CHAPTER 49: THE MOMENT HE KNEW...

Chapter 49: The Moment He Knew

Theo believed in people’s weaknesses...

Even though he grew up thinking that emotions were nothing but distractions like some flaws that got people killed...he was always trying to understand the ones who couldn’t defend themselves.

But then Danielle happened, and suddenly everything he had trained himself to forget came rushing back like an old scar being torn open.

He remembered the first time he realised it. The night in the woods....

That messy and foggy smoke, darkness, gunfire between the trees. His pulse had been calm, until he heard her voice. Until she screamed for him.

"Theo!"

That one word shattered something inside him.

He had heard her call him before, a hundred times, in that casual way she said it...half teasing, half demanding.

But that night, it was different. It wasn’t playful. It wasn’t controlled. It was desperate. And it did something to him that he didn’t understand at first.

He remembered how his heart raced as he ran toward the sound. His hands shook even though he tried to convince himself it was from adrenaline.

Theo told himself it was his job to protect her, but deep down, he knew that wasn’t the truth. He needed to find her because he couldn’t stand the thought of the world existing for another second without her in it.

When he finally saw her in that forest, her face was pale and her lips kept trembling, something inside him cracked open.

She was shaking, but when her eyes met his, she whispered his name again, softer this time, like she knew he would always come for her.

That was the moment Theo knew.

He wanted her. He needed her. And that scared him more than any mission ever could.

But feelings had no place in his world. He tried to bury them and tried to remind himself who he was...a man built for orders, trained for silence, raised for duty.

Yet every time she smiled, every time she laughed, he found another reason to forget everything that had made him who he was.

When Ethan kidnapped her, that control he had built over the years vanished completely.

He remembered the sharp, suffocating, uncontrollable rage. The image of Danielle’s bruised arms, the fear in her eyes when he found her. He had never wanted to kill someone so badly in his life.

Ethan’s smirk when Theo finally got to him still haunted him.

"She’s just a girl," for some reason those were the words Theo hears in his mind like they belonged to Ethan, mocking him.

Theo had seen red....Just a girl? She wasn’t just anything. She was the only thing that made sense anymore.

However, this bodyguard didn’t remember much after that. Only flashes...his fist meeting the attackers faces, the sound of breaking jaws and the pain of his own breath. He hadn’t stopped until the job was done.

And when he looked at Danielle after, something shattered all over again. She wasn’t crying or yelling at him. She was just... resting...

After that night, Danielle didn’t ask questions.

She didn’t demand explanations, and just simply looked at him with those wide, tired eyes.

He had expected her to hate him and fear him. But instead, she kept herself close, even when he avoided her touch... Even when he didn’t deserve it.

Theo never understood why. Maybe because Danielle saw through people in a way no one else could. Maybe because she was broken too, just in a quieter way.

Her life had been built on lies, surrounded by walls of secrets and power she never asked for. He could see it every time she looked at herself. Theo saw the pain when the truth started to slip through the cracks.

She reminded him of a broken vase that was so beautiful, but shattered, held together only because she refused to fall apart completely.

And maybe that was what drew him in.

He didn’t want to fix her. He wanted to protect what was left, to keep the pieces from breaking further.

But sometimes he wondered if Danielle was the one fixing him instead.

Because before Danielle, Theo was nothing more than a weapon.

He followed orders. He destroyed and obeyed. He didn’t dream. He didn’t laugh or hope.

Then she walked into his life with that cute voice, that stubborn look in her eyes, that warmth that made him forget what cold felt like.

And now, after everything he had confessed, after tearing apart what little peace they had built, he was left standing in the middle of a war he didn’t know how to end.

He hated himself for telling her the truth, but he hated the lie even more. He could still see her face...the disbelief and betrayal, the tears she tried to hide.

Theo wanted to reach out, to hold her, to beg her to understand that she was never the target. That the only thing he ever wanted to destroy was the man who had caused so much pain, even if that man was her father.

But couldn’t...

Because no matter how much he wanted to believe he was different, he was still the man trained to kill her father.

And the worst part was that he didn’t even know who he was fighting for anymore...the mission or her.

Theo sat down on the edge of the bed, running a hand through his hair.

He thought about her again. The way she used to laugh when Felix made stupid jokes. The way she got embarrassed over small things. The way she looked at him like she could see through all the armor he wore.

He wondered if this bunny would ever look at him like that again.

Theo leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees, and then whispered into the silence, "You should have stayed out of this, Bunny. You should have never called my name that night."

Because the moment she did, he was lost.

And no amount of discipline, no mission, no loyalty could bring him back from that.