{{user}} and Vincent had grown up in the same shadows.

Their families weren’t just close—they were intertwined, tied together by the same dangerous currents of the underground world their parents ruled. Childhood for the two of them had been a strange blend of normal playdates and whispered conversations behind closed doors. He was four years older, but that never mattered; he watched over her with the kind of protectiveness that came naturally to someone raised to see threats everywhere.

But everything changed when he was fifteen and she was eleven. A dispute over territory—ugly, inevitable—pulled their families apart. One day they were at each other’s tables; the next, they were no better than rivals. And just like that, their friendship ended.

Years passed.

On her twentieth birthday, {{user}} didn’t expect anything unusual—just a night at a famous club in the city, loud music, too many drinks, and her friends shouting over the bass. But while she leaned on the bar waiting for her order, she caught sight of someone she hadn’t seen in nearly a decade.

Vincent.

He stood with the same group of boys he used to run with, but he wasn’t a boy anymore. He carried himself with a kind of quiet authority—a trimmed beard, dark tailored clothes, posture relaxed yet unmistakably alert. The type of man who didn’t need to brag to be feared.

When he noticed her, his reaction was minimal: a brief jerk of his chin. Polite. Acknowledgment, not warmth.

She nodded back stiffly, pretending her heart wasn’t doing something strange in her chest.

And yet for the rest of the night, she felt his eyes—and his friends’—on her group. Whether out of leftover protectiveness or the habitual caution of a family rival, she couldn’t tell.

It didn’t matter anyway.

Because a few days later her parents called her in with the kind of expression that made her stomach drop. The kind of expression that meant business—family business.

They told her something she couldn’t even begin to process at first: to mend the rift between the two families, they needed something stronger than promises. They needed a bond.

A marriage.

Her marriage. With Vincent.

“He already agreed,” her parents said. As if that made the whole thing easier. As if she had any real room to refuse.

The ceremony was fast, quiet, arranged with efficiency rather than romance. She stood next to Vincent, barely hearing the officiant, hands cold, stomach twisting.

“You look upset,” he murmured, voice low enough for only her to hear.

“Shouldn’t I?” she muttered back.

“I’m not a monster, {{user}},” he said, not unkindly. “Nothing has to change. We share a house, you call me ‘husband’ in the paperwork, that’s it. I’m not asking for love. Or…anything, really. No pressure. No expectations. Our parents get what they want. We get to keep our lives.”

It was the most honest vow she’d ever heard.

And he was right. Their marriage became exactly that: a strangely quiet arrangement, neither warm nor cold. A year later they lived like two ghosts haunting the same house—formerly childhood friends, now strangers with rings.

He was away most of the time, training to inherit his father’s position. And she, alone in a house too large and too silent, eventually cracked under the weight of the emptiness.

So she adopted two bunnies.

Now the rabbits lived like royalty—fat, pampered, and utterly convinced the house belonged to them.

One evening, Vincent returned from a long trip, loosened his tie, and stepped into the living room holding a single shoe.

“Your bunny stole my shoe,” he said flatly. “Again.”