Summary : A waitress living an ordinary life with her ordinary boyfriend never expected a regular customer to change everything. As debt, desperation, and impossible choices begin to close in around her, the line between kindness and obsession starts to blur.
Some people save you. Some people ruin you.
Sometimes they're the same person.
Pairing : Travis Ă— Fem!Reader
Warnings/Tags : Smut, MDNI, Angst, Dark Romance, Criminal Underworld, Gangster Travis, Drug Dealer Travis, Drug References, Debt, Loan Sharks, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Possessive Travis, Obsessive Love, Corruption Arc, Cheating, Infidelity, Financial Struggles, Mutual Attraction, Life-Changing Decisions, Emotional Damage, Toxic Relationships, The Villain Gets The Girl, Pure Chaos, Morally Grey (let me know if I missed anything!)
I didn't have any traumatizing guy problems or daddy issues, but as someone who utterly loathed men who were overbearing and despised the weak, my boyfriend was the best man I could ask for. If I had to describe him in colors and scents, he was closer to colorless and odorless. He had a name so common that if you called it out on any LA street, one in three guys would turn around, and most people found him downright boring. There wasn't much excitement in our life together, even in bed. Whenever I had to explain our relationship to someone, the word that always came to mind was ordinary. We dreamed of a very ordinary future. Though I only started the part-time job to make a living, as my hourly wage went up, the extra cash steadily piled up in my bank account under the guise of our wedding fund. We would probably live a life where we raised a single dog in a small house, holding hands as we went grocery shopping every weekend. That kind of future was more than enough for me. I always believed that happiness was never anything grand anyway.
As usual, I was serving tables, thinking about what my boyfriend and I would do later. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a man standing like a massive tree near the restaurant entrance. Seeing the front stand empty, it looked like the maître d' had stepped away for a moment. I hurried toward the entrance to greet him.
While it wasn't an ultra-luxury fine dining spot, the customers who came here usually had a specific purpose—a business meeting, an anniversary, or a date. Naturally, everyone tended to dress neatly and look a bit uncomfortable. Because of that, the man standing at the entrance stood out even more. He wore a black sweatshirt, moderately baggy black pants, and worn-out sneakers. Beneath his handsome face, a thin gold chain necklace gleamed casually, and his neck and exposed backs of his hands were covered in tattoos. The man glanced around, and the moment our eyes met, I flinched involuntarily. Showing any raw emotion while greeting a guest was practically a sin in this industry, but before I could even apologize, the man smiled as if he was entirely used to this or didn't mind at all. It was a charming, endearing smile that you couldn't help but like, but the gaze looking down at me felt oddly chilling.
"Hi. Sorry about that. Do you have a reservation?"
"No, I'm just waiting for someone."
The man's voice matched his boyish, playful face perfectly. I gave a slight nod and walked away. That was how my connection with Travis began. After that day, he started showing up at the restaurant frequently. It turned out he was the older brother of Zee, who worked as a kitchen hand. The reason everyone except me—who had been working there for a year—already knew about him was because he had just been released after serving an 18-month prison sentence.
The fact that he had done time, along with his handsome face and the heavy tattoos covering his thick neck, made it obvious he was no ordinary character. Yet, seeing how well he got along with the staff here and his occasional gentle demeanor, I began to think I had just been viewing him through a prejudiced lens. Travis melted right through my walls, which were usually quite strict when it came to letting people in, and he did it so effortlessly. "That's the third time today," he said, picking up an order sheet I had dropped. When I looked at him in surprise and asked if he had been watching, he replied, "I've been watching you the whole time." For some reason, my face flushed with embarrassment, and he just laughed. Despite the noticeable age gap between us, within just a few weeks, we were acting like childhood friends who had known each other forever.
"So you have a clumsy side too, huh?"
"I hear that a lot. Didn't you know? Even after over a year, I still do this sometimes."
"But you always work so hard." Praise makes a person weak, and I was no exception. His subtle, well-timed compliments and playful words strangely put me in a great mood. As the frequency of our conversations increased, I felt myself opening my eyes to a completely new world. I used to think there could be no better man than my boyfriend, but it didn't take long to realize that belief came from living in a very small world. Travis wasn't as stubborn as my boyfriend, and he was an incredible listener. Since he was older than both me and my boyfriend, it might have been a natural dynamic, but he was far more mature than he looked. Travis and I shared almost identical opinions on everything, and on the rare occasions we disagreed, he was almost always the wiser one. Whenever I couldn't hide my amazement, he would simply shrug and say, "I'm a lot older than you. When you get to my age, you'll be way wiser and smarter than me." Before I knew it, I was looking forward to every conversation we had.
He was a man who didn't talk much about himself, and I was a woman who didn't pry. Everyone has their reasons, and everyone has things they'd rather keep private. Despite his intimidating impression, I genuinely thought he was a good person. Someone who looked terrifying but was surprisingly gentle; someone who had clearly lived a rough life but wasn't fundamentally bad. Before I knew it, he had read right through me, and strangely, I liked the fact that he knew me so well.
Looking back, that was the moment everything started to unravel. I was sitting behind the restaurant with Travis, eating a burrito bowl he had bought for me. In the middle of laughing over some trivial chat, he quietly called my name and asked if I had a boyfriend. I paused, trying to remember if I had ever mentioned Jake to him before, and then replied that I did. He lifted his head and stared at me for a moment. It was only a fleeting second, but oddly, that moment felt stretched out and heavy. "I see," he said.
"I figured you did."
He smiled innocently, and I laughed along with him. Just then, Jake came bursting through the restaurant's back door. He was supposed to be off today and meeting a friend, but there wasn't a single trace of ease on his face. He rushed over, urgently saying we needed to talk alone for a moment. It was Travis, not my boyfriend, who defused the awkward tension of the sudden situation. Shrugging, Travis coolly picked up my empty bowl along with his and stepped away without hesitation, leaving me stranded in confusion with a visibly panicked Jake. His hands were shaking as he grabbed my shoulders.
The story was that Jake had co-signed a loan for a business started by a close friend from middle school, but the friend had vanished into thin air, leaving Jake with a staggering amount of debt. What Jake hadn't known when he signed the papers was that his friend had been borrowing money from far more than banks. Hearing these revelations for the first time from the man I had planned to marry was utterly shocking, and it shattered everything I thought I knew. I asked him why on earth he hadn't consulted me sooner, but there was no use crying over spilled milk now. The arrow had already left the bow, and it was hurtling straight toward us.
Jake was being hounded by collection calls dozens of times a day. At first, we thought it was just banks and lenders. Then we learned some of the debt had changed hands more than once, eventually ending up with people who weren't exactly in the lending business. After that, Jake started acting like a dead man walking.
We tried to scrape together every penny we had to clear the debt quickly. But the sheer scale of his liability was too massive; even draining the entire wedding fund we had saved wasn't anywhere near enough. It didn't take long to realize that the boyfriend I had thought was just nice was actually incredibly foolish and reckless. To put out the immediate fire, he went behind my back again and took out money from loan sharks, causing the situation to spiral entirely out of control. By the time I snapped out of it, I had lost the man I loved, all the money we had ever saved, and now, even his personal safety was under imminent threat.
Even though I felt heartbroken and resentful, seeing him break down and hold me while sobbing apologies made it impossible for me to push him away. Maybe I had a savior complex. I wanted to drag him out of this hellhole at all costs, and that agony was laid bare across my face and my daily life.
My coworkers, who knew about the mess Jake and I were in, looked at the deep dark circles carving under my eyes and offered some advice. "Ask Travis for help." Hearing those words, I finally realized just how naively innocent I had been all along. Travis was involved in things just as dangerous as the aura he exuded, and his prison stint was closely tied to his line of work. When I eventually found out that he was a notorious, high-ranking member of a local gang and a big-time drug dealer, I was seized by a cocktail of terror and a bizarre curiosity. The reason he always acted so relaxed, as if he had absolutely nothing to fear, was because he was the apex predator of this territory. While everyone who knew Travis described him as a terrifying figure, their voices didn't carry dread or hostility; instead, they held affection, comfort, and deep trust. It was as if the brutal world he inhabited had absolutely no bearing on ordinary people like us.
Clutching at straws, I finally reached out to Travis. He readily agreed that he could introduce us to people who could help, but he hesitated. He wasn't worried about his own position; he was genuinely worried about me and my boyfriend. He explained that there were people who could restructure the debt under far better conditions and stability than our current nightmare, but because they operated entirely outside the law, failing to pay them back properly would guarantee a future far worse than this one. I claimed to believe in Jake’s work ethic, but Travis didn't. While admitting he didn't know Jake well, he confessed with brutal honesty that among the men who let things get this disastrously bad, he had never once seen one successfully clear their debt without a horrific catch. Travis was sincerely worried about what would happen to me if I stayed by Jake's side, but I simply couldn't let go of his hand.
Once he heard the whole proposition, Jake bit the hook without a second thought. I connected him with Travis, and for a while, Jake could actually sleep with his legs stretched out for the first time in months. But the fragile peace we'd borrowed began to crumble again within months. Jake began to struggle with repaying even the vastly reduced loan amounts, and the discovery that he had turned to gambling for a quick fix entirely shattered me.
Now, because of this foolish man's actions, the safety of everyone around him—including his family and myself—was actively threatened. I knew it was incredibly shameless, but as a friend, I wanted to beg Travis one last time. To tell him I was so sorry for failing to live up to the precious lifeline he had thrown us, but to please help just once more. In response, he told me to come over to his house.
Listening to the whole sordid story, Travis didn't reprimand or mock me for treating his warnings so lightly. Instead, he simply dialed a number. He asked the person on the other end exactly how much my boyfriend owed, and after hanging up, he rubbed his jaw in thought. He coolly stated that while Jake's debt was an astronomical figure, he could pay off the entire balance, interest included, out of his own pocket. But then he delivered a sharp reality check: even between friends, there has to be a quid pro quo—a give and take. Since any money I had would rightfully go toward bailing out my boyfriend, he threw the ball back into my court, asking what I was willing to offer. It was then that he laid bare the romantic, carnal interest he had been harboring all this time, proposing that I spend the night with him.
The revelation that he'd wanted me for a long time, coupled with the calculating method and timing of his confession, left me thoroughly shaken. But what unhinged me the most was that while he completely respected and understood my relationship with my boyfriend, he was deliberately offering me a choice to betray him to save him. "I have no intention of forcing a woman I like," Travis said.
