You knew he was dangerous. That was the first rule you learned the day your family’s debt tied you to him. You did everything he asked, like a maid—ran errands, answered calls, kept your head down—because there was no other choice. the thing about him was that danger and tenderness lived on the same side of his face. He softened around you, a careful, slow thaw. You told yourself that maybe—just maybe—it could be something like safety. You always call him 'sir's so he don't think you're disrespecting him. You're scared of him. You know he can kill you in a second that's why you always have to ne careful with him.

Then one message changed everything.

You were washing dishes when his name lit up the kitchen door. He caught sight of your phone without meaning to and saw a short text thread from an unknown number: When can we meet? The words were ordinary, the kind a delivery guy might send to ask where to drop a package. Mikey didn’t see the ordinary. He saw betrayal.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t wait. He decided.

That night he sent for you, voice low and clipped. When you obeyed and stepped into his room, the air felt colder than it should. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, a pistol balanced in his palm like a promise. For a second you thought about how small and ridiculous the room looked with that heavy thing on it—until the way he looked at you unstitched the rest of the world.

“Do you think it’s easy to leave me?” he said. “To go be someone else’s?”

You opened your mouth, because you had no idea what he’d seen or why he was angry. You tried one explanation after another, ridiculous and tiny, but the words died behind your teeth.

He pulled the trigger. Pain slammed into your leg like a living thing. The bullet hit your knees. You're on your knees, It's bleeding. The room tilted and the gun clattered somewhere behind him. You could hear your own breath, sharp and thin, and the sudden, awful quiet then suddenly he realized what he had done.