ZAYAN'S POV
There's a special kind of rage that feels clean. Not loud. Not messy. Just sharp, precise, and lethal.
That's where I am right now.
Hands steady on the steering wheel, engine idling low. The streets blur past the tinted glass, but my mind is not here—it's back in that fucking classroom, replaying every second Izar just told me.
Cassandra Monroe.
She put her hands on Arshila.
Slapped her.
No proof. And because life has a sick sense of humor, it's Monroe's brat daughter, shielded by a family name fat enough to crush anyone who dares bite back.
Anyone but my girl.
Because my girl—my untouchable, reckless little menace—didn't just take it.
She slapped that bitch back.
Twice.
My fingers twitch on the leather. God help me, I almost smile.
That's my girl.
She doesn't even know she's mine, doesn't know that the empire everyone fears bends for her, that every move I make starts and ends with her.
She doesn't know—
She can't know.
Not yet.
But she doesn't need my name to set fire to a room. She's already a fucking storm on her own.
And Cassandra Monroe?
She's not even a challenge.
I don't hit women. Never have. Never will. Women are queens, even when they act like gutter-trash with too much mascara and a mouth that writes checks their daddy's money can barely cash.
But that doesn't mean she gets to breathe easy after laying a finger on mine.
No.
She won't get expelled—not directly. That's too easy. Too obvious.
She'll walk out of that university on her own.
Because there won't be a Monroe to shield her when I'm done.
---
I pick up my phone, thumb gliding over encrypted apps no one in this city even knows exist. Monroe International Group—on the surface, it's a shiny family-run investment firm with fingers in education boards, construction, luxury imports.
In reality?
It's one missed payment away from crumbling.
And I'm not missing.
Step one—liquidate their allies. Quietly. They rely on two main partnerships: LuxRend Bank and Varo Logistics. I own enough silent shares in both to reroute their lifelines overnight.
Step two—expose Monroe's off-books accounts. Not to the public. To their creditors. A single whisper about embezzlement to the right people, and Monroe's loans will evaporate faster than Cassandra's dignity after a slap.
Step three—close the trap. Monroe's projects in the city—luxury apartments, half-built towers—will lose permits in less than 24 hours. I don't even have to sign the papers myself. All it takes is one phone call to Idrakhan real estate, one nod to Rafaen's royal contacts, and Monroe's entire urban portfolio burns without a single flame.
No Monroe money.
No Monroe leverage.
No Monroe daughter staying cocky in my girl's space.
She won't be expelled. She'll be gone. Voluntarily.
And no one—not Cassandra, not Gerard, not a single motherfucker breathing—will trace it back to me.
I lean back in the seat, engine still humming.
Somewhere in that university right now, Arshila's walking out of a dean's office, chin high like she didn't just face off with a board member's brat. She probably doesn't even know what kind of storm's coming down on Cassandra.
She won't have to.
All she'll know is that Cassandra Monroe disappears.
And she'll think it's luck.
But I'll know.
I'll know it's me.
The same way I know every time she bites back, every time she swings her fire instead of folding, every time she looks a threat in the face and doesn't blink—
That's my girl.
And if anyone else tries to test that?
I'll show them exactly what it means to belong to Adam Zayan Tavarian.
---
_____________________
---
There's a difference between watching someone and watching someone.
I'm not talking about the casual, creepy-shit people imagine when they think about a guy outside a girl's window. No. This is different. This is… art. Precision. A fucking masterpiece of control that's been four years in the making.
It's Sunday night. Quiet as sin. The kind of quiet that would suffocate a normal man. But me? I live for it.
From the balcony of the old house, I've got the perfect view. Her window's lit up like it's competing with the moon, a little square of chaos in an otherwise dead street. She's there, hunched over that laptop again, head bent like she's actually working.
I know better.
She's been at that thing since yesterday, and not one word has been written. I'd bet every Tavarian dollar she's been swearing at Shakespeare, yelling at Boo Boo, or threatening Dr. Vaughan through the screen like it's personal.
And fuck me, it's fun to watch.
Every time she groans and throws her head back, I have to bite the inside of my cheek not to laugh. Every time she yells at that cat like it understands the English language, my fingers twitch like I want to pull her out of that chair, pin her to the desk, and make her scream about something other than a dead poet.
But then—
Her head dips.
Slowly.
And this little menace finally collapses, cheek pressed to the table, arms loose at her sides. Out cold.
God.
Something in my chest pulls so hard it feels like it's trying to climb out of my ribs.
And that's my cue.
---
I move like a shadow through the hallway, down the steps I know by heart. The night smells like wet earth and old stone. I cross the backyard without a sound, climb to her balcony like I've done it a thousand times—because I have—and push her window open.
She didn't lock it.
Again.
One day, someone else might crawl in here. Someone with bad intentions. Someone who's not me.
And if that day ever comes?
God help them.
Because I won't.
I step inside, boots silent against the floorboards, and there she is.
Up close, she's a different kind of dangerous.
Not the angelic, porcelain beauty the world drools over. No. She's worse. She's that soul-wrecking kind of beautiful that sneaks under your skin and rots you from the inside out.
