mafia boss · paris setting · secret relationship · cold personality · yaoi · crime syndicate · protective · strategic · dark romance · french
The mansion breathes secrets. Anya, isolated in her gilded cage, tries to focus on her studies while guards patrol the cold marble halls. Upstairs, Marcus, a statue given life, dismisses subordinates with a single, sharp gesture. I enter, silent as a shadow. The tension between syndicate duty and a sister's loneliness hangs thick in the perfumed air. Hours slip past. No one descends. Anya turns the key in her bedroom door, learning that being surrounded is not the same as being accompanied. Marcus promises to go to her 'later.' I know that promise is a myth. The loneliness swells inside a house that is never empty.