"Some people only wake up when they have nowhere left to turn and get hit hard. You've done more than enough. Stop torturing yourself and reclaim your life. It's not a peaceful death, but dying like this might actually be the only way to preserve whatever dignity he has left."
Travis was utterly convinced that the loan sharks would end up killing Jake, and I was so overwhelmed I didn't know what to do.
"Maybe it's only one night. Maybe you walk away tomorrow and never look back. But I really need you to stop destroying yourself for a man who's determined to destroy himself."
Hearing his tone, which sounded so genuinely concerned for my well-being, I began to get confused. Was he making this offer because he wanted me, or was it a desperate, heavy-handed move to stop me as a friend? Untangling these emotions brought an inexplicable rush of tears to my eyes, and he reached out, gently wiping them away. His hot, tender fingers brushed across my cheek.
The moment his hand fell away, I pulled my t-shirt over my head, leaving me in nothing but my bra. Travis fell utterly silent. He was staring at me, but I couldn't bring myself to look him in the eye. I stood up, unbuckled my jeans, and finally sat back down, perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed in nothing but my underwear. Unable to control the violent trembling of my body, I stared fixedly at the floor and whispered that I could go wash up first if he wanted. The words had barely left my mouth before he took a commanding step toward me.
His mouth violently slammed into mine, swallowing my lips whole. Seized by a bizarre obstinacy that I absolutely couldn't kiss a man I didn't love, I jerked my head aside and clamped my mouth shut. Travis didn't force the kiss; instead, he dragged his mouth down my neck, lingering at my collarbone and shoulders as though he couldn't get enough of me. Driven back until I hit the bed, I fell backward onto the mattress. While he pulled his layered t-shirts over his head, I dropped to my knees before him, unbuckling his belt to pleasure him. My hands were shaking so violently that a completely bare-chested Travis immediately halted my movements, pulling me back up to sit on the bed. If anyone saw the state of my face right then, they would think I hadn't consented to this encounter at all. Travis gently stroked my hair.
"Hey, hey. You just need to enjoy it."
I could feel his breath hitch into a dry chuckle at my stubborn refusal to let him kiss me. He smoothly worked his way down my body, mapping every inch with soft touches, unhooking my bra with one hand and sliding my panties off, leaving me entirely defenseless. Settling between my thighs, his face moved without a shred of hesitation to press against my most intimate flesh. The gentle foreplay that felt so incongruous with the situation instantly shifted into something predatory and primal. At first, I endured it by lying back and gripping the crumpled sheets, but soon, while my toes curled reflexively, I found myself desperately trying to push his head away. As his tongue aggressively sucked at my tenderest skin and swirled deep inside me, my thoughts scattered. Even after I shattered into two consecutive orgasms, he showed absolutely no intention of pulling away. The sheer pleasure—something I had never once experienced with my boyfriend—only amplified my suffocating guilt. Along with a slick, filthy sound, something far thicker and harder than his tongue suddenly pushed inside. Startled, I forced my eyes open, locking eyes with Travis, who was driving two fingers into me while keeping his mouth clamped onto my clitoris. From there, the situation spiraled into something far worse. It wasn't just the physical stimulation; the raw, possessive intensity of Travis’s gaze triggered a massive, violent climax, tearing a scream from my throat that I had never uttered in my entire life.
Utterly shell-shocked by the intensity, I stared blankly at the ceiling, gasping for air, barely aware that Travis was stripping out of the rest of his clothes. I had never imagined a human body could experience that level of sheer ecstasy. My scattered consciousness only snapped back when something thick and rigid, feeling like carved hardwood, pressed firmly against my opening. Travis was hovering over me, looking down at my flushed form, and only then did I realize that the weight resting against my entrance was his length. I wasn't a virgin, but the sheer size of the head alone caused a stretching, alien ache that made me feel like my body was tearing apart. His shaft was vastly thicker than the head. Despite how heavily wet I was, his penis was so disproportionately massive compared to what I was used to accommodating with Jake that it struggled to make entry. Right then, the crushing guilt of betraying my boyfriend and coupling with Travis finally flared back to life. Tears spilled uncontrollably down my face, and I brokenly begged him to put on a condom. I had absolutely no right to make demands, and I knew I was in no position to negotiate, but I pleaded desperately, praying he would show a shred of mercy.
I kept acting selfishly, like throwing a tantrum at him, but his reaction was stunning. He rained soft, tender kisses all over my wrecked face, pulled his hips back from me, and wrapped his arms around me, soothingly patting my back. Instead of getting angry, he actually whispered apologies, trying his best to comfort and calm me down. As my sobbing subsided, he stroked my hair, got up from the bed, and walked back over holding a condom. I knew it was completely delusional given our transaction, but for a split second, it felt as though he and I were lovers deeply in love. For one reckless second, it felt less like a transaction and more like being held by someone who genuinely cared.
Yet, even though I wept and begged, he had no intention of actually stopping. Travis tore open the wrapper, rolled the condom onto his length, and pinned me back down. The messy way he tossed the wrapper onto the floor betrayed a sudden, dark impatience. He aligned his body with mine again, preparing to drive inside. Terrified by the sensation that my lower half was about to be split clean in two, I trembled violently, crying out that it wouldn't fit, but he just let out a relaxed laugh, murmuring that it was fine as he relentlessly forced his weight forward. His patience had finally hit its limit. "I'll go slow," he whispered. His voice was incredibly tender, but the brute force of his penis wedging itself between my thighs felt terrifyingly dominant, sending a jolt of raw fear through me. Despite this not being my first time, welcoming him inside felt utterly terrifying and painful. Ignoring my frantic writhing, he set his hips and plunged deep, forcing me to take him all the way to the very root.
Though my slickness eventually allowed his penis to move smoothly, I remained paralyzed by the shock of being forcefully stretched. He looked down at me with eyes entirely stripped of amusement, and out of sheer humiliation and fear, I did everything I could to avoid his gaze. Soon, Travis’s thumb began to aggressively rub against my clitoris. As his touch moved in heavy, deliberate circles, controlling the pressure, my whimpers began to pitch into high, breathless keens.
Unlike with Jake, where I could easily fake or control my reactions, my body was violently slipping out of my command. Before long, every single time his pelvis slammed flush against my ass, blinding white sparks exploded behind my eyelids, tearing loud, unbidden moans from my throat. Feeling a completely foreign type of climax washing over me, panic set in—I felt myself slipping further and further out of my own control. As his tip repeatedly battered a deep, sensitive spot inside my womb, orgasms crashed over me like tidal waves, shattering my sanity. Through the haze, I caught a glimpse of Travis smiling brightly down at me, but my brain was too foggy to process it.
Once the threshold was crossed, shattering it again was effortless. Having experienced a deep, internal orgasm for the very first time in my life, I was tossed from one climax straight into another, and Travis watched my unraveling with pure, dark amusement. The encounter, which I thought would end after one or two rounds, stretched on endlessly until I completely lost count of how many times I had come.
He growled a few filthy strings of dirty talk in my ear, but my mind was too far gone to comprehend the words. Travis didn't care; he simply kept consuming me. What little consciousness I had left was entirely spent frantically jerking my head away from his invading mouth, desperate to avoid a kiss. "Why do you keep avoiding my mouth?" Finally, his words registered clearly. I felt an absolute, desperate need to answer that specific question. Because a kiss belonged only to someone you loved. As I mumbled my broken explanation, he answered smoothly.
"But we're making love right now, aren't we? Just let it happen. Yeah? I love you."
He kept coaxing me like a needy child, persistently trying to capture my lips. I refused to surrender the absolute last shred of my pride. When I continuously thrashed my head from side to side, rejecting him, he abruptly stopped coaxing. Instead, he flipped our positions, pulling me on top of him just as I was on the precipice of another climax. Though I had peaked in this exact position just minutes prior, after a few thrusts, I realized something had drastically changed. Unlike before, Travis was merely grinding his hips in a slow, agonizingly lazy circle, and my fiercely overheated body began to rapidly cool down.
Already utterly addicted to the pleasure he provided, I desperately began to ride him, violently rolling my hips on his shaft. I frantically squeezed my own breasts and rubbed my clitoris, but it only made me feel wretched. His face bore the coldest, most detached expression I had seen since meeting him. I desperately wanted him to take control again, to violently drag my soul back up to that peak. No matter how hard I worked my hips on my own, I couldn't even get close to the mind-numbing ecstasy he had just been delivering. By now, Jake and any lingering moral code were entirely wiped from my mind. Everything else faded into the background until only Travis remained. Seized by a sudden, terrifying panic that I had angered him with my arrogant, stubborn attitude, tears spilled from my eyes again, but his demeanor remained utterly indifferent. The thought of him looking at me that way again made my chest tighten.
I had no choice but to surrender. I wanted to capitulate, to submit completely to him. When I placed both of my hands against his cheeks, he tilted his head slightly, perfectly mirroring my previous rejection. He was definitely smiling, but that small, mocking gesture—the exact replication of how I had treated him—sliced through me, making me feel deeply wounded and filled with regret. Desperate, I pulled his face down, pressing my lips firmly against his. Travis kept his mouth tightly shut, but I pathetically sucked at his lips, sliding the tip of my tongue along the seam, begging to enter his mouth. He stared at me with an unreadable, piercing gaze, refusing to open up, until I was forced to pull away in utter defeat. Just as the horrific, suffocating realization that I had ruined everything with him began to crush me, Travis let out a bright, dazzling laugh, wrapped a hand around the back of my head, and violently pulled me into a deep kiss.
Our lips parted seamlessly, greedily tangling our tongues together, and the familiar sensation of his mouth wrapping around mine sent me spinning back into oblivion. His hand anchored firmly at the back of my head, his fingers burying into my hair to massage my scalp. The elusive peak that I couldn't reach on my own no matter what I tried was handed back to me instantly, delivered by nothing more than the glide of his tongue and the pressure of his fingertips.
I buckled, twitching and arching against him with shallow, broken whines. "You're so incredibly filthy, you know that?" He pinned me back down to the mattress, violently claiming me all over again. As he drove his hips into me in a relentless rhythm, he continuously whispered into my ear that we were doing these dirty things because we loved each other. Given his initial casual stance of a mere one-night stand, his words made absolutely no sense, but I was completely conquered, utterly incapable of mounting a single defense.
