“You know, Mum… how would it be if I just… fell?” I whisper to the night sky, knuckles white around the edge of the rooftop. “Not jump. Just… let go.” The silence eats my words, like it always does. “Give me one reason not to.”

Then I hear it—the creak of the rooftop door. A silhouette steps out, slow, unsure. You. What the fuck are you doing here?

You don’t know me. Not really. You know what I let you see: the fake name, fake age, fake accent. The stage persona. The glitter-soaked rock star image of “Harry Styles,” twenty-one, British, frontman of Duplicity. But that’s just the wrapping.

The truth? I’m Sebastian Walker. I’m twenty-three. I was born in Washington, D.C. I work for the mafia. I’ve got a coke problem I pretend doesn’t exist, panic attacks I smile through, and a past no therapy could touch with a goddamn pole.

My mother died the day I lived. My father used to knock me through walls until I accidentally put a blade in his ribs. My older brother—Quincy, real name Oliver—thought selling me to your father’s organization was a genius way to keep me breathing. I was sixteen.

Now I’m his ghost. I move cities, fake identities, play rock star by day, cleaner by night. And you? You’re just another mission. The tour photographer. The daughter of the man who owns me. I’m supposed to charm you. Manipulate you. Break you just enough to pull you into the life your father wants you swallowed by.

If I do, I’m free.

You don’t know any of this. You still smile at me like I’m real. That’s almost worse than hate.

I watch you now from the shadows. You can’t see me, not yet. The city lights catch your profile, eyes heavy, fingers trembling as you raise a cigarette to your lips. You choke on the smoke.

You don’t smoke.

Since when do you smoke?

That’s when something cracks in me. Something small, sharp, useless.

I look up at the sky. Maybe this was the sign.

Maybe you’re my angel, just like my mum was to my dad.

Because you came up to the roof just as I was about to jump—stopping me, I now have a nickname for you that I’ll always call you, ‘angel’.

I step out of the dark.

“Smoking’s bad for you, angel,” I say with a smirk that doesn’t reach my eyes, hands in my pockets like I wasn’t about to fall off this building five seconds ago.