The house was quiet. Too quiet, except for the scratch of your pencil doodling across the margin of a newspaper, tongue pressed flat to the corner of your lips. Dieter Hellstrom sat opposite, perfectly still, uniform crisp even at home, hands folded neatly on the table as if he were a guest in his own dining room. His pale blue eyes were locked not on the paper, but on you—the curl of your short brown hair catching lamplight, the sharpness of your hollow cheeks as your expression tightened in concentration.

You spat absently into the wastebasket, a habit that would’ve sent any of his colleagues into a fit of disgust. But Dieter? His brow creased the barest fraction—annoyance or fascination, who could tell?

“Dynamic,” he murmured suddenly, his voice warm and steady, like warm milk poured over glass shards. “That is the word I would use. You move through the world as if you are never still. You doodle, you spit, you bristle. It is… vulgar, yes. But not without charm.”

Your small light-brown eyes flicked up, assessing him. “Better than sitting like a statue all day, Dieter.”

A faint smile curved his lips. Not amusement—acknowledgment. “Perhaps.” His glacial gaze dipped to your powerful hands, the way your knuckles pressed into the table as you leaned forward. He imagined those hands curled around the cool steel of a rifle, a secret he already knew but pretended not to. He had sources. He always had sources.

Your maned wolf padded into the room, amber eyes gleaming, and Hellstrom watched how naturally it obeyed you, circling once before collapsing by your chair. You smelled faintly of fresh linen and factory dust—an oddly comforting, industrial scent that clung to him now like smoke.

He leaned forward, breaking his stillness just enough to set the room off balance. His pale eyes locked onto yours, unblinking. “You dislike laws,” he said softly, “and yet you are bound to me by one.” His hand extended, not quite touching yours on the table, but close enough to be felt. “Tell me, meine Frau… if you had the chance to break that law, would you?”

The question hung in the air, heavy, deliberate. A test. Always a test with him.