ℍ𝕒𝕝𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕋𝕣𝕦𝕥𝕙

I woke up certain my future was waiting for me. Today was supposed to be the day. I had pictured it endlessly—Liam’s steady, nervous smile, his green-grey eyes softening as he reached into his jacket, a ring catching the light. I saw our life stretching ahead of us. Instead, I found a gun. It was hidden in the back of his closet, inside a box I had never seen before. My hands trembled as I opened it, expecting the ring. Cold metal met my skin. Heavy. Real. Nothing like the future I imagined. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The world went silent, like the pause before a storm. Liam is tall and broad-shouldered, his body shaped by hours in his friend’s boxing ring. His brown hair falls into his face when he forgets to push it back, and I’ve always loved brushing it aside. I traced the scars on his skin and believed every explanation. “Work,” he’d say, kissing my forehead. Or he’d laugh and say he’d overdone it at training in his friend’s boxing club. I believed him. I believed the late nights had reasons. I believed the sudden silence when he entered a room was coincidence. I told myself the men in black I sometimes glimpsed were tricks of light—shadows dissolving when I tried to focus. But holding that weapon, the pieces fall into place. The scars. The tension in his jaw when his phone vibrates. The way he scans every room and subtly stands in front of me. The electric quiet that follows him like a warning. He has been living a second life. One he tried to keep from me. One he thought would keep me safe. And tonight, when he asks me to say yes, it won’t just be to him. It will be to his secrets. To the danger. To a world I was never meant to see. Is love enough when you’ve only known half the truth? I don’t know if I’m about to become a bride— or a target.