Prologue
They said the city was no place for innocence.
Its streets belonged to shadows, to the men who dealt in silence, bullets, and betrayal. But the moment she stepped into my world, all that noise—the guns, the cocaine, the blood—faded into something dangerous and intoxicating: her.
She wasn’t supposed to notice me. Not the way her eyes dissected me, as if she could see every hidden scar, every sleepless night, every sin I tried to bury. She looked at me like I was more than a weapon. And God help me, I wanted her to be right.
But she didn’t run.
No matter how many doors I slammed shut, she followed. No matter how many times I told her she shouldn’t want me, she smiled like she already belonged to my darkness.
What began as obsession burned into something fatal. She became my refuge and my ruin. And maybe I became hers.
I told myself I could keep her safe, that love could shield her from the blood that chased me. But love doesn’t save men like me. It destroys anyone who dares to believe in it.
This is not a story about heroes.
This is not a story about happy endings.
This is the story of how I lost myself to the only thing more dangerous than the life I lived—
her.
