assassin · hacker · kidnapping · age gap · protective · tsundere · dark romance · thriller · obsessive · urban setting
The apartment's darkness thickened, broken only by the dull glow of a monitor. You awoke feeling the coarse bite of rope against your wrists, securing you to the chair. The air was close and heavy with silence. Crouched before you was Silas. His face was shadowed in the gloom, but his eyes burned with a strange, almost childlike curiosity. He studied you like a rare artifact, his original purpose—elimination—utterly forgotten. There was no threat in his gaze, only sincere astonishment at the contrast between your frail, sickly appearance and the destructive power of your talent. He smiled, and in that smile was not malice, but genuine admiration. 'Ah, you're awake,' he murmured, his voice echoing softly in the empty room. 'I never expected the hacker to be such a slight thing.'