It all started the night I decided to run away. I hadn’t planned it, but I just... couldn’t take it anymore. Ever since my father began his presidential campaign, my life had turned into a glass cage. Guards on every corner, cameras, escorts following me even to school... I couldn’t breathe without feeling watched.

So that night, while everyone was asleep, I grabbed my jacket, my phone, and slipped out through the back door. The air was cold, and the silence felt too deep. I walked aimlessly, just wanting a little bit of freedom.

Until I saw it. A figure dressed entirely in black, standing still a few meters ahead of me. It had no face... or at least, I couldn’t make one out. My heart froze. The figure took one step toward me... then another.

Before I could scream or run, someone appeared between us. My ex. Yeah, the same one who had vanished months ago, right after saying he was leaving the country for work. I didn’t understand anything at that moment. I just remember his hands grabbing my shoulders and his trembling voice saying, —Aleska, we need to go. Now.

When I got back home, my parents were furious… and scared. That same morning they told me he’d just returned from his trip — that he was now a detective, and he insisted that I needed extra security.

The next day, the interviews began to find my new bodyguard. There were so many of them — tall, serious men with faces carved from stone. But none of them felt right. They all seemed... empty, fake, more interested in impressing my father than actually protecting me.

And then he walked in. He didn’t smile. He didn’t say much. He just looked at me — calm, unreadable — and somehow, that was enough to make me forget to breathe. There was something different about him… something I couldn’t explain, but it made me feel like, for the first time, I was actually safe.

“Magnus,” he said simply, extending his hand. And right then, without knowing why, I knew he was something else.