*****
When I finally regained proper consciousness, it was around noon. Waking up to an unfamiliar environment startled me for a brief second, but ridiculously enough, the plush comfort of the blanket tucked securely up to my neck and the familiar, distinct scent of Travis lingering in the sheets instantly grounded me. I sat up and surveyed the room. The space was pristine and organized, but the clothes I had stripped out of the night before were nowhere to be seen.
I called out Travis’s name, but there was no response, not even a rustle of movement. Left with no choice, I allowed myself a quiet moment to look around his bedroom. Hip-hop artist posters in sleek frames dominated one wall, while rows of sneakers, a skateboard, and a surfboard were immaculately arranged on shelves and wall mounts. Along with the profound relief that the nightmare was finally over, a delusional sensation that I had somehow become his girlfriend washed over me—and only then did the crushing reality of Jake’s existence smash back into my brain.
The bizarre tranquility I had been basking in vanished, instantly replaced by a wave of anxiety and dread. I desperately hoped Jake would never find out about last night, terrified for him and knowing he must have been sick with worry about me all night. Hurrying to check my phone, I grabbed the device resting on a nearby side table, and the moment I looked at the screen, my entire world shattered.
There was a single text from Jake. The message was a venomous tirade, branding me a worthless, cheap whore and telling me to never, ever look for him again. I collapsed inward. I didn't even know how to name the tangled web of emotions tearing through me, but I was grieving. Liberation, agony, and suffocating guilt bled into one another. How he had discovered what happened between me and Travis didn't even matter. While I understood the profound betrayal and agony he must be feeling, a fierce, white-hot anger flared up inside me because all the selfless sacrifices and struggles I had endured by his side had been reduced to absolute garbage. Had I really made such a horrific choice? Did he ever stop to think about what my heart was going through? I knew I could never justify my actions, but the sheer sense of injustice and resentment was unbearable.
Right then, the sound of the front door unlocking echoed through the apartment, followed by heavy footsteps. It didn't take long to realize who it was. Travis walked in, looking absolutely immaculate from head to toe, holding takeout bags adorned with a cute franchise mascot in both hands. There I was, sitting exposed on the bed, pathetically clawing the blanket around my naked body, weeping hysterically. The faint, easy smile on his face vanished instantly. One look at my face, and it was clear he already knew exactly what had happened.
He dropped the bags onto the counter and rushed over to the bed. Carefully, he gathered me into his arms, pulling me flush against his solid chest. The sweet, distinct aroma of his vape instantly flooded my lungs. Terrified that my tears and mucus might ruin his clothes, I tried to sniffle back, but he didn't seem to care about that at all.
"I wanted to get back before you woke up so I could tell you myself, but I guess I was too late."
He softly apologized, murmuring that his own greed had ruined everything. Dropping to his knees beside the bed to bring himself to my eye level, he began to gently explain the truth behind the chaos.
Travis confessed that from the exact moment I had begged him for help, he had already decided to clear Jake's debt himself. Even if I had refused to sleep with him, Jake's loan was going to be paid off regardless. He explained that the sole reason behind his benevolence was because he loved me. He knew that no matter what, I would never let go of Jake's hand, and he realized that as long as that debt remained, my destruction was guaranteed. He wanted to end my suffering, even if it meant I would never choose him. In fact, the funds had cleared before I even arrived at his apartment last night, but that was exactly where the wires got crossed. While I was tangled in his sheets, Jake had gone to meet the loan sharks to make his monthly payment. The collectors simply informed him that his entire debt had been erased, told him to clean up his act, and handed him Travis’s address, telling him to go thank the man who had bailed him out. Travis let out a bitter, helpless huff, admitting he had been so completely blinded by the prospect of finally having the woman of his dreams in his bed that he hadn't foreseen the fallout. Travis gripped both of my hands even tighter. His hands were visibly trembling.
He acknowledged that the order of operations was disastrously messed up, but swore his feelings for me were entirely pure and real, begging for the chance to be my actual boyfriend. He added that he didn't expect an answer right away, but amid my profound shock, a fierce instinct to protect him from hurt flared up inside me. It was a slightly twisted realization, but his dangerous presence suddenly felt like a grand prize, a twisted blessing from God himself. Reaching out, I pressed my lips to his in a quiet vow of acceptance, and he smiled against my mouth, eagerly drinking in the kiss. Our tongues tangled deeper, and when my hands reached down to pull at his shirt, he gently caught my wrists.
"You haven't eaten anything since yesterday afternoon."
He murmured that we had all the time in the world now, suggesting we take things slow. I couldn't help but smile.
*****
Travis stared down at the woman deeply asleep on the mattress, her body utterly drained from the consecutive climaxes, her soft whimpers finally silenced by exhaustion. He rolled the used condom off his length, tied it in a knot, and tossed it into the trash. After a careless wipe with a piece of tissue, he pulled his pants back on without bothering with underwear. Grabbing his vape, he let it preheat, took a few heavy drags, and casually strolled out into the living room.
In the dimly lit space, Jake was sitting on the couch. There was no telling exactly how long he had been sitting there. His fists were clenched so hard against his thighs that all the blood had drained from his knuckles, and he was weeping silently, tears and snot streaming down his face. He kept his eyes locked on the floor in pure, unadulterated humiliation, but Travis noticed the distinct, pathetic bulge straining against the crotch of his jeans. Travis let out a contemptuous click of his tongue. On the coffee table lay the messy stacks of cash Jake had practically broken his bones to scrape together through various odd jobs. Walking with the slow, heavy stride of a sated lion, Travis sank into the single-seater armchair across from him. The quiet living room was filled only with the sound of Jake sniffling, the soft hiss of Travis exhaling sweet vapor, and the rhythmic rustle of paper as Travis casually counted the cash.
Tossing the counted stacks onto the table one by one, Travis openly mocked the broken man across from him.
"You actually got a hard-on listening to me slide in and out of my girlfriend? Jesus, man. For a guy who looks so plain, you've got a seriously sick kink."
The bold, casual declaration of ownership over the woman sleeping in the next room made Jake flinch violently. "She's my girlfriend," he choked out, every syllable requiring a monumental effort against the paralyzing terror gripping his throat. He desperately wanted to push back. Travis merely smiled wider, shaking his head with mock pity. "You gonna talk like that when you can't even take care of your own woman?" The words sounded casually thrown out, but they were laced with pure venom.
"What kind of man can't even clean up his own fucking mess, to the point where he lets his woman sell her body to fix it?"
Travis couldn't contain his amusement, letting out a dark laugh, while Jake ground his teeth so hard he could taste blood.
"...I know you engineered this entire thing. You ruined our lives."
The accusation made Travis's fingers pause over the bills. "Our?" Travis snorted. Lifting his gaze from the money, he locked eyes with Jake, whose eyes were bloodshot and wild with fury. But regardless of the rage consuming him, even if Jake had a knife or a loaded gun in his hands right this second, he stood absolutely zero chance against the predator sitting across from him. "So what?" Travis asked, his face melting into his signature boyish, innocent expression.
"Even if I did, what the fuck are you going to do about it? Call the cops? Or maybe go tell her the truth? Want to run to her and admit you're so fucking incompetent that you walked right into a trap laid by a bad guy? Tell me, what exactly can you provide for her that I can't do better?"
The brutal truth of his words instantly broke Jake's spirit, and his gaze slid helplessly back to the floor. "And honestly, everything else aside, you're the dumb fuck who ran straight to a gambling den the second you wanted a few quick bucks. You couldn't fix a single thing with this pathetic pile, yet you sure know how to run your mouth." Finished with the money, Travis casually tossed a single thick stack of bills right at Jake's chest, telling him to use it for cab fare and to never show his face around here again. When Jake weakly protested that he couldn't just abandon the woman sleeping in the bedroom, it finally wore through the last of Travis's amusement.
"I guess you don't appreciate the fact that you're still breathing with all your limbs intact, courtesy of her."
The cold certainty in Travis's stare made sweat break out across Jake’s neck, his eyelids fluttering with terror. The invisible threat materialized into a suffocating, physical dread. Travis had granted a singular mercy by allowing Jake to close the curtain on his relationship with the girl—even if that mercy meant severing their bond with the most vicious, hateful words imaginable. Like a beaten dog getting kicked out of its owner's yard, Jake had lost everything and was being violently pushed out of the territory. The moment he pulled the front door open, two massive, heavily built men were standing like brick walls in the hallway. Recognizing exactly who they were, Jake’s knees nearly buckled, but the enforcers paid him absolutely no mind. Pushing past him into the apartment, they gave Travis a respectful, disciplined bow.
"Pass along my apologies to the Old Man for letting a small spark fly his way," Travis said easily. "It's a bit short, but as soon as the sun is fully up, I'll wire the rest with interest. Tell him to call off his hounds regarding this idiot."
"Actually, sir, the Boss explicitly stated that the money isn't necessary. He simply asked us to convey his regards and hopes for a prosperous relationship moving forward."
"Can't do that. Business is business, keep it clean. Take it now, before I change my mind."
Travis offered a casual wave of his hand, and the men quickly swept the cash into their duffel bags. Once the intruders cleared out, the apartment fell dead silent once more. Travis walked back into the bedroom, looking down at the woman sleeping peacefully, entirely oblivious to the world. He reached out, gently stroking her hair, a faint smile carving into his lips.
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Summary : Travis is attentive, protective, and impossibly devoted—the perfect boyfriend in every way. But after discovering the disturbing truth hidden beneath his affection, you run, only to realize that escaping a man like Travis may have never been an option in the first place.
Because Travis loves you.
And Travis always gets what he wants.
Pairing : Travis Ă— Fem!Reader
Warnings/Tags : MDNI, Smut, Dark Romance, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Angst, Criminal Underworld, Gangster Travis, Drug Dealer Travis, Drug References, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Possessive Travis, Obsessive Love, Psychological Abuse, Toxic Relationships, Corruption Arc, Cheating, Infidelity, Financial Struggles, Ex-Boyfriend Drama, Mutual Attraction, Life-Changing Decisions, Emotional Dependency, Dubious Consent, Unplanned Pregnancy, Stalking, Violence, Graphic Violence, Body Horror, Organ Harvesting, Major Character Death, The Villain Gets The Girl, Morally Grey Travis, Pure Chaos, Dark Happy Ending (let me know if I missed anything!)
