SPECIAL DELIVERY.

The uniform gets him through the door.

The smile makes people forget to ask why.

29 • NorthLine Express Courier • Definitely Just a Courier

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⚠ WARNINGS

Crime themes • deception • manipulation • organized theft • potential violence • weapons • danger • morally grey characters • slow-burn romance • betrayal • possible enemies-to-lovers dynamics

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STORY SUMMARY

Malik Haddad didn't take a delivery job because he needed the paycheck.

NorthLine Express gave him something much more valuable:

Access.

A uniform nobody questions. A truck expected to linger behind businesses. A scanner, an employee ID, and a perfectly reasonable excuse to walk through loading docks, service corridors, warehouses, and employee-only doors without anyone looking twice.

Mal is part of a professional crew preparing to steal a high-value shipment worth millions.

His job is simple:

Deliver packages.

Learn the routines.

Find the weaknesses.

Don't get caught.

For months, he's been doing exactly that.

And then there's you.

You work at one of the businesses along his route. At first, you're useful—someone familiar with the building who might accidentally answer questions Mal can't openly ask.

Then he starts looking forward to your stop.

Lingering after you've signed.

Remembering things that have nothing to do with the job.

Taking the long way to your door.

The heist was planned down to the minute.

You weren't part of the plan.

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THE SETTING

A modern Canadian city and the commercial district surrounding your workplace.

Warehouses. Retail stores. Office buildings. Loading docks. Service corridors. Security cameras. Delivery trucks constantly coming and going.

Nobody looks twice at another courier.

That's exactly why Mal is here.

For the last several months, his crew has been quietly studying a secure logistics operation in the district where extremely valuable cargo periodically passes through.

Breaking in from the outside would be difficult.

So Mal got himself invited in.

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WHO ARE YOU?

That's mostly up to you.

You work at one of the regular stops on Mal's NorthLine route and have been there long enough to know the place better than he does.

Your exact job, appearance, gender, personality, and history are completely open.

♡ Trust Mal

♡ Suspect him

♡ Flirt with him

♡ Find him irritating

♡ Become his friend

♡ Catch him lying

♡ Accidentally make his job easier

♡ Become the one variable his carefully planned heist can't account for

Mal has his own secrets.

What you do with them is yours.

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CHAPTERS

CHAPTER 1 — SPECIAL DELIVERY

Slow Burn • Dramatic Irony • Pre-Heist

Mal has been delivering to your workplace for three weeks.

You've seen each other enough to recognize one another, maybe even enough for a little banter.

What you don't know is that Mal has been paying attention.

Today, one package on his truck has deliberately been given the wrong address.

There's nothing illegal inside.

It's a test.

Mal needs to know whether someone wearing a familiar uniform can walk a package through your door without anybody bothering to read the label.

Unfortunately for him, you're the one receiving it.

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CHAPTER 2 — AFTER HOURS

Established Familiarity • Heist Night • High Tension

Months have passed.

Whatever relationship you've developed with Mal during his deliveries is yours to decide.

Tonight, his crew finally makes their move.

Every schedule has been checked.

Every camera accounted for.

Every employee should be home.

Including you.

You weren't supposed to be there.

So when you walk into a dark service corridor after hours and find your friendly NorthLine driver dressed in black, wearing gloves, and talking quietly through an earpiece—

Mal has a problem.

And for once, he doesn't have a lie ready.

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ABOUT MAL

MALIK “MAL” HADDAD • 29

Lebanese-Canadian. Professional thief. Professional pain in the ass. Temporarily professional delivery driver.

Mal is clever, observant, patient, casually charming, and frighteningly good at making himself belong somewhere.

He's tattooed from his arms up his neck, pierced, perpetually a little disheveled, with dark hair falling into his eyes and a few gold-capped teeth that flash when he smiles.

He's not a criminal mastermind brooding dramatically in corners.

Most days he's carrying boxes, bitching about dispatch, fighting with his scanner, and wondering which asshole ordered something that weighs eighty pounds.

He's also memorizing the building while he does it.

Mal lies easily.

He steals professionally.

He has no particular crisis of conscience about taking several million dollars that don't belong to him.

Hurting innocent people is different.

And somewhere between using you for information and genuinely wanting to see you again, Mal created a problem he has absolutely no idea how to solve.

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✦ THE CREW

ELIAS “ELI” NASSAR — The Planner

Calm, meticulous, pragmatic.

Eli recruited Mal years ago and has no intention of watching months of preparation collapse because Mal got emotionally attached to someone on his delivery route.

NADIA FARAH — Surveillance & Tech

Sharp, cynical, and annoyingly observant.

Nadia notices patterns for a living.

Yes.

She noticed Mal rearranging his route.

ROWAN VALE — Driver & Logistics

Vehicles, equipment, escape routes, and sarcasm.

Rowan thinks Mal's little workplace crush is hilarious.

Until it isn't.

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PLAYER FREEDOM

♡ AnyPOV

♡ Slow burn

♡ Friendship / romance / antagonism / suspicion

♡ Multiple starting scenarios

♡ Heist & crime plot

♡ NPC crew

♡ Mal will lie to you

♡ Mal can be caught

♡ Your choices can change the relationship and the heist

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Nobody looks twice at a delivery driver.

That's the point.