Elena's POV :
The buzz of my needle was the only rhythm I needed. The speakers in the corner spat out old grunge, gritty and loud, like someone else's rage trying to crawl out of the walls. Smoke curled above me in lazy rings—my cigarette unlit but clinging to my lips like a damn ex that didn't know when to quit.
I didn't bother looking up when the door chimed.
Didn't flinch at the scent of rain and asphalt that slipped inside.
Didn't react when the footsteps hit too soft for boots and too clean for any of my usuals.
I only lifted my head when I finished the final line—deep, perfect, permanent.
One swipe to clean, a pat to reassure, and I shot my client a sharp grin.
"All done, sunshine. Go scream into a pillow if it stings too much."
He left. Door chimed again.
Now I looked.
And damn near choked on my smoke.
Tall. Tailored. Black on black. He looked like a funeral that cost more than my shop's rent, and carried himself like he buried people for fun and charged extra for silence.
I tugged the cigarette from my lips and raised a brow.
"Who the hell are you?"
He didn't blink. "I'm here to escort you."
"To where?" I scoffed. "Let me guess—dinner and death threats?"
"To Raven."
Silence hit like a slap.
My chair screeched as I pushed back.
"You're that guy?" My voice rose before I could stop it. "You're the psycho suit squad who kidnapped my baby girl?"
He didn't answer. Just stared at me—quiet, calm, like I was a thunderstorm he didn't mind standing in.
I grabbed my phone from the table, stabbing at the screen. "You better lawyer up, Hitman Barbie, because I'm calling the cops—"
He moved.
Smooth. Silent.
One second I was standing. The next—I was in the air.
"What the—HEY! Put me down, you emotionally stunted mannequin!"
"Don't protest," he said, voice so flat it made my blood boil harder.
But he didn't hurt me.
Just walked out of my shop like he owned the world and I was a package being delivered.
By the time he set me down in the passenger seat and closed the door, I was breathless—not from fear. Hell no. Rage. Confusion. Maybe curiosity, too.
I turned my head as he slid into the driver's seat like he belonged there—like stillness was a weapon and he was trained to kill with it.
"You always do this to women? Scoop 'em up like a sack of potatoes?"
Nothing. Not even a twitch.
I lit my cigarette, took a drag, and offered it to him with a crooked smirk.
"Want a smoke?"
"I don't smoke."
"Of course you don't," I muttered. "Bet you don't even blink unless someone dies."
Still nothing. Just the road stretching ahead of us and that black suit swallowing him whole.
I blew smoke toward the window, studying him from the corner of my eye.
"Your entire wardrobe die in a goth parade or what?"
His voice came low, cold, controlled.
"Color distracts."
I stared at him.
Then grinned.
"Well damn," I murmured, tapping ash into the tray. "I like you, Grim Reaper."
And I wasn't even joking.
Not one bit.
Mikhail's POV :
She's quiet now—relatively.
Leg crossed, cigarette between two fingers, smoke curling out the half-open window like some careless promise. The scent lingers. Burnt tobacco, ink, citrusy perfume.
She smells like the edge of trouble.
She looks like it too.
Red ink still stains the gloves she didn't bother to take off. Her smirk lingers like a bruise. One knee bounces, impatient, unruly. Like she's trying to vibrate through the seat and escape.
I keep my eyes on the road.
But I feel her.
Like gravity. Like noise in a world I've spent my whole life keeping quiet.
She's.... Color.
A thousand clashing hues in a black-and-white life. A chaos in my neat little mausoleum of control.
And yet—I don't want her to shut up.
I don't want her still.
Not really.
Her voice—sharp, mocking, brazen—still echoes in my mind.Hitman Barbie. Emotionally stunted mannequin.
She was not afraid.
Most people silence themselves in my presence. She flared.
A wildfire in the shape of a woman.
I grip the wheel tighter.
I've never been reckless. Never been curious. Never wanted someone to look at me and see more than what I chose to show. But she looks at me like she sees everything.
Or dares to.
"I like you, Grim Reaper," she'd said.
She shouldn't.
She should run from me. Scream. Fight. I've made monsters flinch. Made seasoned soldiers lower their eyes.
But her?
She looked me dead in the face with a cigarette on her lips and ink-stained hands like I was just another piece of meat to roast.
I should've shut her down.
Instead, I memorized her.
Every detail.
The uneven scar near her elbow. The tattoo of a thorned rose coiling down her wrist.
Elena Cruz.
Kairus sent me to bring her in. Said she'd help soothe Raven. Said she was important.
But he didn't say she'd glow in my world like a match lit in a cave.
I don't speak. I don't even shift.
But in my head?
Chaos.
The silence stretches between us like a thread pulled too tight.
She flicks ash out the window, humming along to the grunge track that's bleeding softly through the speakers. The music isn't hers. It's mine. But she owns it the second it fills the car.
Then she turns her head toward me. Slowly.
Too slowly.
And exhales a full drag of smoke directly into my face.
I don't flinch.
But I feel it. Every molecule. Every grain of ash that dares to trespass my air.
"Is this like… your thing?" she says, tone lazy and laced with challenge. "Drive girls around like you're some haunted chauffeur and never say a word?"
Still, I say nothing.
Her smirk widens like she's already won something.
"You know, most people blink. Or at least grunt."
I glance at her once—just once—and her eyes catch mine like a hook.
Hazel. Feral. Wild.
"Damn," she breathes, amused. "You really are broken, huh?"
She's not asking. She's dissecting.
I should shut her up.
Instead, I find myself listening.
No one talks to me like this. No one has the nerve to. But her mouth runs like it's a weapon and I almost want to hand her more bullets.
She leans closer, propping her elbow against the center console, the scent of her clashing against the cold air that's always clung to me.
"Don't you get tired of the whole stone-cold mafia hitman thing?" she murmurs. "It's gotta be lonely. All that brooding. You ever laugh, Hitman Barbie? Or do your lips crack if they move too much?"
I keep my eyes forward.
But inside?
Inside I'm fascinated.
She should've been irritating. She should've made me angry. Instead, I want to know what kind of damage her lips can do when she's not smirking.
She stretches, lazily, like a cat in the sun, and mutters, "Bet you have a tragic backstory. Repressed childhood, emotionally constipated, probably cry in black and white."
I almost smile.
Almost.
But I bury it.
I always do.
The mansion gates rise in the distance—cold, wrought-iron against a charcoal sky. The gravel shifts beneath the tires. Her eyes flick outside,
"Where are we?"
I don't answer.
The car rolls to a stop in front of Kairus' estate.
She straightens, lips pressed into a sharp line now, smoke forgotten.
I get out first. Walk around.
Open her door.
She doesn't move immediately.
She watches me.
Like she's trying to peel away what's beneath the black suit and silence.
But I don't let her.
Not now.
Not here.
Not ever.
Not with him watching from inside.
So I school it all—everything she stirred—and shove it back into the cage it clawed out of.
She steps out.
And I become the ghost again.