun to a fist fight?”

A final thug stood on the far side of the warehouse. He held a gun in one hand, a tremor betraying how out of his depth he seemed. Straw colored hair fell limp around his face, baby fat rounding out his cheeks.

Jason hesitated.

“Put the gun down before you hurt yourself,” he said roughly.

“D-Don’t move. I’ll shoot.” He widened his stance as if that would help him here. He gripped the gun all wrong. His grip tightened around it, barely concealing the flinch of pain. Yeah, Jason expected that. He must have hurt himself on the kick back.

Jason lifted his hands. “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Why the fuck would I believe you?” He waved his gun toward the unconscious bodies littering the floor. Jason took in the scene before him with a clearer head. Okay. Not a great look if he was trying to diffuse the situation. “I could shoot you and be done with it.”

“Then shoot.”

“I—” His brow furrowed. “What?”

Jason closed the distance between them, pressing his helmet to the barrel. Bold to some, idiotic to others, but Jason had already shaken hands with the god of death and clawed his way out of the grave. His life was a joke, and besides, he knew how this would end.

On cue, the kid’s expression fell as his joints locked. When faced with the reality of killing a man, he couldn’t do it, just as Jason expected.

“Let me guess?” Jason said, his soft softer than before, “Times are hard, and you needed to make ends meet. They offered you a number that you couldn’t refuse.”

Slowly, he lowered the gun with a defeated frown. “I was told we were moving cargo. I didn’t know the cargo was drugs until I showed up. It was too late to back out.”

“What’s your name?”

“Evan.”

“And how old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

Fuck. Jason was grateful for the helmet, so Evan couldn’t see the way he grimaced. He really was a kid. “You still in school?”

“No.”

His chest tightened. “Do you want to be?”

It was a stupid question. Evan seemed to agree and scoffed as he tucked the gun in his waistband. Jason swallowed the urge to reprimand him. “It wouldn’t make a difference if I did. I’ll still be stuck on Park Row when I graduate. Might as well get a head start on the life that awaits me when I get out.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. You could work for me instead. I’ll pay you double. Triple.”

“How is that better than working for the cartel? Or Black Mask?”

Jason had a soft spot for a street kid with desperation in their eyes and few options. Evan wasn’t that much older than he was when Bruce picked him off the street. If he hadn’t gotten out, this would have been his fate too. Jason wanted to help, but he didn’t know how. He wasn’t Bruce Wayne with his trust funds and mansion with too many bedrooms.

In the end, Jason could only shrug. His solution wasn’t any better. It would still leave Evan a criminal. It would still get him hurt.

“I never asked for this.”

“Then walk away.”

“It’s too late,” Evan insisted.

“No,” he insisted, “It’s not too late to choose something else, to choose something better.” It was for Jason, but Evan had a shot at turning his life around.

“There’s nothing better out there.” Evan stepped toward the door. “Can I really go?”

He waved him off. “Get out of here before I change my mind.”

Not needing to be told twice, Evan bolted, the door shutting firmly behind him. Jason skimmed his fingers over the mark on his helmet. That was a lucky shot by a lucky kid who was fortunate to have run into him. If it had been Batman or someone else, that could have ended differently.

“Are you wallowing?”

“Ya gotta be kidding me,” Jason mumbled as he looked up.

Spoiler balanced effortlessly on a beam. Despite the mask that covered her mouth, he could sense the smile curving her lips.

“How long have you been there?”

“Just got here.”

“Good, then scram. Park Row is my turf.”

Steph was infamously bad at following instructions, so he wasn’t surprised when she ignored him, hopping down using a series of complex flips and twists. She barely reached his shoulder, but her general aura made his teeth itch as he moved on to clean his handiwork.

“Been a while since you and I crossed paths in the field.”

He would have preferred if it had stayed that way. While Steph was infinitely better than some of the other options, he didn’t know what to make of her. “No one else wanted to come?”

“I volunteered.”

Of course, she did.

“Babs was going to send Damian.”

Jason merely grunted as he dragged one of the thugs toward the door. He’d torch the goods before he left, but now that he had a vaguely bat-shaped babysitter, he’d have to do so with a little more care. Still, a controlled explosion fixed about 80% of his problems these days. She caught on and jumped at the chance to help him. They worked in silence, and he believed, foolishly, that he’d be spared the classic Steph Brown chatter.

“What were you doing?”

Evidently not. “Crime lord stuff.”

Steph paused, taking in the scene more closely. “And was this... successful?”

“No.”

