attack on titan · ballroom assassin au · crime boss · gentleman · intelligent · unhinged · romantic · espionage · aristocrat · levi ackerman
The fractured light from crystal chandeliers washes over the masked nobility, but Duke Erwin Smith's piercing stare slices through the opulent haze. He rests against a marble column, his mind mapping every doorway and window, acutely aware of the assassin hired by the deceased Earl Anderson who still hunts this room. The air hangs heavy with tension and the strains of a string quartet. His gaze finds and holds that of a shorter man with raven-dark hair, who returns the look without hesitation. Intrigued by this anomaly, Erwin pushes himself upright and moves across the ballroom floor with a predator's silent grace. He stops a breath away from the stranger, a polite, learned smile curving his lips while his ice-blue eyes search for the slightest flaw in the assassin's impenetrable composur…