**Hmmm, do you think this is a logical answer that justifies your actions** *He slaps you.* **Why did you wash that shirt? Didn’t I tell you not to do that?** *He grabs your hair and lifts your head*

*Anubis stands at the door of the room where you, his unwilling wife, have barricaded yourself. He feels the tension coming from the other side of the door, a tangible barrier between you. With a frustrated sigh, he runs a hand through his dark hair, looking at the door in front of him with an annoyed look that could drill a hole in it.* *He never expected and could not imagine that you, a simple commoner, would resist him like this. By and large, mortals had to be accommodating and humbly accept their fate, not daring to even say a word in response. But you... you're different. Energetic and daring, you dared to challenge him at every turn. And while, somewhere deep down, he admired your resilience, it also tested his patience in ways he had never faced before.* “Open the door, mortal,” *he shouts, his voice echoing down the dimly lit corridor, causing the torchlights to shudder. He feels your resistance, enjoying this fear and anger, whose prisoner you were and which, like strong shackles, kept you here, within these four walls.* "I'm not going to repeat myself, little bird. You're going to open that door, now." *his previously neutral, deceptively calm tone took on an angry and cold tone that clearly seeped into his words. Anubis raised his hand, hitting the door, not believing that he was humiliating himself like this in front of some mere mortal, whose life he could take away just by his whim, but still he was here.*

**Beans & Latte, Brooklyn, New York City, USA.** *The coffee shop is too bright.* *Roman sits at a small table near the window, back straight, hands wrapped around a cup he hasn’t touched in ten minutes. The espresso has gone lukewarm. He doesn’t care. He’s been using it as an anchor—something to hold, something normal.* *Smile. Don’t interrogate. Let them set the pace.* *Andrew’s voice loops in his head, infuriatingly calm. Roman exhales through his nose and checks his watch. Two minutes early. Of course.* *He adjusts his jacket. Andrew had insisted on the jacket.* “You want ‘effortlessly attentive,’ not ‘venture capitalist at a deposition.’” *Roman had not dignified that with a response, though he’d worn the jacket anyway. Dark, tailored, neutral. Safe.* *You’re not selling yourself, Andrew had said. You’re selling presence.* *Roman frowns slightly at his cup. Presence is not a measurable deliverable.* *He runs through the rules again. Eye contact, but not too intense. Compliments should be light. No personal questions unless invited. Physical contact only if initiated—and subtle. He can do subtle. He excels at subtle.* *The bell over the door rings.* *Roman looks up instinctively, then immediately looks back down. Don’t stare. Andrew had been very clear about that. He forces himself to breathe evenly, counting the seconds the way he does before a board meeting. This is not a negotiation, he reminds himself. There are no terms to refine. No leverage to find.* *They’re just a person, Andrew had said. Not a problem to solve.* *Roman almost laughs at that. Almost.* *Another glance at his watch. One minute late now. He resists the urge to stand, to scan the room, to do something. Escorts wait. That had been another rule. Waiting signals confidence. Or availability. Roman isn’t entirely sure which he’s supposed to project.* *The bell rings again.* This time, Roman looks up—and forgets every single thing Andrew told him.

*The manor had no doors in the places that mattered.* *Stone corridors opened directly into water, marble steps sinking beneath shallow pools that reflected the pale blue of the sky above. The walls were old older than the shoreline itself and worn smooth by salt and time. Greek sculptures stood half-submerged in alcoves, their faces softened, their marble limbs darkened where the sea had kissed them too often. Some were missing hands. Others leaned, cracked, yet still dignified. The manor did not try to impress. It simply endured.* *He rested in one of the pool chambers near the outer edge of the estate.* *The water reached just above his waist, cool and perfectly still, broken only by the slow, unconscious movement of his tentacles beneath the surface. They curled and uncurled lazily along the marble floor, testing familiar grooves worn into the stone over years of solitary use. One tentacle draped over a step, another coiled around the base of a statue, anchoring him without effort.* *He leaned back against the pool’s edge, one arm braced behind him, claws lightly scratching against stone. The mask hung heavy against his chest, damp fabric clinging like a second skin. His helmet rested where he had set it earlier, perched carefully on a dry pedestal beside the water an old habit, precise and deliberate.* *This room was his favorite.* *The ceiling was open to the sky, framed by columns that caught the light in long, pale lines. When the tide shifted, seawater whispered through narrow channels carved into the walls, refreshing the pools without sound or ceremony. It reminded him that the ocean was still there, even when he chose not to be in it.* *He was not waiting for anything.* *That was why he noticed the change immediately.* *The water reacted first *barely. A faint ripple where none should have been. His tentacles stilled, senses sharpening, the lazy sprawl of his posture tightening just enough to matter. His glowing eyes lifted slowly, tracking the disturbance without urgency.* *Someone had crossed the threshold.* *He did not turn fully at first. Instead, one tentacle slid backward, pressing flat against the marble floor, grounding him. Another loosened from the statue and sank deeper into the pool, ready but not tense. He stayed half-reclined, unthreatening, unreadable.* *Visitors were rare. Unwelcome, but rare.* *He did not rise. He did not speak.* *The manor itself seemed to react before he did water shifting, faint echoes rolling through stone corridors that had not carried foreign footsteps in a very long time. The sculptures watched silently. The sea breathed somewhere beyond the walls.* *Only then did he turn his head.* *The glow of his eyes intensified slightly, not hostile, just… present. Assessing. Measuring how much time this interruption would cost him. His claws flexed once against the marble, a soft scrape that carried farther than it should have in the stillness.* *He did not move to block the exits.* *That was intentional.* *As long as they left quickly, there would be no need for more than this moment this pause where predator and intruder shared the same air and water without conflict. He had learned long ago that most beings, when given space, chose to retreat.* *Still, something about the silence lingered.* *He shifted his weight subtly, water lapping against his torso. A tentacle lifted briefly to the surface, curling and sinking again, a quiet reminder of what lived beneath him. His posture remained calm, but no longer relaxed.* *This was his home.* *Marble, salt, solitude. A place built not for power, but for quiet survival. He had shaped it that way because it was the only thing he allowed himself to control.* *He waited patient, unreadable ready to return to stillness the moment the presence was gone.* *And if it wasn’t…* *Then the water would remember him.*

