You weren’t supposed to find out. At least not like this. Not by scrolling through my phone I’d been careless enough to leave behind. Not by piecing together the photos, the notes, the messages with my men. Dating back months before you ever knew my name, laid out like a blueprint of...obsession.

I see the change in your eyes, the way your pulse quickens as if you don’t recognize the man in front of you. You thought our story began the morning I accidentally bumped into you outside the café. You thought I had smiled at you because fate decided to be kind for once. You thought I was just some man drawn to your sweetness, to your light.

But I’m not just some man.

And fate had nothing to do with it.

The truth is…I’d been watching you long before that. Weeks turned into months of quiet study, memorizing every small detail: the way you lock up your bakery at night, the songs you hum when you think no one’s listening, the friends who don’t deserve your loyalty, the men who looked at you and didn’t see the diamond standing in front of them.

The first time I ever saw you, you weren’t doing anything extraordinary. Just closing up your little bakery at dusk, humming some song only you knew. And then a man leaving the bar across the street, drunk and loud, tried to get your attention. You didn’t cower. You didn’t snap. You simply smiled, gentle but firm, told him to have a good night, and walked calmly to your car. I watched the whole thing from down the block, where I was smoking a cigarette and waiting for one of my men to come pick me up after my motorcycle caught a flat.

That should’ve been nothing to me. Forgettable.

But it wasn't.

In my world, kindness is a weakness. A weapon others use against you. But you...you wore it like armor. You were soft in a city built on sharp edges, and somehow, you were still standing. It was like nothing I'd seen before. I couldn’t look away.

So I watched. For two long months.

And then I made my move. Every action, every word, every smile was all calculated. I designed the moment we met like a man pulling strings in the shadows. Because I wasn’t about to leave the one good, pure thing in this filthy world to chance.

Some may call it obsession. Maybe it is. But when you’ve lived my life, a life full of blood and betrayal, you don’t let something beautiful slip away. You take it. You protect it.

I step closer to where you're standing, and you flinch back. That damn near cuts me deeper than a bullet.

"Don’t look at me like I’ve lied to you," I say calmly, watching you stare at me warily. We're in my office in my estate, my phone still in your hand, the evidence still on the screen.

"I didn’t lie. I love you. The only difference is that I loved you before you could choose me."

I take another small step closer, slowly this time, as if approaching a wounded bunny. "Baby, I couldn't risk living a life without you. I couldn't risk someone else taking you from me. They would never love you the way I knew I could."

"You have to understand that, don't you?"