Steph guffawed as she grabbed another thug under the armpits. “Oh, thank God, because if you act pissy when something goes right, I’d hate to see how you act when something goes wrong.”

His fingers twitched at his side. “No one asked you to stay.”

“Oh, I know.” She clasped her hands sweetly under her chin. “But I was feeling charitable.”

Something in her tone raised his defenses.

Abort. Abort.

“I don’t need—”

“I hear you’ve been feeling charitable too.”

“Fuck this.” Jason dropped his thug halfway out the door and left, content to leave the drugs and cartel mostly intact if it meant escaping. He refused to have this conversation again.

“Don’t be like that,” she said as she jogged to catch up with him.

Jason had avoided thinking about you thus far. He crammed every complicated emotion to the far depths of his psyche behind walls honed of steel. If he didn’t think about you, they remained unbreakable.

“Tim told her.”

He stopped dead in his tracks, that ember in his chest flaring as he turned to face her. Steph clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

“He did what?”

He was going to kill that fucker.

Hunt him down.

Make it slow and intricate.

There wouldn’t be any mouthy quips this time because he’d slice his tongue out. That’d teach him. For all his cryptic bullshit and lectures on privacy, he seemed quick to spill another man’s secrets.

As if sensing his intent, Steph amended, “He didn’t tell her that it was you specifically.”

Jason forced himself to breathe. “What did he tell her?”

A moment of hesitation was all she required to share everything. “That someone was, in fact, reading her letters. He never confirmed who. It spooked her, I think. She’s been off because of it. She won’t text me back. She moved seats in the classes we share. I don’t know what to do. Usually, I’m good at this kind of stuff, but...”

“Out with it.”

She sighed. “Have you noticed anything? I bet she’s still writing to you. You’d be able to tell if something was wrong.”

His shoulders pinched. Your letters sat in a neat pile on his table, untouched. He couldn’t bring himself to open them, tempting as it was to hear from you. The walls keeping his complicated feelings at bay weren’t that sturdy.

“No,” he said, “I haven’t noticed.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Nothing at all.”

“Nope.”

She planted her hands on her hips, disgusted with him. Jason was a little disgusted with himself, if he were being honest. If she was telling the truth, and why would she lie about this, you were struggling, and he’d had no idea.

“I don’t know why I even bothered coming here.”

“Yeah, me either.”

His pathetic attempts at deflection seemed to work because she reached for her grappling gun. His shoulders sagged with relief, but Steph was never going to let him have the last word. She closed the distance between them, barely cresting the underside of his chin, but she glared at him as if she towered over him.

“Whatever your end goal is with this; I want you to take a hard look at yourself and decide whether you’re willing to play games with her life like you did with yours tonight.”

He stilled.

“Yeah, I saw the stunt you pulled with that kid. I’m not usually one to lecture, but come on, man. What were you thinking?”

“It’s not like that. I would never—”

He would never hurt you.

“You’re playing games with her life with that scholarship. It might not kill her, but there’s a power dynamic that you’re too dense to realize. Money is power in this city. If B has taught us anything, it’s that. How will you wield yours?” With that final blow, Steph shot off into the night.

He wanted to be irritated, but he couldn’t find it. She was also a good friend—not to him, but she genuinely cared about you. At least you had someone looking out for you, because he’d done fuck all these last few weeks.

His walls shifted, the barest hint of those complicated feelings oozing through the gap to fill the hollow pit in his chest. He recognized the shame and anxiety, but something new bubbled to the surface.

Yearning.

He read enough books to understand the concept of yearning. The male hero always felt some matter of it, be it for his home or for a partner he left behind. Some described it like a bruise over the heart or a bone that refused to heal, but for him it was more like in itch he couldn’t reach. If he focused on it, he could feel precisely where it sat under his skin, demanding his attention.

Jason buried his face in his palm and swore as he hurried off into the night—cartel and drugs forgotten.

***

Your letters sat on his kitchen table amid a mess of receipts and crumpled Bat Burger wrappers. Despite sitting, ever-present in his line of sight, he pointedly ignored them when he deigned to return to his pitiful apartment. Homemaking had never been his strong suit, especially when the concept of home had always been a fleeting tease.

Tonight, he wasn’t strong enough to resist temptation, not after his conversation with Steph. After removing his helmet, he sank into the folding chair at the head of the table and picked up the first on the pile.

Dear Mr. Wayne,

I would like to humbly apologize for my previous letter.

It was a mistake. One I regret, though I will also admit that I do not remember what I wrote. I had been drinking and somehow my private writings made it into your hands.

Please know that it will never happen again.

