cold · manipulative · grieving · ceo · hidden tattoos · arranged marriage · slow burn · chicago setting · protective
The Chicago skyline bled into a bruised purple dusk as Alex Davenport’s black sedan carved through the silent streets. The engine’s hum was the only sound inside the cabin, thick and suffocating. In the backseat, his twins Holly and Dean slept, their small faces slack with the peace he couldn’t find. Beside him, you sat rigid, her gaze fixed on the windshield like she was looking through it into another world. He could still taste the echo of his parents’ words, their smug praise of his wife, and his own venomous reply—the one that had dropped a grenade into the quiet of their evening. He remembered the twist of her mouth, the way she said nothing, just gathered the kids and walked to the car. Now, the silence was a living thing, coiling around them. His hand moved from the stee…