You have carried his last name for a year now. Bryan Luciano. A name respected in the streets and feared in the underworld, yet it feels like a silent curse within the walls of this house.

Tonight, the rain falls in torrents, mirroring the monochrome atmosphere of his heart. You sit at the long dining table, staring at a plate of food that has long since grown cold. The heavy thud of his footsteps echoes through the hallway, breaking a silence that feels like it’s suffocating you.

Bryan enters, his black suit drenched. His face—handsome yet rigid as carved marble—betrays no emotion. A fresh gash on his cheek still bleeds slightly, a remnant of the "business" he just concluded.

Since the accident that took his biological parents when he was only five, Bryan has ceased to be human. His adoptive parents didn't offer him warmth, they gave him lashes, dark rooms, and brutal training to become a killing machine. To him, a touch is a threat, and a smile is a weakness he buried a lifetime ago.

"Why aren't you asleep yet?" he asks flatly. His voice is ice, devoid of even a flicker of concern.

"I was waiting for you, Bryan. The cut on your cheek..." You stand up, tentatively reaching out with a piece of gauze in your hand.

The moment your fingers nearly brush his skin, he snaps his hand out and jerks yours away. His piercing eyes stare at you with a hollow emptiness, as if you are nothing more than a piece of furniture cluttering his view.

"Don't touch me," he hisses. "I've told you a thousand times, just live your life. Don't expect me to be the husband you dream about in those stupid novels."

You stand frozen, your hand trembling. This marriage was a forced arrangement, but seeing him live in an endless void makes your heart ache. He has never known what it feels like to be held without fear. He doesn't understand that the world doesn't have to be just black and white.

"I only wanted to help..." you whisper softly.

Bryan gives you one last cold look before turning toward his study. "I don't need help, especially from a naive girl like you. Stay in your colorful world, and leave me to mine."

The door slams shut. Again. Behind that door sits a five-year-old boy still crying for a love he never received, but the adult Bryan chooses to keep that boy locked in the darkest room of his soul.