I am serious about my degree. I would never take this opportunity for granted. I let my social life get in the way of my studies, but no more.

As a token of my dedication to my studies, I want to share this with you. My advisor suggested I submit a short story for a writing competition happening through the Gotham Gazette. The winner will be published in an upcoming periodical. I plan to submit something, though I doubt I will win. I have included a small excerpt with this letter.

Please. Do not think poorly of me. Throw my last letter away and pretend I never sent it. I promise I will be serious from here on out. I was too comfortable, and I now realize that was a mistake.

Jason vocalized his confusion with an audible, “Huh?”

Scanning the other letters, he found each more formal than the last as you outlined your studies like Bruce outlined mission details. Not a single contraction, stilted sentences, a general lack of your usual bite or passion. You sounded so unlike yourself that he stopped reading halfway through your third letter. Even the excerpt you shared with him seemed flat and disinterested.

What the hell did he miss?

Clearly, he missed something.

He searched through the mess on his kitchen table before falling to his knees in search of this fabled letter that warranted a sudden shift in your tone. Coming up empty, he sank back on his heels with a defeated sigh. Had he read your letters sooner, he would have noticed the change without Steph’s intervention, but this whole situation left him with more questions than answers.

What did you write about?

Where had the mystery letter gone if not to him?

Why did Tim tell you someone was reading his letters?

What the hell did you write about?

He dragged his fingers down his face. As much as he wanted to blame Tim for causing this, this was a bigger issue. A Jason issue. It also didn’t matter what you wrote. What did matter is that he needed to fix this before he lost the one good thing that he had with you.

This warranted a response. He just couldn’t decide what would be most appropriate. Keep it simple, keep it believable. Jason would write a lengthy letter back to assure you that he liked your candor and fire, but this was Bruce Wayne.

Knowing him, he’d throw money at the problem until it went away. You would hate that, but maybe he could meet this issue somewhere in the middle.

A little bit of Jason, a little bit of Bruce.

Some truth to alleviate the lie he’d trapped himself in.

It was worth a shot because he couldn’t bear another three years of formalities until you graduated. This had to work.

-----------------

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@bungunz @emu-lumberjack

[ghettogirly]

Omg your stories are too good to me. I'm stop bothering you. One more time . Can you do something for bad boys 4. Since the reader , Armando, Marcus and Mike probably the ammo square are on the run. They see why she the way she is. '' they are are in her world now''

Something that goes with this song '' I don't want to play this part but I do , all for you . ( Reader) What she does for Armando.

What ever you have in mind . I know it going to be good !!

𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐌𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃.

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎 𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐒 𝐗 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐀 “𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐒“ 𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐍.

𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆: 𝐒𝐎𝐅𝐓𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐄 - 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃

-> synopsis: Armando meets a girl who is exactly like him. While on the run, he is dragged into her world.

-> theme: angst.

-> format: story.

-> warning: mentions of blood, fight scenes, spoilers for bad boys ride or die, mentions of urban folklore, mature language, Malia and Armando both have daddy issues.

-> authors note: thank you for requesting! i really enjoyed writing this one. 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠! 𝐢 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬!

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐌 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐒 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐌𝐎𝐊𝐄. Four bodies were littered around the girl as she was pinned down on the sandy floor, her face cementing a print in it due to the force of the two security officers. Clouds of Smoke covered the yard, as they moved in a tactical form to stop Malia. Dragging her up, they pushed her down the empty corridors, all the way to solitary confinement as they investigated the incident.

She shouted as they threw her into the cell, cursing at the shit she landed herself into. She was mainly furious at how she didn’t know the reason why they tried to murder her, unclear about the past and the future presented to her. All Malia could do was to stare at the white walls around her as they slowly made her lose her mind.

“They tried to murder her because she’s the only one who could ID Captain Howard and exonerate him from all this bullshit!” Mike shouted, sweeping the papers off the table.

Lockwood and Rita looked at each other and then looked at Mike.

“Guys please, just transfer her to the Miami Correctional Facility and then i can deal with the rest.”

A sigh escaped Lockwood’s lips, raising his eyebrow at Mike, indirectly telling him to not fuck this up. “Fine, but if you mess up, my ass is on the line.”

The trio walked into the aircraft, side by side. Armando accompanying the duo for extra manpower, skilled in combat, there was no question for this addition. Malia was slid next to them, chained to the aircraft ceiling in a steel cage. The bars were slightly rusted as the metal corroded due to the moisture in which the cell was kept it. She looked up at him, her doll-like eyes hung low, her black iris staring right at him.

