AL
A Ledger Of Bad Faith
Y/n graduated with a degree in investigative journalism built on sheer grit, late-night shifts, and zero financial reliance on anyone else. Growing up in the passenger seat of her mother’s chaotic life—watching Lola bounce between whirlwind romances, broken promises, and sudden evictions—taught Sunday one unshakeable lesson: people who promise you the world are usually hiding the fine print. She was right. Or wrong?? It started without permission: a glance held half a second past polite, the electric hush when a crowded room suddenly falls away. There are a dozen reasons to pull back—too much history, lines drawn in blood and ink, reputations that would shatter under the weight of it. Yet every shared silence feels charged with unspoken gravity. It wasn’t loud or reckless; it was a slow, quiet pull toward the edge, where every brush of an arm or lowered voice felt like a dangerous indulgence, testing just how much fire you can stand before the whole house burns down. He was supposed to be iron and silence—a perimeter, a shield, an unfeeling wall between her and a hostile world. He had taken an oath to love her mother, not to notice the way her breath hitched when he walked into the room, or how the warmth of her hand lingered on his wrist after guiding her through a hostile crowd. Every instinct screamed that looking at her as anything more than his wife’s daughter was a catastrophic breach of loyalty. Yet faced with the silent dead of night, his greatest battle wasn’t against the threats outside—it was the ache to cross the threshold. To touch her.
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KR
