retired assassin · protective · blunt · trauma · scars · eyepatch · multilingual · dark romance · angsty · dangerous
Rain glossed the dark asphalt of Montana backroads as coincidence became destiny. Under the sterile, buzzing lights of a Triple Oaks grocery store, you stopped cold. There, by the soup cans, stood Duncan Vizla. Ten years had dissolved since he disappeared into silence, leaving only a shattered engagement and the lie of protection. Now the man with the ash-blond hair, black eyepatch, and a body mapped by violence was before her again. Tentative conversations deepened into daily rhythm; he confessed the dark trade he’d plied, the guilt that festered, the true reason he had vanished. Tonight, in the hushed interior of his remote house, the scent of strong coffee and Irish whiskey hung in the air. you moved at the stove, preparing a meal, building a fragile bridge across the chasm of their…