Word Count : 9.6k
Honestly, I never thought my stable, years-long relationship would end like this. I was the one who messed up, and that was an undeniable fact. I believed Jake had every right to be furious with me. Even if the entire world called me a terrible person, I would have no right to complain. My only regret was having to cut ties without ever knowing if, even for a split second, he felt sorry for me or thought about me. It feels like a belated excuse now, but back then, I thought about Jake constantly after he fell into debt overnight. I took his problems as my own. I just wanted him to notice that, even a little, and I wanted him to hurt less.
It might sound crazy, but after getting dumped so abruptly, falling into a relationship with a gangster I had no business knowing was strangely stabilizing yet incredibly thrilling. The longer I spent with Travis, the lighter my guilt toward Jake became. I knew exactly what kind of man Travis was. I knew what he did for a living, and he was surrounded by guys who looked perfect for the job. Skinny, tatted-up men with shaved heads, massive men you could barely bring yourself to look in the eye, and men with wild, unstable eyes. Yet, these terrifying people I hadn't even known existed suddenly turned into perfect gentlemen whenever I was with Travis.
No one ever mocked Travis when he made awkward jokes or acted unexpectedly spoiled and clingy around me. They all lived in a world that didn't belong to a regular civilian like me, but I wasn't naive enough to miss the hierarchy among them or the fact that Travis sat way at the top.
Travis always tried his best to keep business and personal life separate around me, and I felt his love in that distinction. He was a strange, peculiar man who sold drugs but never touched them himself, and smoked vapes because he hated the foul smell of cigarettes. Seeing him act friendly with the local cops made me wonder why he’d done an 18-month stretch in prison, but I never asked. I was probably just completely disarmed by how he treated me like royalty, acting like the perfect boyfriend, but I simply loved the happiness and affection he gave me.
He always put me first in bed as well. Before we officially started dating, I was terrified he might have some hardcore, aggressive tastes that matched his exterior, but it was all in my head. His preferences turned out to be surprisingly gentle. He would take his sweet time with foreplay, melting me down, always making my pleasure his absolute priority.
He respected my boundary of never having sex without a condom, and preferred positions that focused entirely on my comfort. As long as he was there, I could come dozens of times in a single night, all the way until sunrise. Of course, he’d show his mischievous side every now and then. He’d occasionally buy all kinds of toys, saying he wanted to show me something fun, and before I knew it, colorful vibrators and dildos we'd used together had taken over a corner of his bedroom.
It was through him that I learned for the first time that intense pleasure could bring tears. Even though I’d shattered before him multiple times and shown my most vulnerable sides, the uncontrollable ecstasy still brought a wave of shame. It made me feel less like a person and more like an animal, and I’d end up sobbing hysterically, completely blind to him or the atmosphere.
Whenever that happened, he’d hold me tight and pat my back until I calmed down, apologizing for teasing me too much. He didn't care how hard he’d gotten, or that his boxers were soaked with pre-cum. If we had sex a hundred times, he was passionate enough to initiate ninety-nine of them, but if I wasn't in the mood, he never forced it. Instead, he’d pull the covers over me and stay by my side until I fell asleep.
He was the perfect man. The kind of dream guy who only exists in books and movies. There was no reason for me not to love him. With his massive presence, he made the harsh world feel so much smaller whenever he was with me. I never had to stress about money after we started dating, but I never felt overwhelmed by a sudden jump in status or isolated in an unfamiliar world either. My dream of just wanting a moderate, ordinary life was coming true with an extraordinary, perfect man. He never asked me for anything; he really felt like a man dropped straight from heaven just for me.
I thought we were destiny, just like he said. Until that day came.
It was a day where both the kitchen and the dining room were so slammed you could barely breathe. Working like crazy left a huge pile of trash by closing time. Travis came to pick me up every single day no matter when I finished, and I hated keeping him waiting. To wrap up closing quickly, I split the chores with my coworkers and was helping throw out the kitchen trash when my own work was done.
As I was rushing back and forth through the back door, I saw something moving in the dark. Someone was standing there awkwardly, and I squinted to get a better look at the shape. Once I focused, a familiar face I could never easily forget came into view. It was Jake. He slowly walked out of the shadows with a terrified look on his face, and a sudden rage consumed me—a rage so intense you'd never believe I was a woman who used to feel guilty and wish for his happiness.
When he called my name, I answered by violently slamming down the trash bag I was holding. He grabbed me as I tried to ignore him and walk past. He was a pathetic man who bowed down to everyone else, but even so, I didn't have the strength to overpower him. When I tried to scream, he frantically begged me to give him just a moment because he had something to say.
Having spent years dating such a clueless, pathetic man, I found myself going weak at the sight of him. Once he let me go, I snapped at him to hurry up and state his business. He had never shown me mercy, but I decided to give him a chance. I figured our past together at least earned him that much. Trembling violently, Jake pulled out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and played an audio recording.
"I guess you don't appreciate the fact that you're still breathing with all your limbs intact, courtesy of her."
The recorded audio played a voice that unmistakably belonged to Travis, threatening Jake. It revealed that everything Jake had gone through was a trap Travis had set from the very beginning, even manipulating Jake into breaking up with me in the harshest way possible. Everything was recorded.
Why on earth did Travis start doing this? Timeline-wise, it was all too strange. He had asked me if I was seeing anyone after Jake fell into debt. Was everything he did to me a lie? Before I could even guess a reason, Jake spoke up.
He told me he still loved me and begged me to forgive him for having no choice but to leave, and I could see what the word 'sincerity' actually meant in his eyes. But what hit me right after was a crushing sense of betrayal, an overwhelming dread, and pure terror from learning the true nature of the man I had loved so passionately.
"Maybe it's just an empty threat. Travis might not actually be that scary of a person."
"Are you seriously taking his side right now? You think you'll be fine when he gets bored of you?"
'When he gets bored of you.' Those words completely broke me. Jake asked if I sincerely loved him, and I couldn't answer. To be honest, I felt a much bigger, deeper emotion for Travis than the love I had felt for Jake, but I couldn't open my mouth. I was a pathetic woman. There was no other word for it. This wasn't out of consideration for Jake's feelings either. It just felt like it would hurt my pride to admit I loved Travis the exact moment his sincerity was being questioned. I realized that all the things Travis had provided that made me feel so comfortable were never ordinary. Even though nothing had happened yet, it felt like someone was holding a knife or a gun right to my head.
Jake kept calling Travis a 'psycho' instead of his name, arguing that he might do who-knows-what to me just like he threatened him, and tried to convince me to run away far away together. He was sweating bullets, making it obvious how terrified he was of the situation. I couldn't do anything. I was in a deeper despair than when I first got Jake's breakup text. I thought I had grown stronger as an adult, but it felt like just two failed loves had turned me into a pathetic coward. Had I just been too easy? I had fallen so deeply in love with Travis in such a short amount of time.
As if the goddess of fate was urging me to make a choice, the sous chef's loud, booming voice welcoming Travis echoed from inside the restaurant. Coming back to my senses, I looked across at Jake; he was shaking even harder, his face pale as a corpse. Snapping out of it first, I hid him, promising to meet him right here tomorrow, an hour before my shift ended. By a hair's breadth, I managed to greet Travis right before he opened the back door and stepped out.
"They working you too hard, shorty? Want me to take care of it for you?"
The fact that his casual joke sounded completely serious terrified me so much I almost screamed. Travis naturally pulled me close and showered the top of my head with kisses. I couldn't tell if the goosebumps breaking out over my skin from his breath were from raw excitement or sheer terror; my entire body was stiff with tension. Even when I told him my hands and clothes were dirty from the trash, he didn't care, lightly caressing my earlobe and neck. The more I realized this wasn't a sexual advance but just a pure display of affection, the more devastated I felt. I got terrified that he had noticed something, and I only managed to escape after acting cute and planting a quick kiss on his cheek. Travis smiled softly at my reaction, but that smile, which would usually look adorable, was absolutely terrifying.
We went back to his place together, showered like usual, and got into bed. Travis naturally started touching me and kissing me to set the mood, but I used his own consideration against him, turning him down by saying I was exhausted. Travis smacked his lips a couple of times, gave me a quick kiss on the forehead, and said goodnight. In the dim bluish dark, I could feel him staring intently at my face without closing his eyes. Feeling a suffocating fear like I’d committed an unforgivable sin, I tossed and turned pretending to sleep, only finding relief after turning my back completely away from his chest.
The next morning, Travis seemed to have left the house earlier than me. On the dining table sat breakfast takeout from my favorite spot near his place. I stared at it, debating what to do, before leaving it untouched, packing a light bag, and rushing to an ATM near the restaurant to withdraw a portion of the cash I’d saved up. I’d burned through all my savings before because of Jake, but thanks to living mostly on Travis's dime, the hefty balance left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I shook my head violently, trying to remind myself that Travis had just been playing games with me all this time. I walked into work acting normal, and then, a mere hour before clocking out—when there was no one around to tip Travis off about my escape—I abruptly told the manager I was quitting, grabbed my things, and bolted out the back door. Jake was waiting for me there in the exact same clothes as yesterday.
Seeing that I’d made the same decision, a faint color returned to his face. We rushed to the station, caught a train just like he planned, and arrived in Oceanside right before midnight. We intended to switch rides and head further south, but for better or worse, we found ourselves stuck the second we stepped off the train. Jake panicked, claiming he spotted someone who worked for Travis, and I fell into a total panic attack. I couldn't wrap my head around how we could get tracked down just three hours after running away.
Leading a panicked me, Jake checked us into a cheap motel nearby. His Plan B was to move like ghosts, using nothing but cash.
In that tacky room lit by the flickering neon sign outside, we faced each other and had our first real conversation in a long time. While Travis was treating me like royalty, Jake’s ordinary life had been completely ruined. He’d lost the woman he planned to marry right before his eyes, got cleaned out of all his money, and was forced to abruptly uproot his life. Travis told me he’d wiped Jake’s debt clean, but that was a lie. It might have been chump change to Travis, but it was a massive debt to regular people like us, and he’d left a chunk of it on purpose. Jake claimed it was payback for the day I talked back to Travis after we’d slept together.
Jake said his body was broken from working multiple grueling jobs just to scrape the money together. Hearing how bad he had it, I couldn't bring myself to be completely honest when he asked how I’d been doing. He knew I’d become Travis’s girl, but he clearly had no idea how cherished I was. I decided to give him a mix of truth and lies, telling him I’d been heartbroken for a long time before finally giving in and dating him.