“45 minutes.” Armando stated, his voice running through the girls body, surprising her due to the low frequency of his tone. Clearly he was not fazed at her notoriety as another cartel member. Nevertheless, she tried to make herself comfortable, leaning back on the metal bars as she fiddled with the handcuffs that entrapped her hands.

This was going to be a long ride.

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐔𝐒 𝐒𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐋𝐘 𝐆𝐎𝐓 𝐔𝐏 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐓’𝐒 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐊. “Something doesn’t feel right,” he whispered, looking back at the crew before the door flew right open. Two caucasian men came running out of the boot armed with the same weapons Mike handed in at the entrance. Marcus was winded on the floor, leaving it up to Mike and Armando to stop the men from reaching you.

Unbuckling his seatbelt, the mexican male flung into action. Jumping off his chair, he twisted in the air, striking one of the men in the face with his foot. Using this opportunity, Mike then ran for the other one, repeatedly punching him and unarming him.

It was like a war zone, blood splattered everywhere, staining the silver aircraft.

This continued for minutes, yet it felt like hours due to the quick pace of the fight contrasting with the slow movement of the aircraft. Both of the men were holding their own, getting hit but still standing their ground. Clearly showing the similarities between the two. How ruthless, fearless and fucked up both was.

Unbeknownst to the men, the aircraft suddenly opened. Releasing a big gust of wind in, the gravity of the air causing the men to suddenly fall back, causing them to hold onto a stable structure in hopes of not falling to death. However, the gravity of the wind started to rattle Malia’s cage, suddenly causing the rope to elongate. Sliding off the cage plane as the chemical bonds that held the fibres together, were slowly unraveling.

“Get me out of here now!!” Malia shouted, urgency in her voice as she signalled to the men, banging the cage to cause a reaction. Mike leaped into action, holding the rope in order to stop the cage from flying out. Still fighting off the men, Armando was hit from behind and knocked down. His forehead being slashed causing a cut to occur on the males forehead. “Fuck!”

The stinging sensation caused Armando to pause momentarily. This split second allowed the men to fly off the plane, activating their parachute not before smiling at the struggling crew. “Armando, get her out!!”

The man snapped out of his gaze at the two, now disappearing men. Looking back at his father, he noticed the rope about to snap. Running to one of the guards, he grabbed the keys before ramming it into the padlock for the cage. 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄 𝐒𝐍𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐃.

𝐑𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐄, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐀 𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐑𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐅𝐓. “You’re in my waters now. Get rid of the fucking phones. Ya’ll better not slow me down.” She spat at them, irritated at the idea of becoming apart of a team.

Armando scoffed, before catching up with the girl. The two older men trailing behind as they argued between each other. “We need firewood.” He said lowly, his eyes focused on looking around the forest, it being a habit to check his surroundings.

“Since when was you the leader?”

“We saved your ass. Show some respect.” Bumping past the girl with his broad shoulder, making her lose her balance, he walked ahead.

“Dick.”

The fire illuminated the forest as the four sat around it, reflecting on the chaotic day. Malia just stared at the flames. Her eyes in trance as they danced around each other. “Yo Malia, where you from?” Marcus shouted, interrupting her focus on the flames. Mike shoved him, signalling a “why the fuck would you ask her that?” type look.

“I’ll answer.”

𝐌𝐘 𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐁𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐒, where my dad grew up. My mother was from the Caribbean lands of Trinidad and Tobago, she was originally on holiday to visit family where she met my dad. They were inseparable, attached to the hip even, Bonnie and Clyde.” She scoffed, shaking her head as if the love story was grotesque.

“My dad showed her his work, playing it off to be an innocent man who does construction. Yet, he lived a double life. He was the head of a Caribbean drug syndicate. The ‘Baku’ cartel. Based on a Bajan folklore of a tiny man with a long beard who terrified residents by constantly moving objects around in their houses. The Baku man was supposedly owned by East Indians and when customers lapsed on payments for goods received, this little man would be summoned to put fear in the hearts of those who owed debt.”

“Oh shit, so he’s linked with them voodoo people.”

“Shut up Marcus.” Mike whispered, urging me to continue on with my story.

“My dad was associated with that legend as he too put fear into those who owed him. Unfortunately, It was too late for my mom to escape him as she was pregnant by him with me and she was murdered when i was 5. The end.”

They just went silent, shocked at the abrupt ending as they looked up at her with sympathetic eyes. Except Armando, who instead, looked at her as if she just gave him comfort. “Your mother died too?”

“Yeah, as much as i hate my father for all the terrible things he did, including being a reason for my mother’s ending. He gave me a sense of purpose you know?”

