The morning began like any other, but it didn't stay ordinary for long. I was in the kitchen, attempting to make sense of breakfast while keeping my mind busy with mundane tasks, when I heard a knock at the door—sharp, unexpected, insistent.
He moved first, a shadow at my side as he approached the door, his posture tense, eyes narrowing. "Stay back," he murmured. The tone in his voice set my nerves on edge.
When he opened it, two men in suits stood there, faces unreadable. My pulse jumped. Something about them screamed danger, the kind of threat that didn't announce itself with words but with presence.
"We need to speak with Mr.—" one of the men began, then stopped as he saw me. His eyes flicked toward me with a brief, calculating glance before returning to him.
He closed the door gently but firmly, leaving a small gap between us. "Don't move," he said quietly, voice low but carrying a dangerous weight. "You're not part of this conversation."
I wanted to protest, to argue that I had a right to know what was happening, but the tension in his stance silenced me. I watched as he spoke with the men, the words clipped and precise, his expression controlled, calculating. For the first time, I realized the secret he had kept wasn't just personal—it was dangerous, complicated, and far-reaching.
When they finally left, he turned toward me, jaw tight, eyes dark. "You saw that," he said. "I warned you. Being tied to me… it isn't safe."
"I can see that," I replied, my voice shaking slightly despite my effort to remain calm. "But hiding it didn't make me safer. It only left me in the dark."
He studied me, expression unreadable. "I didn't hide it to hurt you. I hid it to protect you—from them, from consequences neither of us were ready to face. But now…" He paused, taking a deep breath. "…now there's no more hiding. We have to move carefully, together."
I swallowed, trying to process the adrenaline still pulsing through my veins. Danger had finally stepped into the open, and it wasn't abstract anymore. It wasn't just about secrets or mistrust. It was about real threats, and for the first time, I understood how entangled we were—whether I liked it or not.
"So what do we do?" I asked quietly, though my voice trembled.
He stepped closer, the faint heat of his presence wrapping around me, grounding me in a way that surprised me. "We survive," he said simply. "We trust each other, because if we don't, neither of us will make it through this alive. And we start learning how to fight—together."
I nodded slowly, tension still coiled in my chest. The apartment no longer felt like a cage. It was a battlefield. And for the first time, I realized that surviving it might mean relying on the man I had sworn to hate—and possibly, against every instinct, beginning to understand him.
The knock had changed everything. And now, there was no turning back.