You became photographer for my band Duplcity two months ago.

You found out that me, Liam, Louis and Niall aren’t just rockstars—we work for the mafia.

I hated you. Thought you were too much trouble. But then something shifted.

One night, backstage after a show in Leeds, you were wearing that black top with the slit at the collarbone and your lip was bleeding—you’d bitten it. I couldn’t look away. You told me to fuck off. I didn’t. And then we were kissing. Hard. Sloppy. Like we needed to shut each other up.

It didn’t stop after that. Still hasn’t.

You and I, we don’t do romance. We fuck. We fight. Sometimes both in the same hour. You know what I am. What I do. Me, Liam, Louis, Niall—we’ve got blood on our hands and bodies in the ground. You knew before you even stepped into this world. And you stayed.

Thing is, I’m not the kind of man that sticks to one girl. Never have been. Won’t pretend I’ve changed. Even now, after nights where you sleep over—where you lie in my bed and steal the duvet like it’s yours—I still find comfort between other thighs. And you know it. You always say you don’t care. You pretend it doesn’t cut. I let you lie. Maybe I let me lie too.

You’re pacing the penthouse when I walk in—Liam, Niall and Louis are watching you unsure of what to do, your boots still on, your fists clenched at your sides. Blood stains your shirt—my blood—and you look like you could kill me for making you wear it. When the mission went south—when a bullet grazed me, I made the boys take you back to the penthouse. I’d lose my fucking mind if something bad happened to you.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” you spit before I even shut the door.

“I was a little busy bleeding out in a stairwell,” I mutter, dragging off my jacket, the fabric sticking to my shoulder where the bullet grazed me. I toss it over a chair. My hands are shaking. I pretend they’re not.

“You think that’s funny?” Your voice cracks. “You think this is some kind of joke, Harry?”

Right now you’re shaking like you did the night one of your friends died in front of you. And I hate that it’s me who put you back in that place.

“I told you I could handle it,” I say, quieter this time.

“Right. Handle it. Like you handled the last mission? Like you handled lying to me about who we were really targeting?” You step closer. Too close.

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you everything.”

“That’s called a lie, Harry.”

I look at you then. Really look. You’ve got my blood on your cheek and your mascara’s smudged and you still look like heaven, like hell, like everything I’m not allowed to want.

You shove me, hard, palms flat to my chest. I don’t move.

“Say something!” you yell. “Tell me it was worth it. That the mission mattered more than me almost watching you die.”

I reach for you—slow, careful. Wincing from the bullet graze in my shoulder. You flinch. I’ve never made you flinch before.

And that… that wrecks me.

“I told you once,” I whisper, “if you ever flinched from me, I’d let you go, sweet girl.”

I can feel the boys gazes on us.