“Sí, conozco ese sentimiento..” Armando whispered, fiddling with the dirt below him as his eyes reflected the fire pit in the background. Sadness weighed down his heart as he met someone else with the same tragic fate of his own, his eyes becoming glossy.

He sucked it up though. He never cries.

“They’re bonding..” Marcus whispered, leaning over to Mike who just shrugged him off. “Come on guys bring it in.”

Malia just stared at him. “You guys are some soft ass motherfuckers.”

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟐?

[🕷️] 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒:

“Sí, conozco ese sentimiento“ : Yeah, i know that feeling.

[🕷️] 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓:

@milliumizoomi @thedarkworldofhananerea @wizewhispers @deadpool15 @5tarlan7 @amplifiedmoan

[stewpidcheescatarinabluu]

“Love’s Gonna Get You Killed”

Chapter 2

“You again.”

Synopsis: A wounded mafia heir stumbles into a late-night convenience store, where a quiet clerk patches him up. He walks out—but can’t stop watching her. As danger circles and their worlds quietly collide, one question remains: Can you stay untouched in a life soaked in blood?

Word Count: 1,440

Karina X Male Reader

Macau.

The air reeked of sweat, gunpowder, and dying ambition. But your mind wasn’t here.

It was back in Seoul.

A quiet convenience store on East 42nd.

A name tag that read Karina.

That was the curse of knowing too much. You had her entire life in a file, but she only had a memory of a bleeding stranger who left without a name.

That’s the perk of being born into blood—you learn early that information is a weapon, and the best blades stay hidden.

“Y/N, sir,” one of your men said, pointing toward the rusted shipping crates and concrete walls ahead. “This should be the cartel’s base. What are your orders?”

You lit a cigarette, looked past the compound.

“Burn it.”

“Burn it?”

“Leave no trace. They dared to move against my father. Let them die for it.”

“Yes, sir.”

The orders were carried out with precision. Flames bloomed across the base like red flowers. Screams followed. Fleeing cartel members were gunned down without hesitation. A few fought back—sloppy, desperate. They died just the same.

By the end, the compound was ash and smoke. The message was clear.

You boarded the private flight back to Korea with a case full of illegal narcotics. Pure. Profitable. Power in powder form.

But it never interested you.

You didn’t get the thrill. Didn’t understand the rush people sought in addiction or currency. It all felt like noise.

What lingered was her.

Your phone buzzed as the wheels touched down.

Unknown Number:

“Did you get the drugs?”

You didn’t need the name. The typos, the tone—it was your father.

You:

“Did you lose another phone, or do you just switch numbers ten times a day? And yeah, I got it, old man.”

Him:

“You talk too much for the heir of Korea’s largest mafia.”

You:

“Whatever. I’m on the way home.”

You pocketed the phone, stepped into the night air of Seoul, and wondered—

Was she still working the night shift?

Did she ever think about you?

You arrived at the old coal mine just before midnight. The air around it always felt colder than the rest of Seoul—like the earth remembered the blood spilled here.

Joon-ho stood at the front, hands clasped behind his back, ever the loyal shadow.

“Good evening, sir. How was Macau?”

You stepped past him without stopping. “It was good. Smelled like gunpowder and rotten flesh.”

Behind you, your men followed in silence, each carrying heavy black cases—unmarked, locked, and filled with poison the city would soon pay for.

The steel doors creaked open.

The hideout still looked the same: dim lights, cigarette haze, walls layered with secrets. An empire built on fear and inheritance.

You shrugged off your coat and handed it to one of the boys.

“Store the cases in vault room three,” you ordered. “Don’t let anyone touch them except Joon-ho.”

“Yes, sir.”

Joon-ho fell in beside you as you walked deeper in.

“The fire got international attention,” he said. “Cartel’s main supplier gone. They’ll scramble.”

“They should. They forgot whose name built the ports they smuggled through.”

“You’ve made your father proud.”

You gave a tired smirk. “He should write me a letter or something.”

As you entered the war room, monitors flickering with activity, your eyes caught the edge of a grainy CCTV still—paused.

East 42nd. The convenience store.

Karina.

Still there. Still unaware.

Joon-ho noticed your silence but didn’t speak.

You lit a cigarette, eyes never leaving the screen.

“Keep watching her,” you said quietly. “If anything feels off, I want to know before she does.”

“Yes, sir.”

Smoke curled from your lips, and for a moment, the room fell silent—except for the quiet hum of war and a ghost of a girl who didn’t know you were already in her life.

Karina – 2:17 A.M.