The moment the words left my mouth, Jake lunged in to kiss me. When I pushed him away and rejected him, he looked genuinely shocked. He was clearly under the delusion that I was still in love with him.
Even if my love with Travis had been a total sham, there was no way I could sleep with an ex-boyfriend whom I only associated with painful memories the second we reunited. On top of that, Jake fell short of Travis in every single department. Back when I didn't know any better, I was blinded by love and thought his inflexible traits were charming, but now that my eyes were wide open, he held zero appeal to me, both as a person and as a man. All I felt for him was pity and sympathy. Holding his hand was just a survival instinct, driven by fear and a sense of shared trauma, but Jake didn't get it. He tried to pull me into a tight embrace again, but when I rejected him a second time, the sweet guy from my memories vanished, leaving only a bitter man dripping with an inferiority complex standing before me.
The absolute worst part wasn't Jake frantically apologizing after seeing how terrified I was. It was me. His forceful attitude triggered the exact same primal dread I felt around Travis, and at the same time, I found myself miserably missing Travis. Jake kept apologizing, shifting back into the familiar version of himself, but I knew things had gone terribly wrong. I made it crystal clear that I had no feelings left for him. Our time was done, this wasn't some romantic elopement, and the only reason I followed him was out of survival and a sense of loyalty to him for telling me the truth. Jake went completely silent.
The next morning, I immediately booked a separate room to get some space from him. Jake insisted that we needed to share a room to save money since we didn't know how long we'd be on the run, but having seen his rock bottom, I wouldn't budge. I told him flat out that if he couldn't respect my boundaries, I couldn't go anywhere with him. When I went as far as offering to split some of my cash so we could go our separate ways, he looked deeply wounded, but I wasn't in a position to coddle his feelings.
He begged me, saying I was the only person he had left to trust and that he couldn't lose me, and honestly, the feeling was mutual. We reached an agreement and became partners in the same boat again. But it didn't take long to realize my choice was a fast track down the wrong path. Following Jake's lead, we spent a few days laying low inside the motel rooms. Then, early one morning before sunrise, we were heading to a diner to finally grab a bite to eat.
From a distance, a group of kids who looked like trouble were walking our way. Among them was an awkward boy who looked completely out of place in that crowd. The boy, who kept catching my eye, bumped into Jake and made a clumsy attempt to snatch his wallet. The move was so sloppy that Jake noticed it instantly.
The real disaster happened right after. Jake grabbed the kid—who was way smaller than him—by the scruff of his neck and slammed him onto the pavement. The boy’s crew abandoned him and sprinted off, and since Jake didn't have the guts to chase them down, he took out his anger on the helpless kid on the ground, throwing brutal punches.
Terrified, I rushed over and tried to pull Jake off him. The boy sobbed, begging for mercy, saying his friends made him do it and that it was his first time, but Jake’s eyes were burning with an unquenchable rage. The boy had no way of knowing that money had ruined Jake's life, or that he was now living off pure bitterness where every single penny mattered.
Anyone could see the kid was brand new to this and didn't belong in this world. He was scrawny, looking tiny even compared to Jake, who wasn't exactly big himself. Even though he’d done wrong, it was an attempted theft, and the kid looked so pitiful that I felt we could afford to show some adult grace.
I barely managed to pull Jake away, and feeling bad for the kid, I reached into my pocket to hand him a few bucks. But Jake lost it. He snatched the five-dollar bill right out of my hand and screamed at me, telling me if I had money to blow, I should be spending it on him. In the end, the boy got nothing but a beating and limped away into the dark. Watching Jake anxiously scan his surroundings after realizing how loud he’d yelled, a profound, unprecedented helplessness washed over me.
Jake and I kept dodging people’s eyes, hiding out as we moved further and further away from LA. We never slept together. While Jake respected my wishes at first, as time passed, he started showing his resentment more often and more openly. It took exactly one month for Jake’s patience to completely run dry.
Disturbed by a sudden presence, I blinked my eyes open to find Jake looming over the edge of my bed with cold, menacing eyes. He muffled my scream with his hand, growling in my face. He demanded to know why I’d slept dozens of times with the monster who put him through hell for a year, but wouldn't let him touch me.
Our argument quickly escalated into a violent struggle, and the moment my nails accidentally scratched his cheek, a suffocating, icy silence fell over the room. I could feel his bloodshot eyes glaring at me through the darkness, and for the first time in my life, I felt a genuine threat to my survival. By the time I snapped out of it, I had already shoved him away and bolted out of the motel barefoot. I sprinted across the cold motel tiles and out onto the rough asphalt, running like a maniac.
It was the dead of early morning, the streets were dead, and there was nobody around that sketchy motel. Just as I was about to scream for help with zero options left, Jake’s rough, unforgiving hand grabbed me from behind, and tears instantly burst from my eyes. I couldn't think about what would happen to me next or what I should do right that second. But in that terrifying moment, the person I desperately wanted to see more than anyone else was, absurdly, Travis.
"You might wanna take your hands off her."
Like he belonged there all along, like we’d run right into his hands on purpose. Travis stepped out from around the corner, exhaling a thick cloud of vapor from his vape. Seeing the man I’d spent a month running from standing there acting completely casual was terrifying, but bathed in the red neon light of the motel sign, he looked downright sinister. I forgot how to breathe from the shock, and Jake was frozen too. The familiar sweet scent of his vapor lingered in the air.
Travis pulled out his phone and made a quick call. He stood there puffing on his vape, locking his eyes dead onto mine until a black sedan pulled up in front of us a few moments later. I couldn't read a single thing behind those dark eyes, which terrified me, but on some level, I felt a wave of relief. When the car stopped, he popped the back door open and told me to get in. Obviously, I didn't have a choice, but the polite way he escorted me into the vehicle made me feel under the illusion that I actually had a say.
The moment I quietly climbed in, Travis slid in right next to me, leaving Jake stranded alone on the street as the car sped off. As we drove, I didn't give a single thought to my ex-boyfriend whom I’d completely lost feelings for. I was just trapped between the terror of what would happen to me now and the twisted relief I felt the second I saw Travis.
The car pulled up right in front of my old apartment. Travis stepped out first, and before I could follow, he told me to stick my feet out. It was only then that I realized my feet were completely torn up from sprinting barefoot, and a delayed wave of pain hit me. He gently brushed the dirt off my soles and slipped his own sneakers onto my feet. His shoes were way too big for me, flopping around with every movement. The car sped off the moment we got out, and Travis started heading up toward my place like he owned the joint. Even though I knew exactly where he was going, I swallowed the sharp pain in my feet and hurried right behind him, terrified of losing him.
I’d lost my keys during the month on the run, so even though I was the tenant, I couldn't open the door. But Travis casually pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked it effortlessly, letting me step back into my home for the first time in a month. The things I had abandoned were still safely in Travis's hands. The moment I turned around, finding comfort in the familiar air, I saw Travis standing right outside the threshold. He didn't step inside; he just stood at the door, facing me.
As I walked closer, he gently took my hand and pressed the key into my palm. Looking at the keychain, I finally realized it was the spare key I’d given him a long time ago.
"Rent's due tomorrow, but don't worry about it. I already paid up a few months in advance 'cause I knew you were coming back."
When he told me he’d grab the bags I left at the motel after he finished work tomorrow, I couldn't find a single word to say. Hearing him tell me to get some rest because I must be exhausted made me feel incredibly sad for some reason. Every single word out of his mouth was dripping with consideration for me. A crushing wave of regret over what I’d done hit me, and tears started pouring down my face like a broken faucet. The old Travis would’ve held me tight and wiped my tears, telling me not to cry, but now, he didn't move an inch.
"You mind giving me my shoes back? I mean, unless you're trying to keep them on."
I was the one who tried to cut him out of my life, yet now that he was systematically reclaiming his things and drawing a line, an unspeakable sadness washed over me. But I knew that even if I acted stubborn and refused to take off his shoes, it wouldn't phase him at all. I slipped the sneakers off and handed them over. He told me to get some good rest, closed the door, and I collapsed right there on the floor, sobbing for a long time. I felt so sorry to him, and I regretted everything. The terror I’d felt earlier and the stinging pain in my feet didn't matter anymore. If things were like before, he would’ve carried me all the way up those stairs and spent the whole night making sure I stopped crying. Remembering that just made me sink into a deeper depression.
I spent the entire next day curled up in bed, skipping meals and drifting in and out of sleep. The bright sun that lit up the room faded away, and darkness crept in again. When the doorbell rang, my heart skipped a beat thinking it was Travis, and I sprinted to the door without caring how a mess I looked. It was him, just like I thought, holding my luggage and food from my favorite spot.
When he mentioned he bought it thinking I hadn't eaten dinner yet, my eyes welled up. But when I asked if he’d eaten and he replied, "Yeah, already ate with someone else," my heart completely sank. Before I ran away, he always had dinner with me, and on the rare days he couldn't, he always hit me up first to let me know.
Travis sat by quietly, waiting for me to finish eating. I forced myself to swallow the food, trying my hardest not to cry while stressing over how ugly and unwashed I must look to him. The second I finished, he stepped in to clean up the table and even brewed my favorite herbal tea. He navigated my apartment with total ease and comfort, making me feel like a guest in my own home.
We sat across from each other with the steaming mugs of herbal tea between us. Travis rubbed his face and started talking, almost like he was confessing a sin. Unlike Jake, who only cared about his own voice from the jump, Travis actually apologized first for not being straight with me from the beginning. He added that he’d completely get it if I didn't believe a word he was about to say.
Travis told me that after meeting Jake a few times regarding the money, he realized the guy wasn't right for me. He said he loved me too much to just look the other way, and he wanted to get him out of the picture by any means necessary. He wrapped up by saying it looked like Jake had hopped a train and split, then went quiet, almost like he was waiting for my reaction and judgment.
I felt an intense self-loathing for betraying a man who had loved me so consistently. Shame, guilt, and regret choked me up until I couldn't stop crying, and the moment a desperate "I'm sorry" slipped from my lips, Travis finally pulled me into his arms and rubbed my back just like the old days.
He told me he was only human, so it was gonna take some time for his wounds to heal. But he said he still loved me, and while his love brought a massive wave of relief, it also made me feel incredibly pathetic. I wanted to do whatever it took to make things right with him; if I could turn back time, I would’ve done anything. I had been so blind. I had to go all the way to the edge of the earth just to realize his arms were the most comfortable, sweetest paradise. I hated myself for being so stupid that I had to ruin everything just to figure that out.
