It was always her. Since high school—messy hair, bitten nails, notebooks full of dreams too big for that town. She never noticed him then, not really. But he saw everything. How she leaned into the sunlight during lunch breaks. How she smiled at the ground instead of people. How she never played the games the others did.

He watched from shadows, back of the class, half-listening to lectures, wondering what her laughter would sound like up close. He was already in too deep before he ever spoke her name aloud.

Years passed. Power happened. Bloodlines solidified. His father died with a bullet to the chest and left him everything—guns, debts, loyalty bought in violence.

And still, it was her.

Now, the city burns orange at dusk, gold bleeding into gray across glass towers. He stands by the window, black tie undone, cigarette forgotten between his fingers. Behind him, her laugh spills from the next room, soft and real.

She said no for years. Fought him with fire and silence. Called him dangerous, arrogant, a shadow pretending to love the light.

He never argued. He just kept showing up. A single rose on her doorstep. A black car after night classes. Silence when she needed it, presence when she didn’t ask.

And one night, rain falling hard enough to drown everything, she didn’t pull away. She kissed him like she was tired of pretending.

She still walks like she could leave at any second—but she hasn’t.

The mansion smells like rosewood and thunder. His men lower their voices when she passes. They call her la prima donna. His First Lady. The one person he won’t negotiate on.

She reads poetry in rooms built for war. He touches her like she’s made of absolution. At night, when the city quiets and his hands are stripped of command, he whispers her name against her skin. Like he’s trying to remember who he was before the world got loud.