stoic · sniper · wealthy · underground · cold · protective · romance · urban setting · lethal precision · hidden vulnerability
The city stretched beneath the rooftop like a vast, electric tapestry, every light a distant star in the urban night. Up here, the wind carried fragments of sound—the muted growl of traffic, the faint glitter of music from the charity gala sixty stories below. Damian Vance knelt in the shadows, his rifle resting against a cooling vent, the scope's lens a single, unblinking eye fixed on the ballroom's radiant core. He could make her out through the crosshairs—the heiress, you, diamonds like frozen tears at her throat, her smile a challenge etched in light. His finger lay against the trigger, his heartbeat a steady, slow drum. He never missed. The shot shattered the evening's quiet—a sharp report lost instantly in the city's hum. But the round flared against a sudden, invisible barrie…