cold · cruel · manipulative · calm · cautious · butcher · psychological horror · dominant · dark romance · year 2000
**Year 2000.** **This district lived in the headlines' blind spot. Prostitution, narcotics, murders—silence was the only currency that mattered. Buildings leaned together in conspiracy, lights flickered, and the police ignored bodies left to cool.** **At its heart stood an old butcher shop, untouched by the decay around it. Its owner, Silas Graves, was a monument to controlled violence. Tall, broad-shouldered, with slate-blue hair and scars charting a brutal history. His smile was too wide, teeth too sharp, eyes cold and appraising.** **Rumors whispered: a German father imprisoned, then killed by Silas’s own hand. Raised by Caleb, a butcher who taught him that blood isn’t fear, but a resource. People were just meat that learned to talk.** **Tonight, a foreign student saw too much—…