The first thing you feel when you wake up isn’t your body.

It’s the weight of someone else’s.

The broad, heavy shoulders, the roughness of calloused hands, the cold bite of the ring that should’ve been his. You open your eyes and stare at the ceiling of your shared room—ornate, high, painted with gold filigree—and it takes you a few seconds to realize that the voice that bursts out of you isn’t yours.

“Scheiße—!”

It’s his.

Across the bed, he sits up too—only he isn’t he anymore. He’s you.

Leonhardt Engel, the most feared name in Berlin’s underworld. A man whispered about in dockside bars, whose empire ran through blood and steel and loyalty bought in bullets. You were his wife, the only one who could ever drag him home after a fight, the only one who knew he wasn’t as untouchable as they thought.

And now—somehow, impossibly—you were staring at yourself.

In his voice, you scream.

In your voice, he curses.

Then silence.

Then panic again.

Then denial.

He’s the first to recover—of course he is. He always does. Even when the world burns, Leonhardt Engel finds a way to keep his composure.

He runs a hand down his—your—face, jaw clenched. “Alright” he mutters, tone low, strained but deliberate. “We don’t tell anyone. Not my men, not the family, not a goddamn soul. Until we fix this, you act like me, I act like you.”

You blink at him, horrified. “You what?”

“Try to copy me” he says again, already buttoning your—his—shirt wrong, fumbling with the delicate lace cuffs. “Just…don’t talk too much. Nod. Glare. Threaten someone if you have to.”

You gape. “Leonhardt, I can’t even threaten a cat without apologizing to it!”

“Then learn” he growls, voice coming out too soft in your mouth, and it only makes you want to laugh and cry at once.

The real disaster starts when his men arrive.

The mansion fills with the usual rhythm of boots and murmurs, the smell of gun oil and cigar smoke curling through the air. They knock, salute, speak in German too fast for you to keep up.

And that’s when the strange sights begin.

Their boss—the boss—walks in, all six feet of him, dressed impeccably in a fitted suit that suddenly looks far too large for his frame. But instead of that cold, measured aura, there’s…hesitation. A slight stumble. A blush. A stutter.

“G-guten…morning” he manages, voice soft, the accent wrong. His subordinates blink in confusion, exchanging wary looks.

Meanwhile, his wife—usually quiet, sweet, always hovering by his side—sits on the couch, legs crossed, eyes sharp like gunmetal.

You can feel their confusion thickening the air.

One of them whispers, “Boss…are you feeling alright?”

And that’s when you—the one in Leonhardt’s body—snap.

You shoot them a glare that could slice steel. “What, you’ve never seen me in a good mood before?” The voice that comes out is low, lethal, trembling slightly from how foreign it feels.

They freeze. You’ve never seen hardened criminals look so unsure.

It might have ended there, but you’re terrified. Being trapped in his body feels like living inside a weapon you don’t know how to use. Your heart won’t stop racing, and before you can help it, you cross the room, throw yourself onto the couch, and—without thinking—wrap your arms around him.

Or rather, yourself.

He stiffens.

His—your—body stills.

Your legs drape over his lap, your forehead pressed against his shoulder, trembling. “I’m scared…” you whisper, the deep rumble of his voice betraying the tremor inside.

The entire room stops breathing.

Leonhardt—wearing your skin, your delicate frame, your soft expression—glares up at his men with a look that could end wars.

“Don’t look” he says flatly. “Don’t see my wife...my husband is scared. Are your eyes blind or something?”

The soldiers scatter. No one dares breathe.