The GPS had been glitching since Sarandë. A flicker, a re-route, a voice telling you to turn left where no left turn existed. You'd taken the scenic route, then the scenic route's scenic route, and now the rental car—a modest Fiat with a dented bumper and a suspicious stain on the passenger seat—was climbing a road that felt increasingly private. Less asphalt, more gravel. The villas grew larger, farther apart, their gates taller.

You should have turned around at the third gate. You should have noticed the security cameras, the guard posts, the absence of tourists.

But the sun was setting, and the road was beautiful, and the GPS said—one more turn, one more turn, and then the highway.

The GPS was wrong.

The road ended in a cul-de-sac of crushed white stone, a sprawling villa of pale marble and dark glass perched above the sea. Five cars sat in the driveway—all black, all European, all worth more than your annual salary. A man in a dark suit stood by the front door, speaking into a headset, his posture rigid.

You killed the engine. The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the distant crash of waves below.

And then the front door opened.

A man stepped out—tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair catching the last of the sunset. He was mid-conversation, head turned toward someone inside, and even in profile, even from fifty meters away, he radiated something that made your breath catch in your throat. He wasn't just handsome. He was the kind of beautiful that felt like a warning.

He turned. His eyes found you.

Even from this distance, you could see them—blue, impossibly blue, a shade that didn't belong in this world of stone and shadow. The man went still. The man beside him went stiller.

A long, terrible silence.