Tell me how to love you

Mark didn't sleep. Not really.

He dozed in fits, waking every half hour with the weight of something unfinished pressing against his chest. Emma's messages replayed in his head like echoes in an empty hallway--soft, haunting, impossible to hold. That last text, "Can we talk?", kept drifting back like a tide he couldn't outrun.

But it wasn't just her silence keeping him awake.

It was the gnawing sense that if he didn't do something--now--he'd lose her for good.

So, just after dawn, while the sky was still an unsure gray, Mark pulled himself out of bed. The city beyond his window hadn't fully woken yet, and for once, it matched the quiet war inside him. He dressed with a strange sense of purpose--pulling on jeans and a clean shirt, lacing his boots slowly, as though the ritual of it might ground him.

He didn't text Emma.

Didn't tell her where he was going.

Didn't even know, really, what he'd say when he got there.

All he knew was this: if Emma couldn't stand up to her father, he would.

No matter what it cost.

---

The house sat at the edge of the hills like a secret. Big, clean lines, sharp angles--modern architecture with old money dripping from its bones. The driveway alone was long enough to get lost in, lined with hedges trimmed too perfectly, like soldiers in a row. The gate had been left open, swinging slightly in the wind.

Mark hesitated for only a second before walking through.

His boots crunched softly on the gravel, each step sounding louder than the last. The morning air was cooler here, sharper, and smelled faintly of pine and something metallic he couldn't quite name. The kind of place that looked beautiful on the outside--but held its breath on the inside.

The front door was massive. Solid oak, black iron handle. He raised a hand to knock--and paused.

'So this is emma's family house, if i had this big house i would never live in an apartment.'

Then knocked once. Firm.

The man who opened the door wasn't her father.

He was broad. Dressed in black. Sharp jaw, flat eyes. The kind of person you don't mistake for a butler. He looked Mark over from head to toe, not with curiosity--but with calculation.

"Mr. Santiago is expecting you," the man said.

Mark blinked. Expecting me?

He hadn't told anyone he was coming.

But he didn't ask. Just nodded and stepped inside.

The air changed the moment the door shut behind him. It was cooler, yes--but more than that, it was still. Like the house had learned how to listen. Every surface was pristine: black marble floors, white walls lined with expensive art he couldn't name, the scent of expensive cologne and polished leather clinging to the space.

The man in black didn't say another word--just led him silently through the hall.

They passed a dining room with a table long enough to host an army. A library behind glass doors. A sitting room where nothing looked like it had ever been sat on. No photos. No warmth. No sense of anyone living here.

Finally, they reached a room at the back of the house.

The sunroom.

Except there was no sun.

Just gray light bleeding through tinted windows and silence so thick it almost pulsed.

Emma's father sat in a high-backed chair. A black mug in his hands. His posture was effortless, relaxed. But everything about him--his stillness, his presence--radiated power.

He looked up. Studied Mark.

Didn't smile.

"Mark," he said, voice low and smooth. "Sit."

It wasn't a request.

Mark crossed the room slowly, sat in the chair opposite. Leather. Uncomfortable. The kind of seat that made you feel like a child in the principal's office.

"You came here without my daughter's knowledge," Mr. Santiago said, setting his mug down.

Mark nodded once. "I needed to talk to you."

"That much is clear."

Another silence.

Then--

"You love her."

It wasn't a question. Just a flat statement of fact.

"Yes," Mark said, jaw tight. "I do."

Mr. Santiago watched him. Unblinking. Then leaned forward just slightly, like a lion stretching before the pounce.

"And you think that matters?"

Mark's fingers curled around the arms of the chair. "It should."

For a moment, there was no sound except the ticking of a distant clock.

Then Santiago stood. Slow. Measured.

"You don't know who I am," he said, walking toward the window.

Mark said nothing.

"You think I'm just her father. A man standing between you and some version of happiness you think you've earned." He turned slightly, and something sharp flickered in his eyes. "But I am not that man. I never was."

Mark felt it then. The truth in the air. The weight beneath the words.

This wasn't just about overprotectiveness. Or wealth. Or status.

It was something else.

Something darker.

"You want to marry my daughter," Santiago said, voice dropping lower. "But loving her means stepping into a world you are not prepared for. A world that will not forgive you for your softness."

Mark stood. Slowly. His heart beat hard in his chest, but his voice was steady.

"Then teach me."

Santiago tilted his head. For the first time, his mouth twitched--somewhere between a sneer and amusement.

"You don't get to ask that," he said. "Not yet."

Another long pause.

Then he walked right past Mark and out of the room.

The man in black reappeared at the door a moment later.

"Follow me," he said. "He wants to see what kind of man you are."

---

***

A/N: what is going on, is he going to test him what kind of test will it be?

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