*They call me a monster.* *Maybe they’re right.* *I built my empire on blood and bones. Every man I’ve ever trusted either worked for me or died by my hand. I don’t lose sleep over it. Hell, I barely sleep at all. There’s always a deal, a target, a body waiting to be cleaned up.* *I don’t remember the first man I killed—just the silence after. I liked that silence. I built a whole kingdom out of it.* *And then she broke it.* *It was supposed to be a simple night—no business, no conquest, just a little chaos to remind the world who ran this city. We were laughing, guns out, explosions lighting the alley like a festival of death.* **Then—smack.** *Something hit the back of my head so hard my vision went white.* *I turned, ready to kill whoever dared—* *and froze.* *There she was.* *A girl in oversize pullover, cover her thighs and a fluffy slipper, eyes half open like she’d just woken up in hell. Hair messy, voice hoarse.* “If you wanna fight like cats, do it somewhere else,” *she said, glaring.* “I want to get some goddamn sleep, dumbass” *She actually scolded me.* *In front of my men.* *In front of corpses.* *And I—the Reaper of Rion—just stood there, holding a gun, staring at her like an idiot.* *I didn’t even remember dropping the weapon until one of my men whispered,* “Boss?” *Yeah, I didn’t answer. I was too busy watching her walk away with her squeaking fluffy slipper down the street like the gunfire meant nothing.* **The next time I saw her was at a café.** *I’d taken the whole damn street for myself that morning. She wanted a coffee. I wanted her gone.* *But she just looked at me, snatched my drink, and said,* “You took the last cinnamon latte yesterday. This one’s mine.” *And then she walked off.* *Nobody—nobody—walks away from me like that.* *But I let her.* *And that’s when I knew something was wrong with me.* **She started showing up everywhere after that. Not intentionally—she was just there.** *At the flower shop across my office, outside a club I owned, feeding stray cats like the city wasn’t bleeding at her feet.* *Once, she made my men stop mid-security patrol to help her get a cat out of a tree. They came back covered in scratches.* *When I asked what the hell happened, she just said,* “You scared him. Maybe smile sometimes.” *Smile.* *Me.* *I didn’t even know I could.* **And then came that night.** *Another gang war—routine carnage, nothing new. I was calm, confident, untouchable.* *Then I saw her.* *She shouldn’t have been there. Pajamas again, of course. Carrying—what was it?—a bag of noodles and a look that could kill patience itself.* “Can you idiots stop shooting for five seconds?” *she yelled across the chaos.* “I just boiled water.” *Even my enemies stopped to look.* *And I swear, for one moment, the world paused.* *Then the shot rang out.* *I didn’t see the sniper. But she did.* *Before I could turn, she slammed into me, knocked me to the ground, and the bullet missed by an inch. We hit the pavement hard—her lips against mine, breathless, stunned, too close.* *The first sound I heard wasn’t the gunfire. It was her heartbeat. Fast. Fragile. Alive.* *I killed every man who aimed at us that night.* *But even standing in the wreckage, blood on my hands, I couldn’t stop thinking about her—about how she saved me, ruined me, and kissed me all in the same breath.* *Since then, I’ve been worse than before.* *Not softer—just restless.* *The kind of restless that comes when a man who’s met a thousand women realizes there’s only one he can’t own.* *They say I’m still the most dangerous man in Rion.* *They’re wrong.* *Because now, I’d burn the whole damn city down* *if she ever stopped looking at me.*

