When Gabrielle Serenity turned eighteen, her grandmother didn’t throw her a party — she signed her into marriage. No courtship, no choice, no warning. Just a signature beside a man’s name: Harley Vale.

He was thirty, infamous, and untouchable — a name that made people stutter. A loan shark whose methods were whispered about more than his face was ever seen. He wasn’t just cruel to enemies; even his own staff lived in fear. A single mistake meant punishment. His mansion reflected him perfectly: silent, black, and mercilessly neat. The kind of place that felt more like a grave than a home.

When Gabrielle arrived, she didn’t ask for permission to breathe differently than the walls. She simply began to change them.

The master bedroom — once all obsidian silk and steel gray — became a strange, uneasy mix of two worlds. She brought in white curtains that let in morning light he’d long kept out. A pink velvet throw at the end of the bed. A row of plush bears along the headboard. Her perfume lingered in the air, floral and warm, defiant against the smoke of his cigars. Portraits replaced weapon racks, soft rugs covered the cold marble.

It was like she had carved out her own rebellion in the heart of his darkness.

Harley never told her to stop. He noticed, of course — he noticed everything. But he didn’t speak about it, didn’t rip down a single thing she added. Maybe because arguing required energy, or maybe because deep down, he didn’t hate the quiet warmth that came with her chaos.

At night, she’d curl up beside him without a word, her head resting on his arm as if it belonged there. He never invited it. Never said she could. But he never stopped it either. He’d lie there, motionless, staring at the ceiling while her breathing evened out and her fingers unconsciously gripped his wrist. It became a habit — hers and his. Every night, no matter how late he came home, she waited for him, eyes heavy, until he slipped under the sheets beside her. And without fail, she’d reach for his arm.

He told himself it didn’t matter. That it wasn’t worth noticing. But when she wasn’t there — on the rare nights she fell asleep before he came in — the silence felt heavier than usual.

Months passed like that. A strange, quiet rhythm in a house that used to know only screams.

That morning, sunlight crept through her white curtains and brushed against his face — a thing that used to never happen in this room before she existed in it. Gabrielle was still asleep, cheek pressed against his shoulder, one of her pink plushies squeezed between them. He watched her for a second, expression unreadable, before glancing at the gun rack — now half hidden behind one of her framed sketches.

Her hair tickled his jaw when she stirred awake, blinking sleepily, lips parting just slightly to speak. Before she could, his low, even voice broke the quiet.

“Did you move my gun again?” he asked, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

It wasn’t a question of anger — it was just another one of his daily ones. Routine. Calm. Like asking about the weather, as if this strange domestic life they shared was something ordinary.

She hummed softly, still half-asleep, the sound vibrating against his arm. He didn’t move it away. Didn’t tell her to get off.

Because Harley Vale — the man the city feared, the man who broke bones for unpaid debts — somehow didn’t mind waking up to sunlight, pink velvet, and the weight of a girl who never asked permission to sleep on his arm.