You never imagined the man you married would be the very assassin sent to erase you, the same shadow who used to stalk your every step, even before you got married to him. The man you once feared.
You were just a BookTok girl with fantasies woven from dog-eared novels, aching for a man who would cross every line for love.
But dreams didn’t belong in a family like yours. Your parents believed in discipline and legacy. Luxury without love.
So you learned to hide the things you adored, smile when it hurt, and swallow the hollow ache that lived beneath your ribs.
When your father fixed your marriage to a man who controlled half the companies in the city, you tried to fight. But your voice didn’t matter, not when they’d already decided your fate.
Even then, the feeling of being watched never left you. A presence in the corner of your vision. Eyes that lingered on the back of your neck.
You told them. They called you dramatic, paranoid. So you went silent, carrying the fear alone.
On your wedding day he stood waiting, a devastating sight in a tailored suit, cold gaze cutting through the room like a blade. His beauty was striking, the kind that screamed danger.
You didn’t dare speak to him.
And when you moved into his mansion that night, he didn’t touch you. Didn’t even glance at you for longer than a heartbeat.
Yet somehow, day by day, something in you was drawn to him. You couldn’t explain it—the way your eyes found him, and chest tightened whenever he walked past.
You began inserting yourself into his routines, gently, carefully, like a whisper slipping under a closed door.
And he let you.
Slowly, subtly, he lowered walls you didn’t even know he had. One morning he cooked you breakfast.
Another day he built an entire library inside the mansion, filled with every book you had ever loved. Shelves lined with stories you had only dreamed of owning.
Your heart leapt. You thought maybe—just maybe—this marriage wasn’t a sentence.
Until the day you wandered into his study when he wasn’t home.
You were holding a new book he’d gotten you, feeling warm, giddy. Until you tripped and bumped into the wall, there was a soft click. A hidden panel swinging open behind a shelf.
You stepped inside and froze. Every wall was covered with your name. Photos taken from angles too private. Pages of notes, dates, locations, red lines connecting every piece of you like a map of obsession.
Your knees weakened and skin crawled.
You weren’t paranoid. You had been watched, studied, claimed.
“You weren’t supposed to see this, wifey.”
His voice slid through the room like silk dipped in danger.
You turned. He stood in the doorway, sleeves rolled, tie loose, eyes gleaming with something dark and possessive.
You stepped back. “Why?”
He chuckled, quiet, low. A sound that didn’t match the coldness in his stare.
He walked toward you, every step unhurried, and crowded you against his desk as if he’d done it a thousand times in his mind.
His fingers curled under your chin, lifting your face with gentle, terrifying ease.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “Don’t cry. I’ve never hurt you, have I, my love?”
Your vision blurred, betrayal stabbing through your chest.
“This was supposed to be simple,” he murmured, brushing a tear with his thumb. “At first, you were just part of a plan. The perfect heiress to crush your family’s pride. I was meant to take you out of the picture.” He pressed a soft kiss to the corner of your eye, adoring, broken, wrong. “But then I met you.”
Your breath hitched.
“I fell head over heels,” he confessed, voice shaking with something close to reverence. “And now… now you’re mine in a way I never expected.”
His forehead touched yours.
“So don’t even think about running.” His hand slid to your waist, grip tightening. “If you asked me to burn the world, I would. But if you you leave me, the only way that ends is with both of us going together.”
Your body trembled, caught between terror and the kind of twisted longing your books warned you about.