MYLES The next week came fast. The high of the match temporarily forgotten as everyone worked in a frenzy finalizing their project and thankfully I didn't have much to do for surprisingly Natalie and Leo had a actually worked together and cleared it up."Wow." I mumbled, looking up at them standing proudly before me, i felt a pang of shame, "So what am I going to do?"The seemed puzzled at my question, looking at each other before Nat shakes her head, "Nothing."I blinked unsure if I heard right. "Nothing?"She nods again. "Yes nothing. All you have to do is go home, get some beauty sleep, and come back tomorrow looking like a million box."Leo nodded in agreement. With the guilt that I let them do all the work, I don't argue. They didn't expect me to, turning away and talking amongst them like I wasn't there.The last thing I expected to see happen was watching Leo and Jade, two polar opposites work so peacefully together without their opinions competing to override the others.But
I saw Natalie’s jaw clench, her hardened gaze locked on the smug figure at the far end of the room. The murmurs continued, some fragments I could catch, most I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear.“Come on…” George said, the smile on his lips not quite reaching his eyes. “Don’t be shy.”From behind, Leo held Natalie’s arm. “Let’s leave. We’re done here.” But even as he said it, he seemed to know it was a lost cause, for that little grin was already playing on Natalie’s face.She raised her chin in that way that shifted the air in the room. I heard Leo murmur, “Shit.”“You just can’t wrap your head around it, right?” Natalie said, a tinge of laughter in her voice. The room went silent as she stepped forward. “It’s not really hard to understand, George—why I would rather not continue being with a fool.”There went the ooohs and the murmurs rising to the ceiling. George’s hands clenched into fists, and the science teacher pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.George let out a chuckle—t
TRISTANIt all happens in a whirlwind: the quiet probing of hundreds of eyes, the burning rage as my fists got wet, the stilling aftermath—and finally...here he was. Reachable, warm, and goddamn relieving. I knew I couldn't be gentle, no matter how hard I tried, but this roughness... it was different. It reeked of fear.The fear that if I just took my hands off him, he'd leave. I pulled tighter. It would be the last time I'd ever see him.But he let me... following the sway of my tongue, holding onto it like a lifeline. Why did he let me? What was this feeling? If my chest got any heavier, I was going to die. Where was the ache in my skull?"Oomph... Tris..." His fingers softly pressed against my chest as if to push me away, but it didn't. The pressure dissipated and lay docile instead.Myles...Pathetic! the voices in my head growled. WHAT HAVE YOU BECOME?!But it wasn't loud. Every little sound emitting from his lips made their roars sound like breezes instead. Ha... Myles.Then, he
After that confession, we remained in my room. I was now shirtless, still on the bed, while Victoria lounged on my couch and Mel sat beside her, holding her arm down. Why? "You did what?!" She screeched, and when I said nothing, she lunged for me, fingers stretched out, scrambling to reach me as Mel held her back. "Let me fucking be!" I made no move, not even to throw her out of the room, because at that moment, I couldn't find the will to stare her down. Now she glared at me, opened her mouth to say something, then shut it, narrowing her gaze at the wall. So much for telling her, huh? Nothing had changed except maybe her rage and the silence that filled the room. "You're despicable." Mel broke the silence with a groan, leaving a still simmering Victoria. She sat beside me, space hoarding as her knees were wide open. "But unlike my mistress, I'm here to help." A mock smirk appeared at the corner of my lips. I'd never get used to her calling the pest that. She caught the grin, th
I stared, frozen at the door, at his forehead pressed against the wood, dark hair hiding half his face. It was him. It was him, alright. But Tristan… Tristan would never apologize to me. So what was this?“I know,” he said, his voice low. “It doesn’t matter if it was a mistake or if it wasn’t your mother’s calls. I shouldn’t have been doing that in the first place.”My grip on the door slackened, my thoughts going quiet. What was he doing?As if sensing the shift, he pushed himself off the wall, standing before me. He shoved his hands into his pockets, looking up at me while I still hadn’t found my words.“I’m not usually like this,” he continued, his eyes searching mine. “But since you ask why, I guess I have to say something.” He dropped his gaze to the floor. “Watching you that day, I realized I did steal your position. So… I gave it back. It was never mine in the first place.”I pushed the door wide open and stepped aside.He glanced at the open doorway, then back at me. I turned
