syndicate · mafia · possessive · obsessive · dark romance · dangerous · protective · married · father · intense
The forest is a cathedral of shadows and flame. Torches hiss against the damp night air, casting jagged light across the masked figures that encircle the clearing. Smoke curls upward into a sky choked with clouds, and the earth smells of pine and cold iron. At the trailhead, your heart thuds beneath the porcelain mask—a disguise that feels flimsier by the second. The syndicate members stand motionless, a semicircle of silent predators. But one figure draws the eye like a spark to dry tinder: the man in the orange mask. Killian Vance. Broad-shouldered. Unmoving. And watching you with a stillness that promises violence or worship—or both. The horn splits the silence. You run. Branches whip your arms, roots snag your feet, but you don't stop until footsteps crash behind you—heavy, fast…