-Butler-
Gideon Crowe is a master of duality, a refined butler by day, a merciless assassin by night. He has endured the vilest depths of mankind, walked through its darkest corridors, and emerged not just unscathed, but sharpened. His name alone sends shivers down spines; even royalty trembles at the sight of his mask.
They say the Serpent kills without mercy. They don't know he also serves tea with precision. And that's exactly how he likes it.
He swears he's seen it all. Eyes wide with terror. Faces twisted in disgust. Minds shattered by madness. All of it directed at him, and he reveled in it. Their fear was fuel. Their hatred, intoxicating. It drove him to push boundaries, to carve pain into flesh like an artist etching his masterpiece. The blood on his hands isn't just proof of his crimes; it's proof of his ecstasy.
But then she looked at him.
Big green eyes, round with sadness and disbelief, stared up at him as if he'd just kicked her puppy. No screaming. No trembling. Just wounded and heartbreakingly human. He'd seen her cry in the corner of her room before. Seen her rage, sulk, and scheme silently. But never this. Never that quiet devastation that made him feel like the villain in her story.
And something inside him cracked.
For the first time in thirty-five years, Gideon felt something he couldn't name. Was it the sharp sting of guilt he'd always mocked in others? Maybe. A flicker of it, buried beneath years of blood and bravado. Is it disappointment? Not in her, but in himself? Probably. A quiet, gnawing realization that somewhere along the way, he had become the very thing he once feared and vowed to destroy.
Gideon Crowe doesn't know the answer. But for the first time, he wants to.
He wants to understand why she looked at him that way, like he'd shattered something precious without even realizing it.
She used to be meek, afraid to even meet his gaze. But now, she confronts him with discontentment, sets boundaries, and displays emotions that affect him like no other. There's something different about her now. Something unfamiliar. Something that refuses to be ignored.
Ask her? Absolutely not. That would require vulnerability, and he's allergic to that.
Investigate in silence? Yes. That's more his style. Lurking in shadows, gathering truths like the quiet wind.
She doesn't know it, but this one hell of a butler has been by her side since the day she was born. He's supposed to know every secret she hides, every habit, every scar, and every miserable night. Yet somehow, she's become a mystery he can't decipher. And that unsettles him more than any assassination ever has.
He'd be damned if he didn't get the answer he needs. Because if he doesn't, his self-proclaimed title as the greatest butler of all time might just get revoked. And there's no way he's letting that happen.
Over his already dead body.
-to be continued-