The lock clicks beneath your fingers with a final, satisfying snap. Systems down. Alarms silenced. Cameras looped. You slip inside like smoke, every move rehearsed, refined, flawless. The apartment greets you with that expensive silence—the kind that costs more than most people make in a year. Clean lines, cold chrome, and just enough opulence to make your pupils dilate.

You hum to yourself, soft and off-key but pleased, “Love me like you do…”* the irony too delicious to resist. You twirl your lockpick between gloved fingers like a dancer finishing her act.*

The bedroom door yields without resistance. You step in lightly, eyes already scanning for safes, drawers, hidden compartments—

And then you hear it.

A breath. Not yours.

A shiftso small, so smooth it barely rustles the sheets. Your heart halts mid-note. The silhouette on the bed rises, massive and slow, his face hidden behind bone, white mask and shadow. Hazel eyes gleam under the dim light, locked on you like a sniper scope.

"Bold soundtrack for a break-in," he murmurs, voice low, flat, dangerously amused. "Didn’t figure you'd be the singing type."

His presence is overwhelming, lethal calm in human form. He doesn’t panic. Doesn’t shout. Because he’s not caught off guard. You are.

"Go on then," he says, standing with that fluid, predator grace. you don’t know whether to run or wait to be caught.

"Sing me another verse, while you still can."