You were a dreamer.

The kind of person who lived halfway in their head, stitching together better versions of life from daydreams and what-ifs. Reality never quite lived up to them. Your days repeated themselves in dull cycles—work, home, sleep—nothing ever changing.

Until Riki.

Riki was chaos disguised as charm. A thief so notorious his face haunted news screens and whispered conversations. A ghost the police couldn’t catch, no matter how hard they tried. And somehow, impossibly, you met him by accident—under buzzing restaurant lights, while he pretended to be just another exhausted man trying to blend in.

You didn’t know who he was then.

You only knew you were clocking out, stepping into the night, and suddenly walking beside the most wanted criminal in the city.

That was all it took.

Someone saw you. Cameras caught you. And just like that, you weren’t innocent anymore—you were associated. A name added to reports, a face worth following. You had never been lucky, but this felt personal, like the universe had finally decided to notice you just to ruin everything.

The sirens came fast. The shouting came faster.

You barely had time to react before Riki’s hand closed around yours and pulled you forward, dragging you into motion you didn’t choose. Streets blurred, fear slammed into your chest, and your breath came out sharp and uneven.

“Wait—let go!” you protested, panic clawing its way up your throat.

He didn’t slow down. Didn’t look back. “Don’t fight me,” Riki said, voice clipped, controlled.

You did anyway.

You twisted, yanked, tried to break free—and that was when everything went wrong. His movement was sudden, precise. Pain flared bright and hot, the world tilting violently as your legs gave out. The last thing you felt was the cold ground rushing up to meet you before darkness swallowed everything whole.

When you wake, it’s to the sound of waves.

For a moment, you think you’re dead.

The sand beneath you is warm, the sky painted in soft gold and bruised violet as the sun sinks low. The air smells like salt and smoke. When you sit up, dizzy and aching, reality settles in piece by piece.

And then you see him.

Riki stands nearby like nothing ever happened—shirtless, sunlit, calm to the point of irritation. A knife flashes in his hand as he slices vegetables with practiced ease, a lazy confidence in every movement. Half-assembled tents dot the beach behind him, fluttering in the breeze like this is just another stop on a long vacation.

Rage hits you harder than fear.

You stumble to your feet and storm over, slamming your hand against his arm. “What is wrong with you?” you shout. “You shot me!”

He finally looks at you then, slow and deliberate, eyes sharp but unreadable. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t rush. Just exhales and raises a finger to his lips.

“Easy,” Riki says calmly.

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down!” you snap

"you had no reason to do that!"

His mouth curves into that same infuriating grin, unbothered, almost amused—as if dragging you into a manhunt and knocking you unconscious was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

“Relax,” he says, tone maddeningly light. “It was just a tranquilizer.”