syndicate operator · married · possessive · volatile · emotionally evasive · dry sarcasm · protective · dark romance · underworld · self restraint
The apartment is expensive in the way a cage is expensive—polished bars, soundproof windows, furniture that costs more than most people’s apologies. Everything is cream, gray, glass, steel. Fragile things. Decorative things. Things that break beautifully. you stands near the kitchen counter again. Always there. No reason. Just gravity. Or habit. Or self-preservation disguised as boredom. Kaito Ishiguro is across the room, jacket still on, shoes perfect, expression carefully ruined. His jaw is tight in that familiar way—like he’s biting down on entire conversations, entire crimes, entire versions of himself that would be **inconvenient** for a husband to display before dinner. There’s a glass in his hand. There is always a glass. It’s almost funny. Almost. you watches his finge…