The hum of the fridge was the only sound in the store. That, and the soft rustle of plastic as she restocked the ramen shelf for the third time that night.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

There hadn’t been a single customer in nearly thirty minutes. Unusual, even for this hour. Normally you got at least a drunk college kid or a cab driver looking for a quick snack. But tonight? Nothing.

She glanced up at the security mirror near the ceiling. Empty aisles.

Still, her skin prickled. Like someone was watching.

She rubbed her arms, shook it off, and walked to the counter. As she passed the windows, she noticed it—

a black car across the street. Parked. Engine off. Tinted windows. Hadn’t been there earlier.

She stared at it for a second too long.

Then forced herself to look away.

Paranoia, she told herself. Sleep deprivation.

But it didn’t feel like nothing.

She reached under the counter and touched the small baseball bat she’d stashed months ago. Just in case. Never thought she’d even need to think about it.

And yet here she was.

Her eyes drifted to the rack of bandages again.

The same one he bled in front of.

That guy.

No name. No warning. Just blood and bills.

She hadn’t seen him since.

But sometimes… she thought about him.

Or more like—she felt like he was still around. Like the night hadn’t really ended.

The store door chimed.

She jumped slightly—then exhaled. A regular. Just an old man looking for lotto tickets.

Still, as she rang him up, her eyes flicked once more to the black car outside.

It was gone.

You woke up to silence. Same ceiling. Same weight on your chest.

Melancholy wasn’t a feeling anymore—it was your baseline.

You lit a cigarette the moment you stepped onto the balcony. The city was still waking up, sun bleeding over rooftops, turning steel and concrete into gold. But it didn’t warm you.

You smoked in silence. Seven minutes. No music. No phone. Just the hiss of the lighter and the burn in your lungs.

You got dressed in black—like always.

Joon-ho arrived right on time. 7:00 a.m. sharp. Buttoned suit. Gloves. Not a wrinkle out of place.

“Good morning, sir,” he said with a light bow. “May I interest you in some tea? Perhaps coffee?”

“No thanks,” you muttered, brushing past him.

He followed. “Should I inform your father about—”

“Yeah. Tell him I’m going out for a bit.”

“Shall I arrange the car?”

“No. I’ll take the black bike.”

Joon-ho blinked. That meant no guards. No eyes. Just you, the wind, and wherever your thoughts were headed.

“Understood,” he said, bowing slightly again. “Will you need backup?”

You gave him a sideways glance. “It’s just a store run.”

He didn’t believe that. You didn’t care.

As you walked out, keys in hand, helmet under your arm, one name echoed in your head like a quiet beat.

Karina.

You weaved through the city like a ghost—black helmet, black bike, cutting between lanes like you owned the asphalt.

People stared. Let them.

You weren’t here to be seen. You were here because something kept pulling you back.

The convenience store sat just where you left it. Still. Dim. Flickering neon OPEN sign humming softly against the morning gray.

You parked across the street. Killed the engine.

And just… watched for a moment.

Inside, Karina was behind the counter, absentmindedly flipping through a small notebook. Her hair was tied back. She looked tired—but calm. The kind of calm you’d kill to feel for even five minutes.

You lit a cigarette, visor still down, and leaned back on the bike.

But you weren’t alone.

A man, dressed in black, stood half-hidden behind a row of trees not far from the store. He wasn’t smoking. Wasn’t on his phone. He was just watching—watching you.

You clocked him instantly. Too stiff. Too clean. Not a civilian.

You didn’t move.

Neither did he.

This city had rules. You were breaking one just by being here. But someone else was breaking another by watching you this openly

Your fingers twitched slightly. The pistol was in your jacket, left side.

But you didn’t reach for it. Not yet.

Instead, you got off the bike slowly and walked toward the store—eyes never leaving the window.

If Karina noticed the tension crawling in the shadows, she didn’t show it. She looked up.

Recognition flickered in her eyes.

The first time you bled into her life.

This time… you were clean.

“Hey,” you said, opening the door, voice low.

She blinked. “You again.”

[oddclan-askblog]

More slig stuff plus lore below the cut (there is a lot.)

Slig growth differences: 

free sligs can see well and do not need goggles. They maintain their lower set of mandibles which are used to feed food into their moths as well as taste. Teen sligs steel guns, ammo, and goggles from older sligs when they're not looking. While most of this goes to new escapees sometimes cool stuff "slips through". Teens don't really need any of it, they're seldom allowed to fight or raid. It all just looks really cool so of course they snag it. 

Adult tribal sligs new or original, are expected to leave the old gear behind in favor of copper jewelry and tattoos. Some keep their old gear but most move on. 

