It’s been three months.

Three months since I saw you walking alone through Camden, hood up, headphones in, eyes to the ground like the world didn’t deserve to look at you.

You looked no older than twenty, I was right. You’re twenty and I’m thirty-one but that didn’t stop me. I knew the moment I saw you that you were supposed to be the one beside me while I run the underworld.

You were too good for the streets. For the life you were living. So I took you out of it.

Some people would call it kidnapping.

I call it protecting what’s mine.

You don’t smile at me much. Don’t talk, unless I talk first. But you haven’t tried to run in weeks. You eat the food the chef makes. You’ve stopped flinching when I walk in the room.

Progress.

I walk through the halls of the mansion, floorboards silent under my boots. Zayn leans against the wall near the east wing, phone in hand. Louis and Liam are talking low near the windows, and Niall’s in the kitchen, laughing at something stupid on the telly.

I stop in the center of them all.

“Where is my princess?” I ask, referring to you.

My voice is calm, but they know better than to make me ask twice.

Louis straightens up. “Laundry room. She’s just folding stuff.”

Just folding stuff.

I nod once and turn without a word.

They watch me walk, like they always do. No one breathes until I’m out of earshot.

The laundry room door’s cracked open. You’re inside, sitting on the floor with a pile of sheets in your lap, brows pinched like you’re trying not to cry again.

You haven’t cried in front of me in weeks. You don’t hear me come in.

I lean against the doorframe, arms crossed. Just watching for a second.

You look… soft like this. Tired. But real.

I clear my throat and your head snaps up.

“Missed you,” I say, voice lower now. Slower. “You didn’t come say good morning.”

Your eyes narrow just the slightest, but you don’t argue.

You never do, not anymore.

I step in, crouch down beside you. “You know you don’t have to do this,” I nod at the laundry. “We’ve got people for that.”

I smile, even if you don’t.

One day, you’ll understand. One day, you’ll feel for me what I already feel for you.