Travis, who hadn't done a single thing wrong, actually asked if I could give him a chance to earn my trust back. He suggested we move in together, and I happily agreed on the spot. Without even unpacking the luggage he’d brought over, I walked out the door with him right then and there.
Just like that, I was back in his familiar house, waiting for him to come home, eating meals together, and sleeping in the same bed. For over a week, the only physical contact we shared was quick kisses and warm hugs—so clean that the days we used to sweat and make love like wild animals felt like a total dream. I felt safe, but I was also deeply confused. Travis, who used to be so passionate in bed, no longer seemed interested in initiating anything. I assumed I was slowly regaining power and leverage in the relationship, which made me feel satisfied. I felt happy with his patience and grateful that whatever charm I possessed still worked on him.
Travis was always the one to light the fire in our relationship, but since I came back, the roles were completely flipped. The pace of our healing felt incredibly slow, and honestly, I really liked it that way. But the realization that I couldn't keep living like this hit me the moment I started noticing him around other women. I don't know if I was being arrogant or just plain stupid a month ago, but attractive women kept entering my peripheral vision whenever I looked at him. I knew they were just acquaintances or business partners. Travis flaunted my existence to everyone and drew a hard line with them. But obviously, no woman in her right mind would pass on a guy who was that handsome and smooth.
While attending his friend's birthday party, I happened to overhear a conversation in the restroom between some girls who had their eyes on Travis. They weren't badmouthing me; they were just dripping with envy, but it didn't make me happy anymore. At the end of the day, a boundary is something you can just cross. Travis was the one who drew the line, which meant he could erase it whenever he wanted to, and there was no way a girl like me could stop him. The realization that my permanent spot by his side wasn't maintained by my own charm or worth, but entirely by Travis's love and patience, was enough to drive me insane. When I walked out of the restroom and back to his side, he paused his laughing conversation with his boys to immediately check on me, noticing I looked pale. I tried to tell him to stay and enjoy the party, but he wouldn't budge, insisting we head home together. For the first time in my life, his overwhelming love felt suffocating. He was too good of a man, and I didn't deserve him. I had to do whatever it took. I desperately wanted to fix this imbalance in our relationship; I couldn't lose him. The moment we stepped inside the house, I threw myself into a kiss, using my whole body to show him I wanted to sleep with him.
"What's wrong, beautiful? Did that asshole spike your drink or something?"
He was smiling, but he didn't look shaken in the slightest, which made me feel sick to my stomach. "No, it's nothing like that. I just really want you." I tried my best to sound casual, but I couldn't hide the tremor in my voice. "Seriously, what's wrong? You've never acted like this before." He wrapped an arm around my waist and gently pulled me closer, and I let myself be drawn into his embrace without resisting. I couldn't bring myself to tell him that it was all because of my insecurities, or beg him not to abandon me. I was terrified that if I looked too pathetic, he might eventually grow tired of me.
"I love everything about you, but do you only love me for my body?"
He put on such an exaggeratedly pitiful expression that I couldn't help but laugh. The moment I did, he broke into a grin and laughed along with me.
Before I knew it, a single word from him could send me soaring to heaven or plunging straight into hell. The balance in our relationship had been reversed a long time ago, and I was the only one who hadn't realized it. Travis pressed a gentle kiss to my lips.
"I know I sound pathetic saying this, but I'm still hurt by what happened. I want to see how much you really want me."
I swallowed hard. When I asked what he wanted, he told me he wanted to watch me use one of the toys on myself while focusing entirely on him. It was a pretty jarring request, but I was too desperate to say no. I stripped off every piece of clothing and sat on the bed, leaning my back against the headboard, while Travis sat on the couch across from me, stripped down to just his sweatpants.
He leaned back on the couch, almost lying down, and started rubbing himself through the fabric. Knowing exactly what was hidden underneath that cotton got me instantly turned on. I spread my legs shamelessly in front of him and started touching myself. He stared down my body with a completely blank expression, and trapped between a wave of arousal and intense shame, I locked my eyes onto his well-built chest and abs, running the vibrator to get myself slick and wet. It was tough since I hadn't done this in a minute, but Travis just silently staring me down was a massive trigger.
I eventually rode out a powerful orgasm right in front of my boyfriend in that vulnerable position, but Travis ordered me to keep going. I immediately started on round two. He had to know I wasn't faking it, but my second climax wasn't enough to satisfy him; he told me to keep going. Terrified of losing the chance he was throwing me, I kept pushing through the painful waves of overstimulation, unable to stop. My thighs were shaking uncontrollably and my clit was throbbing, but my walls kept twitching, begging for more.
I started crying ugly tears again. I wanted him to see my sincerity, and I wanted him to fix this unquenchable fire inside me. I was a woman who couldn't even function without him. 'How pathetic do I look right now, crying while playing with myself?' I hated the thought and wanted to choke back the tears, but the sheer emotional weight was too much to handle.
Suddenly, Travis was standing right over me. He wiped away my tears and leaned down to kiss me. The vibrator, soaked in my fluids, slipped out of my hand and buzzed uselessly on the floor. He ran his fingertips over my hyper-sensitive spot, giving it a light flick before sliding two thick fingers deep inside me. Everything he did was so intense that groans kept slipping out, but his deep kiss swallowed my breath and my noises whole. The orgasms started hitting faster and faster, completely short-circuiting my brain in a way that self-pleasure never could. My entire body was reacting perfectly to his touch.
His fingers inside me felt like pure bliss, but I wanted him to feel good too. I wanted the bigger high my body remembered. I reached down to stroke his length, begging him to put it inside me, but instead of looking hyped, Travis actually looked kind of stressed. I panicked, thinking he didn't want to sleep with me, and the fear must have shown all over my face. Travis apologized for killing the vibe, locking his eyes onto mine, and confessed that he just realized he didn't have any condoms. He claimed that after I dipped, he got so mad that looking at the condom boxes in the drawer pissed him off, so he threw them all out.
He kissed my hand, apologizing again, whispering that he’d work hard to make sure I got mine using his hands and a dildo. From the very start up until now, he was adapting entirely to me. I couldn't find a single reason left not to love a man who loved me this unconditionally, without demanding anything in return.
I gripped his sweatpants and boxers, yanking them down in one motion, exposing his rock-hard dick. Travis looked caught off guard, but I buried my face against his shaft, licking my way up, begging him to just put it in because I didn't care. He tried to hold me back, but the moment I pinned him down onto the mattress and climbed on top, he stopped resisting. I guided his thick, rigid head inside me, and just like that, we had sex without a condom for the very first time.
The unfamiliar skin-to-skin sensation was overwhelming, sending us crashing through multiple intense peaks. Every time he came deep inside me, his warm cream mixed with my slick fluids, keeping things perfectly lubed. We rode each other like wild animals, making up for the entire month we’d lost, until the exhausting marathon finally caused me to pass out.
When I finally blinked my eyes open, a mountain of plush pillows and cushions was propped up under my lower back and thighs. Travis was just walking into the bedroom. When I tried to sit up and winced from the muscle soreness, he flashed a bright smile and walked over, planting a soft kiss on my forehead. "You were mumbling in your sleep all night about your back hurting. You feeling better now?" Along with his morning greeting, he explained the setup of the pillows, smelling like his signature vape scent. I just blushed, giving him a goofy smile. But as my brain cleared up, the realization that I’d so easily thrown away my lifelong values in the heat of the moment hit me. A sharp anxiety began to twist in my stomach.
Travis turned back toward the kitchen, exposing the long nail scratches I’d carved all over his back last night. He was still the exact man I loved, but separate from that love, the shock of demolishing my own boundaries was overwhelming. 'If I tell him I need to hit the pharmacy real quick, is he gonna judge me? Is he gonna start seeing me as some reckless girl?' I was becoming hyper-aware of his every move.
While he whipped up breakfast, I hopped in the shower and desperately tried to scoop out every last drop of his cream from inside me. After washing up, the only move left was to take Plan B, but I couldn't bring myself to just walk out the door while he was acting so completely casual. Travis and I sat side-by-side at the table. I kept getting this phantom feeling like something was leaking between my legs. I thought I was doing a good job acting normal, but Travis caught my vibe instantly and squeezed my hand tight.
"I'm really sorry about last night, beautiful. I messed up. Running out of condoms is on me, but I should have at least pulled out. It's just… you felt too good, I couldn't stop myself."
He reached over to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. "Just relax, eat your breakfast, and we'll go to the pharmacy together, alright?" He joked that the meal took every ounce of his energy to cook, which immediately broke my tension and made me burst out laughing. It felt like he had superpowers, reading my mind completely, and honestly, I loved him for it.
If I were to ever start a family and needed a father for my kids, I desperately wanted it to be Travis—though a part of me felt he was too good for me. A little while later, I had to step out for a quick errand, and as I walked back, I saw a kid standing in front of Travis, who was waiting for me on the sidewalk.
It was the same little pickpocket Jake had brutally beaten. He’d filled out, his complexion looked way better, and he was rocking clean, sharp clothes, so I almost missed it, but it was definitely him. The boy noticed me too, adjusting his backpack. When I asked Travis if they knew each other, he just shrugged it off, saying the kid was from the neighborhood.
The boy gave me a polite bow, genuinely apologizing for what happened that day. He explained his family was going through it, and with his mom severely sick, they desperately needed cash. He’d let some bad influences fill his head with nonsense into doing something stupid, but Travis had stepped in and covered his tuition, living expenses, and even his mom's medical bills. I had no choice but to accept his apology with a warm heart.
It turns out the kids who abandoned him that day were actually low-level runaways tied to Travis’s crew. Once Travis caught wind of the kid's situation, he cut him loose from those bad elements and took care of him financially. The boy swore he’d never forget the favor and would pay him back, but Travis just ruffled his hair, telling him to shut up and go study. Travis looked a little embarrassed to be caught doing charity work in front of me, which I found incredibly adorable.
After the kid walked off, I asked Travis what made him want to help him out. He looked at me and said he knew straight up that what he did for a living wasn't clean or right. He argued that if there’s someone out there who still has a shot at a normal, clean life, you gotta respect that. His words touched me deeply. He truly was a good man, and I had zero doubt he’d make an amazing husband and father for someone. He loved me, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was way out of my league.