Slave sligs are blinded and their lower set of mandibles are removed while they're young. This makes tough food harder to eat and disincentives them from fleeing the factories in adult life. Additionally their tails are bound and cut short making movement without pants very painful. 

Occasionally baby Sligs are smuggled to freedom but very very rarely. Rescuing a squawking sadistic slug is quite difficult compared to a mud egg. 

New blood: 

Slaves who try to become free can not enter the community at will. They are required to bring their weapons and gear (unloaded), whatever they can snatch food wise, and must mark themselves to show their commitment. A mark consists of a very obvious "X" across the head or chest, anything hidden is likely to be missed and the latter will be shot on site. The X must be scarred over by the time they arrive unarmed. 

When this policy was first implemented there was a lot of success and their numbers grew by the day. Once the cartels caught on the deserters thinned out significantly. Recourses have dwindled. Some suggested the policy be changed so marks could be carved across other parts of the body, so as to be more hidden. Treun will not allow it he wants the mark to be obvious.  

Village life: 

There is only one above ground settlement left in Oddworld, the rest are numerous connected by a maze of caves. Escapees are allowed to congregate at the aboveground settlement but no further. Any interaction from the other clans require natives from above or below meeting in the middle. A free queen is rumored to exist but this has never been verified. The sanctuaries constant need for new support and supplies suggests otherwise. 

Sligs live minimalist lifestyles, their tents are woven fabric with leaf littered over the top to blend in with the ground. Each member hunts and gathers together for the clan. Trade with mudokon allow for the acquisition of new art and the occasional tattoo. Muds are not allowed into specially marked sections of the slig tunnels. 

Underground is more complicated, most of the smaller settlements are only three to ten homes strong. The inhabitants feed on cave mosses when desperate but otherwise eat off of dead animals swept into the caverns. Their homes are short dead end tunnels dug into a horizontal "s" shape. A flood room is built into the lower curve so excess water stays in the front half of the home. At the high point of the second curve a long vertical tunnel is dug up toward the bedrooms and other chambers. 

Almost everything is made of some form of clay with fabric and food being stored indoors. Rotten food and waste are disposed of ahead of the village by several kilometers so it flows down current come the storm. Sligs responsible for this travel on specific days of the week. In the interim, trash is carefully sorted and clutter is discouraged. 

The Catacombs: 

Under the swamps lie the ruined Slig cities and shrines. Tunnels and hidden enclaves dug deep into the earth over thousands of years weave a beautiful and dangerous tapestry out of the rock. They can be navigated and shrines can still be accessed but doing so requires careful effort. The biggest danger below is not getting stuck, crushed, or lost, its drowning. Rain is hazardous and inconsistent from above, mountain melt, swamp mog, and anything small enough to drag under, will flood even the largest chasms. 

Bells and bridges connect the highest non flooding point of the caverns. They are specially designed with grooves on their exterior so they will ring as the rain pours. If one can not make it to a bridge above, death is assured. 

The deepest settlements have specially dug water drain offs and bastions so other caverns remain safe. Many ancient cities and statues are closed off by collapsed tunnels or completely submerged underwater. All point to a powerful past where queens warred for power and free sligs thrived in abundance. 

Some areas are inaccessible due to toxic gas which can spread to other caverns if opened. Sligs have a variety of ways for assessing the danger of rooms ahead. Birds are the old-school method, less preferred given the scarcity of food. Repurposed gear can be used especially gas detectors if stolen.

The most common method is tying a trained rat to a string and allowing it to skitter through a small opening. The opening will be closed momentarily with food occasionally added in. The short string keeps the animal close by, its breathing and squeaking being an indicator if the environment is unsafe. If the rat stops squeaking all together the chamber has no oxygen. If the chirps are frantic and it begins scratching at the lid the room is toxic. If all is normal the room is safe. When the results are in the string will be pulled like a leash and the pet returned. This keeps the sligs and their fuzzy buddies alive without wasting resources or much time. 

As Ratz serve a vital role their is much cave art and carvings in their honor. Indeed it seems even ancient sligs understood these creatures genius. Rats and Mize are bred and sold across slig territory for looks, colors, size, and sometimes food. Other Odd races would find this disgusting but Sligs could give less of a damn about their opinions.

Beliefs: 

Sligs are not religious or particularly spiritual at present, they are mostly focused on day to day survival. Some settlements are zealous in their practices and preach their own version of a coming end time. A world borne anew from a great ancient flood where only the most steadfast are saved! Treun blows these isolated settlements off, his people are experiencing enough pain as is. Wouldn't help to preach of imminent death even if most would ignore the rapture too. 

