The city looked softer from above.Elias stood at the window, watching the night smear itself across the glass like ink on silk. The skyline pulsed with cold light — towers like spines, roads like veins. But none of it touched him. The world could keep its shine; the quiet was louder.
The envelope lay open on the table now, its contents spread like confession. Photos. Crisp. Perfectly timed.Too perfect.
Mara.In the frame.Innocent, and yet… not.
The shots didn't scream. They whispered. And whispering is always more dangerous.
Her face — soft, almost glowing under the streetlights. A stranger's hand in the corner of one frame. Her smile caught at an angle that could be anything: trust, weakness, danger. He'd been staring at the same set for over an hour, and each time they looked different. As if the shadows in the photos changed depending on how much doubt he allowed to slip in.
Elias flexed his hands once. The bones in his knuckles cracked quietly.
This wasn't just a threat. It was a message.Someone was saying: I see her. I see you.
And the worst part? He didn't know from where the arrow had been fired. His world was layered — lies beneath silk, blood beneath charm. He'd spent years learning to control every step, every breath. But Mara… she'd never been a calculation. She was the variable that refused to stay still.
He leaned against the table, his head lowering into his hand. The air felt colder than it should have. Like something in the room had shifted. Like the night itself had exhaled on his skin.
Mara couldn't sleep.Not really.
She lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling as if the cracks in the plaster might offer her answers she was too afraid to speak aloud. The morning before — his hands on her waist, the way the world had tilted until nothing else existed — it still lived under her skin. And yet the silence that followed had crawled into her bones like frost.
Elias hadn't called. Hadn't texted. Not a single word.And silence from him wasn't silence. It was deliberate. Heavy.
She turned onto her side, pulling the sheet up to her throat even though the air was warm. Her pulse drummed against her ribs, uneven. She hated that she missed him like this — hated that just thinking of him made the air taste like smoke and rain.
The last time she'd seen his face, his eyes were soft, but his hands were tight. Like he'd wanted to hold her and push her away all at once.
She whispered into the night, "Don't disappear on me now…"But the ceiling didn't answer.
Elias picked up the photo again. The one that burned the most.Mara wasn't doing anything wrong in it — just standing, waiting. But whoever had taken it wanted it to look loaded. Wanted to twist something that was ordinary into a blade.
And Elias knew blades. He could feel the weight of this one.
He'd been followed before. Threatened. Cornered. But this — this was different. It wasn't about him. It was about her. And that was the first rule: they only aim for what can make you bleed.
He pushed away from the table, pacing the length of the room. The shadows stretched with him, tall and long and silent. His jaw ached from how hard he was clenching it.
He wanted to protect her.God, he wanted to touch her.To keep her close where no one could slip through.
But wanting and doing were two different beasts. And he wasn't sure which one would devour him first.
Mara sat up. The silence in her apartment had started to feel like something was watching her.She checked her phone again. Nothing.
Her feet found the floor before she could talk herself out of it. She slipped on a sweater, fingers shaking, not from the cold — from that gnawing in her chest that said go to him.
And maybe she shouldn't have. Maybe she should've let the silence stretch a little longer. But Mara had never been good at silence. Not with Elias.
She slipped out into the night, the city humming low around her. Every light seemed to follow. Every sound seemed sharper.
Elias felt it before he heard it. That soft shift in the air, like the world inhaling. Then—Three knocks.Light. Familiar.
Mara.
He froze halfway between the table and the door. For a heartbeat, everything inside him warred — protect her or keep her away. He could already taste how dangerous the space between those choices was.
When he opened the door, she was there. Hoodie too big, hair a little wild, eyes wide like she'd sprinted through the night.
"You weren't going to call me, were you?" she said. No hello. No soft landing. Just straight into the storm.
He didn't answer.He couldn't.
Because looking at her felt like standing too close to a flame he wanted to burn him.
"Elias."Her voice broke a little on his name, and that did it. He stepped aside. She brushed past him, bringing the night with her — damp, electric, restless.
Her eyes found the photos almost instantly. She stilled.
"What… what is this?"
Elias's throat tightened. He didn't move closer. Not yet. "Someone left it at my door."
She picked one up with trembling fingers. He could see her breath catch — not because she was guilty. But because someone had turned her life into something they could use.
Her voice was barely a whisper. "They're watching me."
He hated the way it sounded on her tongue. Like fear didn't belong to her, but someone had forced it into her mouth anyway.
He finally stepped closer, slowly, like approaching a wild creature you don't want to scare. "Yeah," he said, low and steady. "And I'm going to find out who."
Mara turned, meeting his eyes. Something fragile and furious burned in hers. "Why me?"
He wanted to tell her everything — the layers of his world, the things he'd tried to keep her out of. But his mouth didn't know how to shape those truths without breaking her.
Instead, he reached up and brushed his thumb against her jaw, soft. She leaned into it before she could stop herself.
Her whisper was softer this time. "You're scaring me, Elias."
"I know." His voice cracked, not with weakness, but with something worse — the kind of feeling that isn't meant to be said out loud. "I'm scaring myself too."
The space between them thinned like smoke.
The night stretched, slow and dangerous.
Mara's fingers were still clutching the edge of the photo. Elias's hand was still against her skin. And somewhere in that thick, velvet silence — the world tilted. Not fast. Not loud. But real.
She looked at him like she wanted to believe him. He looked at her like he couldn't afford to.
And beneath all of it… something darker was moving.
Not outside. Not in the streets.Closer.
Right between their ribs.