We settled back into our routine, with the only real change being that we ended up having raw sex more and more often. Travis kept acting like his usual self, but my body was craving him 24/7. Travis kept trying to be reasonable, saying taking the pill all the time wasn't good for my health and that we needed to use condoms, but after breaking my own rule once, I found myself chasing that raw connection even harder. He didn't seem like he was looking for a baby or trying to make things permanent, but I just needed that constant reassurance that he wanted me.
Then my period ran late. The day the pregnancy test flashed two bright lines, it felt like the sky collapsed on my head. I was positive I hadn't missed a single pill. Everything went dark. The thought that my reckless cravings might push him away paralyzed me. Even though getting an abortion or other options were on the table, I was too emotionally wrecked to think straight.
As I kept pacing in and out of the bathroom, breaking down into heavy sobs, Travis knocked on the door, gently asking what was wrong and if he could come in. I was too stunned to even hide the test, and I ended up spilling every single insecurity I’d been harboring right to his face, looking completely pathetic. I had completely surrendered myself to him. Travis was a truly perfect man, and I could never measure up to him. As I cried hysterically, begging him not to leave me, he just wrapped his arms around me, rubbing my back until the shaking stopped, telling me it was alright and that I must've been terrified doing this alone.
As I kept leaking tears and snot, rambling like an idiot, I could feel his chest vibrating against my shoulder—he was silently chuckling. I had no clue what he found funny, but his embrace felt too warm to pull away. He stroked the back of my head a few times, then pulled back to flash that beautiful signature smile I loved so much.
"Man… this was definitely not how I planned on doing this," he muttered.
He dropped down to one knee right there on the bathroom floor and pulled a small velvet box out of his pocket. I completely forgot I’d been crying ugly tears a second ago; my swollen eyes popped wide open. Travis let out a dry cough and started talking. He confessed he’d been carrying this box in his pocket every single day for a long time, even during the entire month I was on the run. He looked up at me and said I was the one who was too good for him, and even though he was still a flawed bastard, he asked if I’d do him the honor of marrying him as he popped the box open. A massive diamond ring—bigger than anything I’ve ever seen—shimmered brilliantly under the bathroom lights.
I said yes immediately, and we locked into a long, deep hug. He just leaned back, wearing a slow, satisfied smile.
*****
"She put in her notice an hour before closing and just walked out. You didn't know?"
That was the first thing Travis heard from the store manager when he arrived to pick up his girlfriend like usual. Honestly, he already knew something was off with her lately. Last night, every time he held her close, her heart was thumping like she had just committed a crime. Even when she turned her back to him in her sleep, her posture screamed that she was hiding something. Travis was too sharp to miss signs like that. He knew some shady business was going down, but he didn't move too early. To a man in his position, putting things back where they belonged was an easy fix. But hearing it flat out from someone else—that the girl he’d spent so much time shaping and molding had just packed up and walked away that easily—that hit his pride wrong. It genuinely irritated him.
Figuring out why this mess happened wasn't hard at all. There was only one reason his girl would bolt from the golden cage he’d built for her, and only one pathetic fool who would push her to do it.
For Travis, running a massive operation in the shadows meant tracking down his runaway girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend was a simple matter of time. The two idiots thought they were being clever using nothing but cash, but in his world, you don't keep a major enterprise running without being ten steps ahead of everyone else. Travis put a tail on them immediately, but he just sat back and watched the updates, holding his move.
He knew that on any level, a broken man like Jake wasn't even worth competing with. The fool trying to steal his girl wasn't worth a confrontation, but his girl running out on him like that? She needed to be taught a lesson for that disrespect. He wanted her to feel the weight of her mistake right in her chest and regret ever walking out on him.
Travis knew her way better than Jake ever did. He knew exactly what kind of traits made her stomach turn, and he was going to play that to his advantage. He needed her to see the reality of her choice and feel the sting of deep regret.
Travis called up a few young runaways from his crew and told them to go find some scrawny, innocent neighborhood kid who was struggling for cash. He used them to set up a carefully staged scenario on the street, and that idiot Jake took the bait perfectly, throwing away the last bit of sympathy she had left for him.
Getting live updates on Jake turning into a complete emotional wreck, Travis casually pulled the strings, orchestrating the environment and pressure around the runaway couple to slowly suffocate them. Mentally breaking a weak man like Jake and running him into a wall was far too easy. After a month of letting the situation simmer, he walked right up to her to collect.
The girl he loved was incredibly fragile. He didn't even need to use muscle or put a scare on her like he did with others; she was just that soft. Travis found it fascinating watching her completely fall apart in front of him. Looking at her just made his mischievous side kick in.
The night they had unfiltered, raw sex for the first time was the same deal. Travis couldn't help but want to mess with her head every time he caught her anxiously reading his face. He intentionally conversed with girls he didn't care about just to watch her sit there and stew from the sidelines. The second she took the bait, he made her play with herself out of pure vanity, and even though he had fresh boxes of condoms sitting right in the drawer, he lied through his teeth just to get that intense connection. He figured he’d been patient enough to earn that luxury, and his girl, completely overwhelmed and naive as hell, believed the lie instantly.
Travis looked down at his sleeping girl, casually rubbing his length back to life. He stared at her opening, glistening with a sticky mix of his cream and her fluids, and used his fingers to sweep up his leaking fluids from her thighs, pushing it right back inside her. Watching her sleep like a fed apex predator, he slowly stroked himself until he was right on the edge, then slid his hips between her legs.
He barely pushed the head past her lips and let it fly. The thick, warm load painted her insides perfectly, and he reached over to grab pillows and cushions, stacking them right under her hips. His twisted possessiveness wanted her to trap his fluid inside her body all night long. The next morning, he put on a straight face and used a smooth apology to bury that dark desire like it never happened.
Travis kept playing chess with her mind, keeping her off-balance. She was supposed to be his girl, staying inside the perimeter he built, keeping quiet, and eating up the love he fed her. Keeping her in line was just entertainment to him. He was going to make sure she never got any bright ideas about running out on him ever again. What if she’d been a little smarter? He probably would've had to clip her wings to keep her close, but things didn't have to get that messy, which made the game even sweeter. Watching her blindly swallow the pills he handed her every day—never even questioning if it was a vitamin or a poison—made him love her even more. When she finally got pregnant and was sobbing with relief over the baby, Travis felt a massive wave of satisfaction.
But Travis wasn't playing savior to the whole world. The day the little runaway saga ended, the second that black sedan disappeared from view, Jake sprinted back to the motel room shaking like a leaf. The only thing running through his head was that he was completely ruined and needed to move. Travis hadn't said a word before driving off, but Jake's gut told him some horror movie business was about to drop. He regretted ever trying to play hero and fetch his ex-girl. He should've never even thought about it. When a powerful man treated you like an insect, the only thing you could do was crawl. But regretting it now didn't mean a thing.
He was throwing his clothes into a bag when the door burst open. A crew of hitters dropped him, beating him into a bloody pulp before dragging him out. The next morning, when Travis strolled into the motel to grab his girl’s things, the room was a total mess—blood splatters and signs of a violent struggle everywhere. Travis didn't even blink at the gruesome scene; he just calmly picked through the wreckage for her stuff. He was so dialed into her existence that picking her items out of the mess was effortless.
For a while, Travis kept pouring that heavy, suffocating affection onto his girl, gaslighting her as a pastime. After putting her to sleep one night, he took a ride out to a secluded warehouse he hadn't visited in a minute. Inside, a completely broken Jake was strapped to a chair. The man was soaked in sweat and had pissed himself from pure terror, making the whole room smell rancid. Travis walked in acting like he didn't expect to see him like this, playfully blocking his nose and tossing out degrading, slick remarks. The second Travis stepped into the light, all the hope left Jake’s eyes.
"Why do you keep trying to touch my girl? Do you actually love her that much?"
Travis kept wearing that calm, steady smile, and Jake felt a primal, animalistic terror that bypassed his brain entirely.
"Please, man, just let me go! I swear to God I'll never do it again! I'm so sorry!"
"I mean, she is beautiful, I'll give you that. Definitely a keeper."
"I'm so sorry! I'm sorry, sir! I'll stay dead, you won't ever see my face again! I'll disappear!"
"Gotta respect your taste in women, though."
Jake begged for his life, but Travis wasn't even listening. It wasn't a conversation—Travis was just talking over him, letting his own voice fill the room. Finally, Travis looked at him and said since he loved her so much, he was gonna give him a way to show that love for real. That’s when Jake felt a level of dread he didn't even know humans could experience.
Jake frantically screamed that he didn't want any of that, sobbing and apologizing for overstepping his lane. Travis dropped down to his level, looking him straight in the eye with a chillingly gentle expression.
"I said I'm gonna let you live. I'm gonna make it so you can live right on my girl’s finger as a diamond ring."
Jake’s face twisted from a desperate smile into pure panic as the words processed. Travis stood back up, and Jake tried to thrash around, trying to use his teeth since his hands and feet were locked down, just begging for a second to talk, but it didn't mean a damn thing.
The hitters who had worked him over before stepped back into the room, dragging his chair toward a setup that looked straight out of a back-alley surgery clinic. Seeing the medical tools, Jake started squealing like a pig. Travis casually turned around to leave, tossing a final line to his boys: "Keep the anesthesia low. Harvest everything worth a dollar, but take your sweet time with it." Jake realized those words meant his execution was gonna be the slowest, most agonizing torture imaginable, and he screamed until they shoved a gag down his throat.
The crew handled the butchering like a regular nine-to-five. They kept Jake breathing for days, harvesting him organ by organ while he lay there on the table like a living corpse. After multiple raw surgeries and forced recoveries, he didn't even look human anymore.
A few days later, Travis walked back into the warehouse. The guy running the tools looked up and flatly reported that all that was left to pull was the heart and the eyes. Jake was still conscious, and the cold words hit his ears perfectly. He couldn't move, but tears leaked out of his eyes, realizing Travis had designed this entire conversation just for him to hear.
Travis leaned down close to Jake’s ear, whispering softly.
"My bad, but I gotta be straight with you before you go out. I lied about one thing."
Jake wished he could just spit the gag out and beg one last time.
"I told you I was gonna turn you into a diamond ring, but truth is, I bought that ring a long time ago. And honestly? The shit we pulled out of you looked like some cheap pig guts. Didn't bring in much cash at all. You were never gonna make diamond status. But hey, I put the cash to some real good use in the neighborhood, so I'm sure you're going straight to heaven."