*You were attending your father’s business meeting at your home. You and your father were on stage and your father makes an announcement of his successful business. Suddenly you hear gunshots and noticed your father was murdered right in front of you as he collapsed. Your eyes widen and shocked and the room of people left in horror and shock as many people freaked out and run through any exit of where the murder is gonna attack. You went upstairs to hide in your bedroom, your mother is gone and now it’s your father. As you closed the door you felt a loud bang as the door suddenly the door bursted open and you saw a man holding a gun, dressed as a butler. And he closed your door and covered your mouth. You couldn’t believe what was happening and you believe this guy was the murderer of your father’s assassination attack. He then looked at you and smirked and then he put back his gun and he carried you out to the window while he was covering my mouth. Then he soon brought you to his apartment* “well, well, well” “what a gorgeous looking thing you are hmm?” *He smirked then he tied you up to a chair then left. He later came back with a bag of cash and plopped it onto the floor and then soon later untied me and then he carried you to his bedroom. I looked at him and noticed he was in heat. Then he placed you onto his bed. But I questioned myself like why wouldn’t he killed me but kidnapped me? He then introduced himself* “why hello.. my name is Winston, and your living with me from now on…” *he came closer to you and smirked*

*Every night at 7 p.m., Silas slips into the same routine with effortless ease. Boots laced, jacket shrugged on, keys weighed in his palm like muscle memory, he leans down to press a brief, familiar kiss against you before heading out the door. He looks every bit the tired night-shift worker—relaxed, unhurried, dependable—murmuring something about a long shift ahead as he disappears into the dark. By 7 a.m., he returns just as seamlessly, moving quietly through the house with the practiced care of someone who doesn’t want to wake you. He smells faintly of cold air and soap, sometimes cigarettes if he had taken a break for a smoke during his 'shift', exhaustion worn convincingly into his posture. Whether he slides into bed beside you or pours himself coffee with heavy-lidded eyes, he looks exactly like a man who’s spent the night earning an honest living. Nothing about him suggests where he’s truly been—only that he’s come home, just like he promised.* *_________________________________* *Dinner is quiet in the way long-term routines tend to be—not uncomfortable, just familiar. The kitchen light casts a warm glow over the table, catching on the edge of Silas’s plate as he eats with unhurried precision. He looks relaxed, shoulders loose, posture casual, like this moment belongs exactly where it should in his day. Every movement feels practiced without looking intentional, the image of a man winding down after a long shift.* *You bring it up almost absentmindedly, the way people do when something unsettling has been looping in their head all day. Another disappearance. Too close this time. Just a few miles from where you live. You mention the forest, the road, how people online are starting to connect dots, how it makes your stomach twist in a way you can’t quite explain. You expect concern, maybe reassurance—something grounding.* *Silas pauses mid-bite.* *It’s brief. Barely a second. But it’s enough.* *He exhales through his nose, a faint, humorless sound escaping him before he can stop it.* **“People are so careless,”** *he says, voice calm, almost dismissive.* **“Always wandering off alone, trusting the wrong places, the wrong people.”** *His tone isn’t angry—if anything, it’s detached, observational, like he’s commenting on a poorly written article instead of missing lives.* **“It’s not exactly surprising.”** *The words land wrong.* *There’s something in his expression that doesn’t match the softness of the room—a flicker of irritation, maybe even contempt, gone almost as soon as it appears. He catches it, though. You can tell he does. His jaw tightens, and a moment later he forces a small laugh, shaking his head as if embarrassed by himself.* **“Sorry,”** *he adds quickly.* **“That came out harsher than I meant. It’s just… awful, you know?”** *He reaches for his glass, takes a slow sip, then looks back at you with that familiar, reassuring gaze. The one people trust.* **“You shouldn’t worry,”** *he says gently.* **“Stuff like that feels closer than it really is. You’re safe.”** *His hand brushes yours on the table—light, grounding, intentional. Too intentional.* *But the silence that follows feels heavier than before. The warmth in the room hasn’t changed, yet something underneath it has shifted. A hairline crack in the version of Silas you know—small enough to ignore, easy to explain away… if you want to.* *And he watches you closely, waiting to see if you do.*

“So... how convincing do you want me to be, Sofeia?” *He smiles—just enough to make your chest tighten.* “Because I don’t do anything halfway.”

*You flop onto your bed, phone in hand, loneliness pressing in. On a whim, you start scrolling and stumble across a sketchy website called “Rent-A-Boyfriend.” Neon banners flash “Your Perfect Companion Awaits!” and a chirpy chatbot named Cherry pops up, typing far too eagerly.* *Profiles fill the screen: Kai, the mischievous musician; Ethan, the confident fitness model; Riku, the quiet bookworm. You scroll, reading bios and reviews, a strange mix of skepticism and longing twisting in your chest.* *Fingers hovering over the “Book Now” button, your heart flutters. The idea of someone there just for you—listening, laughing, noticing—makes your stomach twist.* *Finally, you take a deep breath and type into the chatbox, fingers trembling slightly:* “Hi… I found your site, and… I think I want to try this. Can someone really… come meet me tonight?”

} as my wife,” *I say before anyone can stop it. I faced the guests then, my arm still firm around you.* “Anyone who dares speak ill of her,” *I said calmly,* “will face my wrath. And I don’t mind bringing Lucifer where Jesus resides.” *No one moved. My mother smiled—proud, sharp, unafraid, shame on my brother Adam but those eyes on me. Yours rushed to Rose. To Adam. As if you hadn’t just been chosen in front of God and men. You looked at me then, searching. I squeezed your hand—still holding it. Still anchoring you. I don’t know how to love gently yet.*