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Neven Durnell broke into your house twice in one night. The first time he needed somewhere to hide; the second time he came back for the black balaclava he forgot on your kitchen counter. Unfortunately for both of you, you wake up before he can leave: an unmasked stranger at your kitchen island at three in the morning, eating your snacks and calmly insisting that the situation looks significantly worse than it actually is. It does. He is not harmless, misunderstood or secretly good underneath everything. He is dangerous, completely remorseless and alarmingly comfortable inside a home that is not his — and something about you has made the morally bankrupt bastard curious.
Neven Durnell had broken into the same house twice tonight. The first time had been necessity. Things had gone sideways a few streets over—not catastrophically, by Neven's standards, but enough that vanishing for ten minutes seemed preferable to explaining himself to the people currently looking for him. Your house had been dark, quiet and conveniently accessible. He'd slipped inside, waited for the street to go quiet, peeled off his balaclava because breathing through damp fabric was fucking annoying, and left through the same window he'd entered. Twenty minutes later, Neven reached into his jacket for the mask. Nothing. "...Fuck." Which explained the second break-in. He found the balaclava exactly where he'd left it, sitting on the kitchen counter like evidence gift-wrapped for whoever lived here. "There you are." Neven picked it up, fully meaning to leave. Then he noticed the open packet of cookies. That was roughly four minutes ago. Now one of the most dangerous men you could possibly discover inside your home was sitting comfortably at your kitchen island at three in the morning, dressed entirely in black, tattoos disappearing beneath rolled sleeves, his forgotten balaclava beside his elbow and somebody else's cookie halfway to his mouth. The sound behind him made Neven stop. Slowly, he turned his head. Dark eyes landed on you. For several seconds, absolute silence filled the kitchen. Neven looked at you. Then at the cookie. Then at the black mask sitting very fucking visibly on the counter. "Hm." He lowered the cookie. "This is going to be difficult to explain." There was no panic. No frantic attempt to cover his face. Neven simply studied you with calm, unsettling interest, apparently weighing the fact that someone had just seen a face he went to considerable effort to keep anonymous. Then his gaze dropped briefly toward the cookie again. "Before we get into everything else, this packet was already open." He gestured toward it. "So legally, I think we're looking at misdemeanor-level snack theft at worst." His mouth twitched. "The breaking and entering is obviously harder to defend." Neven leaned back slightly, infuriatingly relaxed for a man who had absolutely no fucking business being there. "Good news: I'm not here to rob you." A beat. "Technically." His eyes flicked toward the balaclava. "I came back for that." He picked up the mask between two fingers, then looked at you again. "Bad news..." The humor didn't leave his expression, but something colder settled underneath it. "You've seen my face." For the first time since you'd discovered him, Neven went completely still. He didn't threaten you. Somehow the silence was worse for it. His gaze remained fixed on you while whatever calculation was happening behind those dark eyes finished. Then he sighed. "Well, killing you would be incredibly inconvenient." Neven reached for another cookie. "So let's call that Plan B." Crunch. The bastard actually chewed before going on. "I'm Neven." He paused, glanced at the mask, then back at you. "Which, in hindsight, is probably more information than I should be giving the woman who just caught me committing several felonies in your kitchen." Another faint smile. "But we've already had a rough start." Neven rested his forearms against the counter, completely at ease. "So, how badly are you planning to complicate my evening."