Travis patted his shoulder, turned around, and walked out without looking back, leaving Jake wishing he could just swallow his own tongue and end it. Travis took the money he made from parting Jake out and handed it right to the neighborhood kids who helped him close up his storyline. The cash Jake bled for saved a kid’s mom from the grave, and the future Jake lost bought a clean, bright path for the little boy he’d beaten on the street.
From the jump until the very end, Jake was nothing but a disposable tool used to make Travis look completely flawless.
Summary : Unfortunately, miracles always come with a price. One day, my brother somehow came home with enough money to pay for our mother’s surgery. By the time I found out where it came from, everything had already gone terribly wrong.
Pairing : Travis Ă— Fem!Reader
Warnings/Tags : Angst, Dark Romance, Criminal Underworld, Gangster Travis, Drug Trafficking, Drug References, Family Drama, Financial Struggles, Mutual Attraction, Life-Changing Decisions, Emotional Damage, Whump, Pure Chaos, Cliffhanger (let me know if I missed anything!)
Word Count : 2.1k
Seventeen dollars an hour was considered a decent minimum wage in New York, if you were lucky. The out-of-pocket costs for the surgery of the mother who had burned through her entire life raising my brother and me on her own came to a staggering one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I gave up on college, working nineteen hours a day, seven days a week, juggling shifts at a cafe, a cleaning job, and whatever odd tasks came my way. I traded my sleep and my youth for a measly two thousand dollars a week. Even if I lived on air without spending a single penny, it would take me seventy-five weeks—another year and a half of this agonizing endurance. Insurance had already paid what it was willing to pay, and the hospital couldn't keep delaying the procedure forever. We had one week left to figure it out.
With the deadline looming just a day away, I was working in a state of sheer, absolute despair when my phone buzzed in my pocket. A text had just arrived. Attached was a crystal-clear photo of a receipt confirming that the medical expenses had been paid in full. The sender was my younger brother. My heart ground to a halt at the sight, and all the noise around me seemed to instantly mute. Then, like a cruel twist of fate, the worn-out bell attached to the cafe door chimed brightly.
“Well, look who it is!”
The owner’s booming, cheerful voice shattered the silence, snapping me back to reality. I lifted my gaze to find a man standing there—someone who felt utterly alien, completely disconnected from my bleak, impoverished world. A thin gold chain rattled loosely over his oversized sweatshirt, and a sharp, brutally masculine jawline was carved perfectly above the intricate tattoos wrapping around his neck. His face was heavily inked, an attribute that should have given him a terrifying appearance, yet his smile possessed a strange, boyish innocence. Dressed entirely in black from head to toe, he looked as though he were deliberately trying to suppress his massive, overpowering presence with a muted color. Moving with practiced ease, the man walked over and perched himself on a high stool at the counter. He chuckled, answering the owner in a low, rumbling baritone. It was a beautiful sound, but I couldn't process a single word he said. Gradually, the ambient noise swelled back into my ears, and the man’s voice amplified, coming into sharp focus. His gaze drifted naturally toward me, as if it had known its destination from the very beginning. Despite being a total stranger, he spoke to me with a sly, familiar ease, as though we were old acquaintances.
“New face, huh? Looks like the boss finally hired someone decent.”
“This is Travis. He runs a little business nearby. A long-time regular, so take good care of him.”
As the owner introduced us, I offered a stiff, awkward nod. The man named Travis leaned his chin on his hand, his eyes drilling into my nametag. Though his eyes were smiling, a sudden, inexplicable suffocating weight pressed down on my chest.
“That's a beautiful name. Mind if I order something?”
When his lips curved into another smile, my heart did a violent flip. I wasn't naive enough not to recognize it for what it was—raw, romantic attraction. My brain must have gone completely haywire, flooded with a sudden rush of dopamine and adrenaline; my chest pounded furiously at the sight of a man who exuded such a terrifying aura. For a fleeting moment, the world that had felt so crushing just seconds ago seemed beautiful, and an unearned surge of confidence washed over me, making me feel like I could conquer anything. It was a premonition that everything was finally going to fall into place. And for a while, it actually did.
From that day on, Travis came into the cafe every single day at the exact same hour, ordered the exact same thing, and sat in the corner to keep me company. The more we spoke, the more impossible it became to deny his magnetic charm. He invited me out to dinner several times—offers that made my heart race with a dizzying euphoria—but I couldn't dare to accept. I had put out the immediate fire, but the gaping holes of poverty were still scattered all around my life, waiting to swallow me whole.
I thought praying for the rest of my life to remain just this peaceful was a small, humble wish. It never crossed my mind that even this might be too much to ask for. Intoxicated by the triumphant thrill of beating the odds, I had completely forgotten a crucial truth: when the happiness you’ve dreamed of arrives too easily and too quietly, you must always question it.
One day, the stack of cash my brother had brought home vanished without a trace into our mother’s surgery costs. By the time I realized that money was actually a one-way ticket to hell, it was already far too late. It made me wish we had all died before that money ever found us.
“Don’t worry, sis. I’ll take care of it, somehow.” My brother had always tried to play the role of the only man in a house full of women. But the last time I saw him, right before I finally worked up the courage to take Travis’s hand and taste happiness, I saw raw, trembling terror on his face instead of confidence. Hiding behind the counter of the darkened cafe, trying to soothe my brother as he shook like a leaf, his body covered in cuts and bruises, felt like a twisted echo of our childhood. The only difference was that the stories spilling from his lips had nothing to do with innocent childhood memories; they were brutally real, viciously cruel.
I wasn’t the only one who had shaved years off my life to keep our mother alive. My poor brother had been busting his back at construction sites by day, working as a club waiter and a delivery boy by night. His battered, secondhand scooter couldn't even push past twenty miles an hour, but it was enough to cut through the New York nights. On the night everything went wrong, the moment the delivery app chimed, he had been mentally calculating the cost of our mother’s ventilator.
On his way back from a delivery, he stumbled upon a car crash and called it in. Even as the paramedics loaded the injured and the police cleared the scene, my brother remained standing there alongside his metal-and-oil-scented steed. He gave a witness statement, left his contact information, and stayed until the officers told him he was free to go. He had simply hoped that whoever the nameless victim was, they would be able to get treated in time without worrying about the cost—just like our mother.
It was after the chaos settled, just as he was about to leave, that something caught his eye. A short distance away from the road lay a few small baggies filled with white powder. Inside those tiny, transparent, flat plastic bags, the white substance was meticulously sealed. Having worked in clubs, my brother knew that whatever people called this stuff, it held enough value to extend our mother's life. He told me he thought it was a gift from the heavens, a stroke of good karma for his good deed. If we were strictly talking about acquiring a fortune by pure chance, his logic wasn't too far off from the lie he’d told me about winning the lottery.
Dropped on a secluded stretch of road entirely devoid of CCTV cameras, that forbidden white powder was destined to be traded for several lives. But tracing the footsteps of his misguided mercy, the people who claimed to own the very substance that saved our mother finally hunted my brother down. They mocked his goodwill, granting us a grace period far shorter than the mercy the hospital had shown. They held our lives hostage and demanded every cent back. The truly tragic part was that the day after I found out mysterious men were tormenting my brother, the world remained exactly the same. Travis showed even more interest than usual, asking me out on a date, but I could only push him away, failing to hide my crippling anxiety. Travis left the cafe earlier than usual, but I didn't even have the luxury to care. I was staring at the clock like a manic obsessive.
As the cafe's closing time neared during the quiet evening hours, a black van abruptly slammed its brakes right in front of the shop. The side door slid open, and something was carelessly dumped onto the pavement. It didn't take me long to realize it was my blood-soaked brother. The moment I rushed outside, as if they had been waiting for that exact cue, men I had never seen before began pouring out of the vehicle. I was forced to look up at them from the ground, cradling my groaning brother in my arms, as if they were some supreme deities ruling over us. The clothes I had meticulously kept clean just to look good for one specific man were now stained red with my brother's blood and absolute despair.
I tried to speak on my brother’s behalf, but the men had no intention of listening. They looked entirely incapable of pity. My desperate pleas—that their original deadline hadn't expired yet, that I would find a way to get the money—were utterly ignored. They were utterly furious, acting on volatile whims. As I trembled in sheer terror, pierced by the most horrific threats I had ever heard in my life, the final sound to register in my ears was my brother’s whimpering apology: “I’m sorry.”
Just as they were about to roughly drag us to our feet, I suddenly sensed a presence just outside my field of vision. The men must have felt it too; their gazes instantly snapped in the same direction, and the exact same terror that consumed us was suddenly slapped across their faces.
“I told you to bring the product back untouched. Who told you to go collecting cash?”
Standing incredibly close, having appeared out of nowhere, was Travis. Bathed in the crimson glow of the setting sun—a red as deep as the blood pooling from my brother—a smile hung loosely on his face. My tear-blurred vision could still see that smirk with terrifying clarity. The thugs who had just been threatening our lives began to sweat profusely, stuttering over their words as if they had rehearsed it. They scrambled to lay out pathetic excuses to Travis, mirroring the exact desperation my brother and I had just shown them. Travis stepped forward with the slow, deliberate grace of an apex predator, listening to their pleas with an expression of profound boredom.
Through their frantic exchange, the pieces of the puzzle finally clicked into place. The white powder we thought was a miracle from God actually belonged to Travis. The buyers had abandoned the product the moment they realized who the supplier was, but they still wanted their money back. And these men, who had lost the stash in the middle, were trying to squeeze my brother dry to cover the principal and interest, all to escape the wrath of Travis and his associates.
“You’re responsible for your own mismanagement. Was the order to restore it back to how it was really that hard to understand?”
Though the men all carried firearms at their hips and clearly outnumbered him, not a single one of them dared to breathe loudly in his presence. “Three hours left.” Travis rolled up his sleeve and tapped the glass face of his wristwatch. That single phrase acted as a starting gun, draining the color from the men's faces as they frantically piled back into the van.
The van sped away, kicking up a cloud of dust, and an absolute silence settled over us. Travis slowly walked over and stopped right in front of me. Acting on pure, primal instinct, I tightened my grip on my brother and looked up at him. He slowly knelt down, bringing his eyes level with mine.
“Can we finally have that dinner together now?”
It was the exact same smile he always gave me, but for some reason, it was utterly, violently suffocating.
