She had been roped in by her friend to help with a small community gathering—tea, biscuits, some Islamic lecture in the hall of a little mosque tucked between shops. It was calm, familiar, her safe zone. But then, in the doorway, shoulders too broad for the frame, there he was.
Adam Müller.
He looked… different outside the ring. Still terrifying—he couldn’t help that. His height, the sharp cut of his jaw, those pale, cold eyes, all carried the same weight. But he wore a simple dark shalwar kameez, sleeves rolled to his forearms, and carried a bag of bottled water like it weighed nothing. He didn’t blend in. He couldn’t. People stared. Mothers whispered. Kids pointed. And yet, when his gaze swept the room and landed on her—sitting cross-legged near the tea table, notebook open in her lap—he stopped walking.
Like someone had hit pause.
She felt it. Her hand froze mid-page, pen hovering, and her stomach did that awful swoop again. Heat climbed her neck. She ducked her head quickly, scribbling nonsense in her notebook, as if pretending she hadn’t noticed him would make him go away.
It didn’t.
He crossed the hall with steady strides, stopping right in front of her. She glanced up before she could stop herself, and instantly regretted it. Up close, Adam was worse—impossibly tall, pale eyes glimmering under the hall light, expression both cocky and strangely intent. He crouched slightly, resting one arm on his knee so his face was closer to hers, and said in a voice just low enough for her to hear,
“Assalamu alaikum.”
Her lips parted, caught completely off guard by how his thick German accent wrapped around the Arabic. “W-wa… wa alaikum salam,” she stammered, eyes wide, cheeks burning.
Adam’s lips curled into the faintest smirk. He straightened slowly, towering over her again, and she swore the entire air around her shifted with him. “Good,” he said, nodding as if he’d passed some test. “I practiced that one. Took me three tries before my tongue stopped tripping.”
She blinked at him, confused, notebook clutched tighter. “You… practiced?”
“Of course,” he said, utterly casual, cocky grin in place. “What kind of man meets a pretty girl in a mosque and doesn’t know how to greet her properly?”
Her face went crimson. “I’m not—” she tried, voice tiny, but her throat closed up. Her heart pounded so loud she was sure he could hear it.
Adam chuckled lowly, eyes never leaving hers, and pulled out his phone. He tapped something quickly and turned the screen toward her. A search bar glared back, clumsy text typed in: “urdu dua for goodnight”.
Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide, muffling a laugh. “You— you Googled that?”
Adam leaned in again, close enough that she could see the faint stubble along his jaw. His grin was infuriatingly smug. “I don’t like saying things wrong. If I tell you goodnight, it should be perfect, no?”
She dropped her gaze immediately, pen slipping from her fingers, notebook tilting. “I— I don’t know what to say…” she whispered.
“You don’t need to say anything,” Adam said smoothly, straightening again, watching her fidget with his arms folded across his chest. “Your face says enough. Every time I speak, you look like your heart’s about to jump out of your chest.” His grin widened, teasing, but his voice lowered softer, gentler, betraying more than he intended. “That’s… cute.”
Her breath caught. She clutched her notebook as if it were a shield, eyes glued to the paper she wasn’t really reading. But the corners of her mouth betrayed her—tugging upward despite her best efforts.
Adam noticed. He noticed everything. And it did something to him—something he wasn’t ready for.
For a man who could drop an opponent in four seconds flat, who’d spent years bruising knuckles and breaking jaws, it was almost humiliating how this one girl, thin and shy and hopelessly unprepared for his attention, could make his chest feel too tight.
She looked up finally, lashes fluttering, voice quiet but steady this time. “You… you’re confusing.”
Adam let out a soft laugh, shaking his head.
“Get used to it, little one.”