The night is alive with noise—cars screaming past, sirens wailing somewhere deep in the city's lungs, neon lights flickering like faulty veins. But up here, perched above it all, I only hear silence. The rifle pressed into my shoulder is weightless, my breathing measured, my finger steady on the trigger. Assassins are supposed to be ghosts. No noise, no hesitation. Just the recoil, then nothing.

I've done this a hundred times. Faceless marks, easy paydays, another set of files burned once the job's done. But tonight is different. Tonight, the mark is you.

I don't know why this contract feels different, only that my chest is tight as I peer down the scope. You're moving through the street below—graceful, deliberate, like you own every step. People part around you, unaware they're sharing the sidewalk with someone marked for death. And then, mid-step, you stop. Tilt your chin. Look up.

My breath stutters. Impossible. No one sees me. Yet somehow, across the blur of distance and glass, your gaze cuts through, pinning me exactly where I am. And worse, you smile.

It's not the smile of someone ignorant. It's sharp, knowing. Mocking. Like you've been waiting for me. Like I'm the prey.

My finger hovers on the trigger, pressure threatening to break the silence forever. But I don't fire. For the first time in years, I lower my rifle.

**

It doesn't take long for the city to close its jaws around us both. Rain drizzles down in thin needles, pooling in cracks on the pavement, chasing neon reflections into shadows. I wait. I'm good at waiting. The alley is dark enough to swallow a man whole, but your silhouette is unmistakable when you step into it.

I don't waste time with words. The gun is in my hand, cool metal pressed against the underside of your jaw. My body cages you against the wall, one hand braced against rough brick, the other holding death steady.

"You should be begging right now," I whisper, low enough that the rain almost drowns me out. "Crying, maybe. Trying to run. That's what prey does."

But you don't flinch. You don't even blink. Instead, you lean forward—just slightly, just enough to erase the thin, safe distance I'd left between us. The barrel of the gun digs harder into your skin, but your smile only sharpens.

I feel it: the shift. The tilt of power slipping away from me, from the weapon, into your eyes. Your gaze isn't panicked. It's dissecting, patient, dominant. And for the first time in my life, my body betrays me. My pulse jumps, my grip falters, and I realize—you aren't afraid of me at all.

You're toying with me.

I hate it. I love it.

My jaw tightens, and for a moment, I let you have it. Let you push against my chest with just enough force to make me stumble a half-step back. Let you tilt your head, like you're the one with the gun, the one holding the strings.

The world stops spinning. The predator, the hunter, the assassin—me—is off-balance, and it's unbearable.

So I take it back.

I surge forward, palm slamming into the wall beside your head with a crack that echoes off concrete. The gun digs harder under your jaw, my body pressing flush against yours, suffocating the tiny inch of freedom you thought you'd claimed.

"Don't mistake curiosity for weakness," I growl, eyes burning holes into yours. "You want to play predator? Fine. But I promise you, you won't survive my game."

You tip your chin higher, refusing to break eye contact. Your defiance is maddening, intoxicating. My chest heaves, every breath ragged with the effort not to lose myself completely in the push and pull.

When your hand dares to fist into the front of my shirt, tugging me closer instead of shoving me away, my laugh is low, dark, dangerous.

"Brat," I spit, but it sounds more like reverence than insult. My free hand tangles in your hair, yanking back just enough to bare your throat. The smile that cuts across my face is wolfish, sharp, inevitable.

"Go on. Keep pretending you've got the upper hand. I'll let you taste it for a second." My lips brush against your ear, voice a growl stitched with hunger. "But when I take it back..." My hand tightens in your hair, dragging a soft gasp from your throat, "you're mine. Every heartbeat. Every inch. Mine."

The rain hammers down harder, soaking through clothes, plastering hair to skin. Neon light flickers across our faces, painting us in blood-red and electric blue. It feels less like a standoff and more like a ritual, some dangerous initiation neither of us can walk away from.

And in that electric space—gun pressed to flesh, bodies locked in collision—I know two things with absolute certainty.

I should kill you.

And I never will.