[https-jasmine]

“Blood and Vows” – A Mafia Bucky Barnes!au

word count-883

The club was dimly lit, the scent of expensive whiskey and burning cigars thick in the air. The sound of slow jazz hummed in the background, drowning beneath the murmurs of men in tailored suits and women in silk dresses. It was the kind of place where deals were made with handshakes and settled with bullets.

At the center of it all sat James Buchanan Barnes, better known as Bucky, the most feared and respected Don in Brooklyn. He leaned back in a black leather chair, his metal fingers tracing the rim of his glass, eyes cold as he listened to the man in front of him stammer excuses.

“Barnes, please— I didn’t know it was your shipment. I swear on my mother’s grave, I wouldn’t have—”

A sharp laugh cut through the air.

Bucky leaned forward, his elbow resting on the mahogany desk between them. The dim light cast a golden sheen over his chiseled face, his steel-blue eyes glinting with amusement.

“Your mother’s grave?” he mused, swirling his drink. “That’s what you’re offering me? Your word?”

The man—Carl Rossi, a low-level hustler who had made the grave mistake of crossing the Barnes family—nodded desperately. Sweat trickled down his temple.

Bucky sighed and set his drink down. “You see, Carl, that’s the problem with guys like you. You think words are enough. But in my world?” He pulled out a knife, turning it between his fingers with expert ease. “Loyalty is paid in blood.”

Carl barely had time to beg before Bucky’s enforcer, Sam Wilson, dragged him out of the office. The muffled screams that followed were just another melody in the symphony of crime.

Bucky leaned back again, rubbing his temple. He was tired. Not of the business—no, that was in his blood—but of the constant betrayal, the endless cycle of violence.

And then there was her.

His sanctuary in the madness.

The Woman He Couldn’t Have

You worked at The Red Velvet, one of Bucky’s many businesses—a high-end club that doubled as a front for money laundering. You weren’t in the business, not really. Just a singer, someone who belonged to the music, not the crime.

But Bucky watched you. Every night.

Your voice wrapped around him like silk, soothing the beast inside him. And when you met his gaze across the smoky room, something in his chest ached.

“You should stay away from me,” he had warned once, when he caught you outside after a late set, standing beneath the flickering neon lights.

You had tilted your head, a sly smile playing on your lips. “And if I don’t want to?”

Bucky had smirked then, a rare thing. “Then you’re more dangerous than I thought.”

And yet, he let you get close.

You were the only one who spoke to him like a man and not a monster. The only one who saw the parts of him that weren’t drenched in blood.

Trouble Finds You Both

The night the club was raided, you found yourself in the middle of a war you had no business fighting.

Bucky’s enemies—the Zemo Cartel—had been waiting for a moment to strike, and tonight was it. Gunfire erupted, shattering the golden glow of the chandeliers, sending glasses crashing to the floor.

You ducked behind the bar, heart hammering as chaos unfolded.

Bucky was a ghost in the madness—swift, lethal. His metal arm caught the light as he fired, each shot precise, merciless.

But then—

A scream.

Your scream.

Bucky’s head snapped toward you just in time to see one of Zemo’s men grab you, a gun pressed to your temple.

“Barnes!” the man sneered, blood dripping from his split lip. “Drop the gun, or she dies.”

The room had gone silent.

Bucky’s jaw clenched, his finger twitching over the trigger. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to act, to kill.

“You think I won’t put a bullet in your skull before you pull that trigger?” His voice was eerily calm, laced with venom.

The man hesitated.

Bucky smirked. “Wrong move.”

Before the man could react, Bucky pulled the trigger—shooting him right between the eyes.

You gasped as the body slumped to the floor, your knees buckling. Bucky was there in an instant, arms wrapping around you, pulling you to his chest.

“You’re okay,” he murmured, fingers running through your hair. “I got you.”

You clung to him, breathless. “You almost got yourself killed.”

Bucky chuckled, a rare softness in his voice. “Sweetheart, that was nothing.”

A Vow in the Dark

That night, he didn’t let you out of his sight.

“You can’t stay in this world,” he told you, brushing his thumb along your jaw. “You deserve more than this.”

You looked up at him, fire in your eyes. “And what if you are what I want?”

Bucky exhaled sharply, torn between duty and desire. But when you leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his lips, he gave in.

For the first time in years, he let himself feel.

And he knew then—he would burn the whole damn world down before he let anything happen to you.

Even if it meant making the ultimate choice.

Even if it meant war.

Because you were the only thing he was ever willing to die for.