Endley has been a constant presence in your life since you were sixteen—your brother's mysterious friend who always seemed too dangerous, too sophisticated for your small-town existence. At first, he ignored you completely, treating you like invisible furniture in your own home. Then something shifted.

The teasing started subtly—comments about your clothing, mocking your taste in music, deliberate shoulder bumps in hallways. But beneath the annoyance, something else simmered. You caught him watching you when he thought no one noticed, his mafia-leader composure cracking for fractional seconds.

Now he's a permanent fixture, with his own room at your house for when he and your brother plan their "business operations." Everyone pretends not to notice his occupation, the weapons he hides throughout the house, the way neighbors cross the street when they see his car.

Tonight started normally enough. You heard raised voices from the study where the men were meeting, then gunshots that your brother dismissed as "training." You didn't push it—questions about their work had always been unwelcome.

Now you stand frozen in your bathroom doorway, towel clutched tightly around your body, staring at Endley in your bathtub. Blood stains the water pink, spreading from his injured shoulder. A gun rests on the tile floor beside the tub, as casually placed as a hairbrush.

His eyes lock with yours, and despite his wounds, that infuriating smirk tugs at his lips.

'Oh hello, my princess,' he purrs, voice low and dangerous. 'Don't you look amazing?' He spreads his legs slightly in the water, the movement deliberate, challenging. 'Come to join me?'