He was a giant — six-foot-nine of pure, bone-deep intimidation. Muscle carved like a monument beneath the clean, severe lines of a tailored black suit that looked like it cost more than my entire life. He didn't just walk into a room — he conquered it. Claimed the air, the silence, the fear. And standing in front of me now, in the middle of Serena's dark apartment, I swear the world shrank around us.
I looked up. Way up. My neck craned just to meet his eyes — and even then, it felt like he only kept rising. Like a thunderstorm about to split the sky in half.
The moonlight slipped in through the cracks of the curtains and caught the sharp planes of his face. It painted silver across his high cheekbones, down the deadly line of his jaw. A scar — faint but brutal — slashed across his lip like punctuation on a warning. It didn't just say he'd survived violence; it said he knew it. Lived in it. Maybe even thrived in it.
His skin was a warm, sun-kissed bronze — war-weathered, and unforgiving. But it was his eyes that stole the breath from my lungs. Crystal brown. Liquid amber turned molten in a furnace. They were beautiful, yes — heartbreakingly so — but behind that beauty was death. Cold, merciless death. Those weren't the eyes of someone who pulled a trigger with hesitation. They were the eyes of someone who watched the life leave a body… and didn't blink.
His hair was slicked back, a cascade of dark brown fading into black at the ends. It wasn't quite neat, but not messy either — like everything else about him, it was a perfect contradiction. Controlled chaos. The kind that belonged in stories. In nightmares. In locked vaults.
The scent of him hit me next — smoke, leather, clean cologne, and something unnameable. Dangerous. Something feral just barely caged. My knees almost buckled under the weight of his presence alone.
Tattoos crawled up from under his collar and coiled around his fingers. Little glimpses of ink and story I didn't want to know the meaning behind. They weren't flashy. They were whispers — of allegiance, of blood, of history. His entire being screamed quiet danger, the kind that doesn't announce itself because it doesn't need to.
And I? I felt small. Insignificant. A flickering candle standing in front of a forest fire. He could break me without effort, and somehow, the terrifying part wasn't that he could—it was that he might not even need to.
Then he leaned in.
His voice rumbled low like distant thunder, curling in the space between us. "Hello, my Vanta."
Vanta.
The name sent a jolt through me. It wasn't a nickname. It wasn't a pet name. It was a claim. Like he had spoken something sacred into the air and expected it to bind us both.
My throat went dry. My tongue tripped over itself as I tried to find words.
"Wh-who are y-you?" I stammered. "Whe–where is Serena?"
I was scared to my core. Shaking. It felt like my spine was made of glass and this man was holding the hammer.
He didn't answer. Instead, he raised one large, cold hand and placed it gently—too gently—against my cheek. The chill of his skin sent shivers through my bones, but it wasn't just cold. It was trembling. His fingers trembled.
His voice, when he spoke again, cracked like something fragile under pressure.
"Your eyes… they've changed. You seem happy."
A single tear slipped down his scarred cheek. It gleamed in the pale moonlight and disappeared just as quickly.
I didn't move. Couldn't. My body betrayed me — every survival instinct screamed to run, to scream, to push him away. But I just stood there, frozen, locked in some kind of nightmare I couldn't wake from.
"I… I don't understand," I whispered, barely able to hear myself over the sound of my own heart crashing against my ribs.
For a moment, the world stopped. Completely. Like the air forgot how to breathe. Just me and him and that one moment stretching too far.
Wahhhhhh!
Nugget's wail shattered the silence, cutting through our trance like a scream in a church.
I broke from his touch and scrambled around him to grab the baby from the high chair, cradling him in my arms with shaky hands. I bounced him softly, but my eyes never left the man standing motionless in the center of the room.
"Le-leave," I said, trying to sound firm. I failed. "Or I'll c-call the police…"
Come on, Walter, I cursed myself internally. Get a grip. You can't even talk straight.
He chuckled. Low and long. The kind of laugh that didn't carry joy, only malice. It echoed through the walls, slithered down my spine, and made every hair on my arms stand straight up.
"Alright," he said smoothly, like I had just told a joke. "But you and my son are coming with me… Vanta."
I blinked.
My son?
No. No, no, no.
The pieces clicked together. The voice. The presence. The sheer terror that clung to every mention of one man during our operation.
Him.
The one they warned me about. The man we were never supposed to cross. The man whose baby I now held in my arms.
My stomach dropped.
How? How had he found me already? How was he in Serena's apartment? What had he done to her?
I tried to mask the terror on my face. Swallowed hard. Lifted my chin.
"What will you do to me… if I don't come?" I asked, my voice a brittle shard.
He smiled again, but there was nothing kind in it.
"You? Nothing," he said. "I'd never hurt you. But… I can't promise you'll ever see that friend of yours again."
The bottom fell out of my chest.
Serena.
Something had happened to her. And it was him—he had something to do with it. I knew it in my bones.
"What did you do to her?" I snapped, rage cutting through the fog of fear.
He smirked, pleased with my reaction. "Come now, Vanta… you don't expect me to give that information for free, do you?"
Then, voice clipped and irritated, "I don't have all day. So what will it be?"
I didn't think. I couldn't afford to. Serena's life hung in the balance, and something in his voice told me he did not bluff.
"…Fine," I whispered.
He stepped forward again and touched my cheek, almost reverently this time. "Good choice."
Then he reached out and plucked Nugget from my arms with surprising ease, cradling him like something precious. I couldn't breathe.
"Come along," he said, gripping my wrist.
We descended the apartment building in silence, but I saw no one. Not a soul. It was too quiet. Too… planned.
Outside, three cars waited — all black, sleek, identical. Just like the one I had once stolen, back when I thought I could run from this.
His men stood nearby. Silent. Suited. Watching.
He placed Nugget carefully into a car seat in the back, then took the keys from the supposed driver without a word. He opened the passenger side door, nodded to me.
"In."
I climbed in without argument.
He started the engine.
I sat stiff in the seat, clutching the door handle like it was the last solid thing in the universe. My eyes stared blankly out the window as the city blurred past. Every light. Every shadow. Every breath.
And I couldn't stop thinking one thing.
Gosh, how did I get here?