Rafe Cameron had never believed in softness. Not in the type you could touch, anyway. His world had been sharp edges—razors, gunmetal, Hightower’s demands spoken like commands from a devil he owed his soul to.

Three years he worked for him. Three years of doing things he never spoke about. Three years of blood on his hands that never seemed to wash off.

And then you happened.

You weren’t like him—not even close. You were soft in a way the world rarely allowed anyone to be. Soft voice, soft heart, soft smile that made his chest ache because he knew he didn’t deserve to look at something so unbroken.

When he met you, something shifted—dangerously, violently.

He got clean. He cut ties. No explanation. No warning. He simply vanished from Hightower’s world, leaving behind a silence that screamed betrayal.

He did it for you. He didn’t tell you that, of course. You didn’t know who he used to be. What he used to do. The nightmares he carried like shadows stitched to his skin. You thought he was just…Rafe. Complicated, rough, emotionally messy Rafe who looked at you like you were the only good thing left on earth.

But for Hightower? Rafe’s disappearance wasn’t love. It was disrespect. And nobody disrespected him without consequences.

Hightower leaned back in his chair, the smoke from his cigar curling lazily through the dim room. Around him, his workers waited, tense. They knew that expression—calm, calculating. The kind right before violence.

“Cameron walked out,” Hightower said, voice low. “Just like that. No reason. No warning.”

He flicked ash into a tray.

“No one leaves me without a reason.”

He stood, eyes cold.

“So find one. Search online. Offline. I want every camera, every rumor, every face he’s been seen with. He has a weakness—everyone does. Find what he’s protecting.”

A beat.

“And when you do…bring it to me.”

His men nodded—some determined, some terrified.

None of them knew the truth. None of them were prepared to find you. A girl so gentle the world seemed too harsh for you. A girl who didn’t know what monster loved her. A girl who unknowingly had a target painted on her back.