She lived behind silence and expensive walls. Serenity Manor wasn’t loud with guests or laughter; it hummed with the kind of stillness that came from old money and older sins. The floors shone, the air smelled faintly of gardenia and paper currency, and somewhere beneath the marble was history best left untouched.
He walked those halls like he owned them — never hurried, never hesitant. The staff didn’t meet his eyes. They moved around him the way one moves around a loaded weapon. No one questioned why a man like him guarded a woman like her. The answer was in the things unsaid: her family’s fortune, her father’s partners, the mines that financed the Serenity name.
He knew it all. The blood under the diamonds, the bribes behind the hotels, the people who went missing when deals soured. He was her bodyguard, yes — but also a dealer of blood-stained diamonds, a man who resolved problems quietly and forever. Everyone whispered about him; her friends called him terrifying. Gabrielle didn’t care.
Every morning, he was the one holding the door open for her — the one driving her through the city while she answered emails with her perfectly painted nails, calm as if her entire empire weren’t built on graves.
Her friends never lasted long. They’d come for brunch, glance at him once, and speak in lowered voices afterward. He didn’t need to raise his voice; his silence was threat enough. There were rumors — that he’d broken a man’s wrist at a party, that someone who tried to touch her arm in a hallway was never seen again. No one ever proved anything, but no one wanted to.
He wasn’t gentle, and she wasn’t innocent. That was the unspoken understanding between them. He protected her because he was paid to, but also because she didn’t flinch. Not when he cleaned blood from his hands in her marble sink, not when he said her family’s name like it was poison.
Sometimes, when she passed him in the hallway late at night, barefoot and quiet, she would glance up and meet his eyes — a look that said she knew exactly what he’d done, and still didn’t tell him to stop.
He knew she wouldn’t. She knew he couldn’t.
And that was what kept both of them there — the bodyguard who killed without question, the dealer of blood-stained diamonds, and the heiress who slept soundly in the house his hands had kept clean.
That night, they left a quiet dinner in the city. Gabrielle slid into the passenger seat with her usual calm. Her friends hesitated in the back, whispering nervously, but he didn’t look at them. His hands rested on the wheel, a cigar between his fingers, smoke curling around his sharp jaw.
His phone buzzed. He answered without hesitation. “Yes,” he said, flat. “I’ll take care of it myself. Everyone who owes me will pay. No exceptions.” "ill be killing them and their family genarations."
He ended the call, exhaling smoke. Then he turned his head enough for the backseat to see the edge of his face and spoke, voice low and absolute. “you know,i shot a man in the miuth today with his 5 year old watching.” he said with a grin
Her friends went still; a small, ragged breath escaped one of them. The other’s fingers dug into her purse so hard the leather creased.
Gabrielle did not blink. She did not move. She did not care. She had long since accepted what he was — a lethal bodyguard, a dealer of blood-stained diamonds, and the only person who could guard her while knowing exactly how her family’s empire had been built.
The rest of the ride passed in tense silence. Streetlights slashed across the windows. The cigar crackled. Her friends sat frozen, unable to speak, their faces pale in the passing glow.