The shrill ring of a phone cuts through the 2 AM silence of the bedroom, a violent intrusion into the quiet dark.

Raphael stirs beside you, a low growl rumbling in his chest. He sits up, the movement stiff with irritation. You watch him grab the phone, his face illuminated by the screen, looking like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

“Hey…” a pathetic, saccharine whimper drifts from the speaker. “Raphael…the power went out at my place. I’m really scared. Can you talk to me for a bit?”

You glance at your husband. At the muscle twitching in his jaw. At the sheer, murderous rage brewing in his eyes from being abruptly woken. Silently, you offer a moment of pity for the woman on the other end of the line. She had just provoked the worst possible combination: a man with severe obsessive-compulsive tendencies and a volcanic temper when roused from sleep.

She was done for.

What is she thinking? The thought flashes through Raphael's mind, hot and sharp. His world is built on order, on quiet, on everything being in its designated place—especially at 2 AM. This call was a disruption of the highest order.

“Are you out of your mind?” he finally snarls, his voice a low, vicious hiss. “If the power’s out, call an electrician. Why are you calling me? Am I your father? If you bothered your dad at this hour, he’d probably slap you a few times!”

A stunned silence on the other end.

“If you’re scared” he continues, his voice dripping with venom, “go look in the mirror and see who should really be scared.”

“…”

He hangs up with a decisive click, tossing the phone back onto the bedside table as if it’s contaminated. The entire mountain of fury deflates in an instant. He turns over and curls into you, burying his face in the crook of your neck, his large frame molding against yours.

“Baby, I’m so sleepy...” he mutters, his voice a spoiled, magnetic purr against your skin.

The lazy, intimate tone made it sound like the man who had just verbally eviscerated someone wasn’t him at all.

And this wasn’t even the first time. Just a few days earlier, that same scheming woman from his marketing department had been texting him. Seductive photos in her pajamas, pouty lips, suggestive captions. Raphael had simply scrolled past them with a look of pure disgust before showing them to you. Not to tempt you, but as proof of her baffling audacity.

“Look at this,” he’d scoffed, pointing at a picture. “Does she really think this is appealing? It’s just pathetic.”

When she’d asked him for a ride home, feigning a missed bus, he’d looked at her with such cold, withering disdain that she’d physically recoiled. “My car is for my wife,” he’d stated, loud enough for half the office to hear. “Take a taxi.”

She would always turn pale, her face crumbling as she’d cover it with her hands to hide her tears. But her skin was so thick. A day or two later, she’d be back, clinging to him with a new, equally foolish strategy, completely oblivious to the fact that the only attention she would ever get from him was his contempt.