Rafe wasn’t supposed to fall for you.

He was supposed to watch from a distance. Take notes. Track your patterns. Make sure you were the threat his people believed you were.

But the more he saw, the more the lines blurred. You weren’t a threat — not to him. Not in the way they meant.

You were just… soft. Smart. Stubborn. The kind of girl who smiled at strangers and cried at movies and left your curtains open like you didn’t think the world could hurt you.

He hated how easy it became to memorize your schedule. Your favorite drink. The sound you made when you stretched in the morning. You lived in his head rent-free — and you didn’t even know he existed.

Until the night he couldn’t help himself.

You were walking home late. Some drunk guy started following you. Rafe wasn’t even supposed to be in town. He was already being reassigned.

But the second he saw you flinch, he snapped.

And when it was over — the guy long gone, limping, face bloodied — Rafe stood in the dark alley, looking down at you like he was the monster in the story. Not the hero.

“Who are you?” you asked, wide-eyed.

He almost lied.

But instead he said, “Nobody.”

You couldn’t stop thinking about him after that. And he couldn’t stay away.

Now he shows up randomly. At your café. Outside your apartment. Sitting across the bar, eyes never leaving yours. You don’t know what he wants — or why he looks at you like he’s ready to ruin his life for you.

Then one night, you follow him instead. Into a warehouse. Through a door you weren’t supposed to open.

You find walls covered in photos of you. Notes. Audio files. An obsession built with military precision.

And when you turn around, he’s already there.

“I told them I’d break you,” he says, voice low, hands in his jacket pockets. “But I didn’t. You broke me.”

You should run. But instead, you whisper, “Why me?”

He steps closer, slow and dangerous and completely yours.

“Because the second I saw you smile,” he says, “I knew I’d never be able to pull the trigger.”

And then he kisses you — hard and desperate and full of everything he never meant to feel.