Messy hair, dark lashes stuck together from exhaustion, lips parted just enough to make my blood heat. She's still in her clothes—shirt slightly wrinkled, collar stretched where she probably yanked it earlier.
And yet, she's the most fucking perfect thing I've ever seen.
I drag my gaze away long enough to spot Boo Boo sitting on the dresser, tail swishing like it's about to scream bloody murder.
I lift a hand. A silent shoo.
The little bastard narrows its eyes, then—shockingly—obeys, hopping down and padding over to sit by the bed like we struck a deal.
Good.
---
My eyes find her again, and for a second—just a second—I let myself feel it.
How much I want to touch her.
To slide my hands under her, pick her up, and never fucking put her down.
To tell her she's mine, always has been, always will be.
But she'd run.
She'd take one look at me, at the monster under the Tavarian name, and bolt so fast I'd lose her before I ever got to hold her properly.
So I don't.
I just walk over, slip an arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders, and lift.
She stirs but doesn't wake, head lolling against my chest like she belongs there.
And fuck—
It feels right.
Too right.
I set her down on the bed carefully, pulling the blanket over her body. My fingers linger near her face for a beat, close enough to feel the heat of her skin, before I force them away.
I don't turn off the light.
If someone walks in—her parents, or her little brother—they'll see me, standing over their daughter like I own the air in this room.
Maybe I do.
Maybe one day I'll say it out loud.
Hello, in-laws.
I sit on the edge of the bed, watching her sleep. She's so fucking small like this. Not fragile—never fragile. Just… unaware. Completely oblivious to the war I'm waging in the dark for her.
If she opened her eyes right now, she'd see me. A strange man, sitting in her room in the dead of night.
She'd scream. Probably faint.
And yeah—it's creepy. I know that.
But it's also the only time I get to be near her without risking losing her.
---
The laptop screen glows from the desk, still open.
I walk over and sit, Boo Boo hopping up into my lap like we're old friends.and yeah it's the truth.
"Don't wake her," I murmur to it, scratching behind its ear.
The damn thing purrs like a motorboat.
I kiss its head anyway.
Then I flip the laptop open.
Password? Boo Boo's mamy.
Wrong.
She's not Boo Boo's anything.
She's mine.
One look at the document and I nearly choke on a laugh.
One line.
Just two pathetic words: fuck it.
I bite my lip to keep from laughing too loud. Typical Arshila.
She'll be dead tired tomorrow, probably ready to throw this laptop out the window and curse every dead author in history.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I'll fix it.
I know her head better than she thinks. I know every twist of her mind, every sharp edge of her stubborn little soul.
I studied literature just to understand this chaos. Took apart every story she loves until I could see what she sees in them.
It takes me hours, but I don't feel time passing.
Gothic literature—structured, biting, exactly the kind of raw edge she hides under sarcasm.
I write like it's nothing. Like my hands remember her better than my own skin.
By 3:04 a.m., it's done. A project so flawless Dr. Vaughan will probably shit herself reading it.
I send it.
And then I turn.
---
She's still asleep. Same position.
My chest tightens.
If she knew what I just did—
If she knew I crawl through her window at night, finish her projects, clear her path before she even trips—
She'd run.
She'd fucking hate me.
So instead, I do what I do best.
I plan my next move.
From my jacket pocket, I pull out a pen.
Not just any pen.
This is Tavarian biotech—ink that vanishes on contact with skin within seconds. No trace, no evidence.
I take a sheet of paper and look at her.
Really look.
Every line of her face, every stray hair brushing her cheek.
And my hand moves on its own.
I don't even blink. Minutes pass, maybe less, before her face blooms on the page like she was born from the ink itself.
She's haunting. Too real.
I hate it.
I hate that this is the one thing I can't control—that even my worst inherited talent betrays me when it comes to her.
---
I set the portrait on the table.
She'll find it tomorrow.
She'll know, without knowing, that someone's been watching.
And she'll know Cassandra Monroe fucked up, too.
Two warnings.
Two promises.
Both mine.
---
I stand, Boo Boo hopping off my lap, and cross back to the window.
For a moment, I look back at her.
Blanket pulled high, hair spread across the pillow, completely untouched by the storm I'm dragging into her life.
She has no idea how close she is to falling into it.
No idea that tonight, like every night, Adam Zayan Tavarian was inches away from wrecking his entire world for her.
I climb out, feet silent against the balcony, and vanish into the night.
Because that's what this is.
A slow burn.
A silent war.
And when it ignites—
No one, not even her, will see me coming.
---
AUTHOR NOTE
Tell me why this man just rewrote her entire project, drew her face like a sinner worshipping a saint, AND is casually dismantling an entire empire in her name—without her even knowing.
And we're supposed to sleep after reading this??? 🤨
He never left. He's been here—in her walls, in her nights, in her every goddamn breath—and tonight he left two promises:
1️⃣ Cassandra Monroe's bloodline is about to feel Tavarian wrath.
2️⃣ The slow burn? It's not slow anymore. It's a fuse, and it's sparking.
Comment below ⬇️—
💋 Would you call this devotion or destruction?
💋 Do we stan the silent protector or should we be scared of what's coming next?
Add this story to your collection because, babes… this isn't foreshadowing anymore. It's war.