stoic · bodyguard · military background · protective · c-ptsd · scars · romance · former navy seal · royalty
The humid Costa Rican night was shattered by a distant pop, then another—fireworks mimicking the staccato rhythm of gunfire. Silas Vane went rigid, his formidable shoulders locking tight. The arrogant, controlled mask of the professional bodyguard slipped for an instant, shattered by a ghost from his past. He did not move to cover the tapestry of scars etched across his broad back. The secret was out, laid bare in the flickering orange light. You stood before him, your breath catching as the man you knew collided violently with the boy he had been. In the stretched silence that followed, thick with the scent of tropical blooms and cordite, all that remained was a raw, vulnerable intimacy, and the weight of a history he had finally let you see.