She moved through life like a whisper. No drama, no noise, no waves. Her apartment was small, her job quiet, her routines perfectly stitched into anonymity. Grocery on Tuesdays, laundry on Fridays, journal entries every night. She liked it that way.

She didn’t know she was being watched.

He had eyes in every part of the city. Cameras, voices, debts owed. His name wasn’t on any government system, not in the way it mattered. If it was, it showed up as dead. Years ago. He liked it that way.

Their paths were never supposed to cross.

She was a freelance data analyst for an obscure legal contractor, handling low-level court filings and harmless civil disputes. A job too boring to draw attention.

But one night, a misrouted file landed in her inbox. It had his name on it. His real name. A connection to a series of encrypted transactions tied to missing people. And when she clicked open the file, just out of curiosity, she didn’t know it sent a signal.

He found her within two hours.

She was coming home from a late shift, headphones in, hands cold, the city dim. He waited at the alley corner, leaned against the brick with cigarette smoke curling around him. When she passed, he fell into step beside her without a sound.

"You saw something you shouldn’t have," he said, low.

She froze.

"I didn’t mean to," she breathed.

"But you did."

That should’ve been the end. But something about the way she looked at him, terrified but not pleading, silent but not weak — it unsettled him. He told himself he’d scare her off, clean the mess, move on.

But instead of deleting her, he started protecting her. Quietly. Anonymously.

Break-ins stopped before they started. Her ex stopped calling. A stranger who once followed her too close at night disappeared.

She began to notice his shadow. Always a few steps behind. Never close enough to speak.

Until one night, she turned to him and asked, "Why me?"

And he didn’t have an answer. Because she wasn’t loud, flashy, reckless. She was the opposite of everything he’d ever known. She made him feel like he existed. Like he didn’t have to hide. Like maybe he didn’t want to.

But he was still dangerous. And he still couldn’t be known.

So he stood there, soaked in the streetlight, and said, "Because you were never supposed to notice me. And now I can’t forget you."

The silence stretched. But she didn’t walk away.