JADE'The number you're trying to call is switched off, please try again later...'I turned to my side on the bed, the covers up to my chin, staring at the blank screen of my phone.Another weekend, and once again, Myles wasn’t picking up. Which meant one thing—Tristan.I had given up trying to understand why Tristan got to him like that. Ever since the project day, when Tristan sent George to the hospital for making a move on Myles, things had been a mess.Did Myles hate him or not? Should I wish Tristan death or not? The thoughts clawed at my head so badly it was hard to concentrate. It didn’t help that Myles had been scarce ever since the coach made it his mission to ensure Myles was more than ready.Why did Tristan leave the team? Why let Myles stand in his place? So many questions swirled in my head, and not even that fucking Eros wanted to help.Urgh.I’d cornered him once, pushing a black parcel into his locker. He turned, his eyes falling on me with my arms akimbo. He shut the
JADE "Jade, it's me, Eros... Shh, don't make a noise." I stood there with my back pressed to his pounding chest while the crashing continued in the sitting room. My body relaxed, almost fainting, but then I saw the gleaming muzzle of a pistol in his hand. My body went rigid, and my heart sank. "You really saw him get in here?" A voice bellowed from the sitting room. "If he's on the run, you think he'd just dive into some house?" "I know I saw him scale the barbed fence," another frustrated voice responded, followed by something heavy being pushed. "O penso." "Oh now, you fucking think? This is what the boss means when he says you're getting in over your head, silver. Now you ruined the fucking place!" With his grip still tightened on me, Eros pulled back until we were hidden behind my thick dark curtains. Just two seconds later, my room door slammed open, accompanied by a snap. "We wouldn’t be fucking here if you had just kept your mouth shut and aimed right." My body stiffened
**TRISTAN**After the brawl in my house days ago, I drove back to the condo, three pairs of eyes digging into my face, waiting for me to spill. I walked past them, striding to my room and turning in the key.In the darkness, I lay, watching the wall, my phone beside me, waiting for the call, yearning for the ring. His rage etched on his face replayed in my head. For an addict desperate for a taste of him, I really continued to fumble things up.He was going to call. He had to call.Two days later, he did. "Can you pick me up?"He didn’t need to ask twice. I just didn’t expect to see him there—in the parking lot of a hidden bar. Stopping right in front of him, Myles dove into the front seat, eyes pinned out of the windshield, hands still stuck in his pockets.Without another word, I drove down the road to the condo, waiting for his protest, but it never came. I kept the silence, my thoughts filling with questions I needed to ask.But it was as though Myles was hell-bent on making me su
TRISTAN "...It's the scholarship kid, again." The whispers at corners and the canteen were the least of my worries, "He hasn't been to school for days, and there's no call."Calling him was useless; I had noticed the others trying and failing, Jade with worry on her face, giving me pointed glances as she dialed over and over. "Ditching sleep will not bring your precious Myles back."Victoria sang as Mel went through phone calls, "You also don't think your uncle took him so there's that." Uncle Nico wouldn't take him, which I was sure of, but it still didn't stop me from driving down to El Refugio. "Myles is missing." I had dropped before even stopping in front of him, sprawled back against a sofa, Connor standing behind him, "You don't happen to know where he is, right?"My Uncle crossed his legs, bored eyes drifting to the bar, then sighed, "If I thought he was that important he wouldn't have left the manor that day." He gestured to the seat opposite him, "Come on, let's have a dr
I dashed into the hospital, unsure where I was going, ignoring the nurses calling after me with warnings and Jake throwing them apologies as he hurried to get me."Calm down, Myles," he said after snatching me by the shoulders. "You won't find your mum if you lose control. Calm down."So I did, reining in my panic and following behind him as he led me past numerous white doors. According to what he told me, she’d collapsed on the terrace and was just fortunate he was passing by, so he’d taken her to the hospital.Collapsed. Mum never collapsed—she wouldn’t. Mum was strong, but maybe, just maybe, she’d been strong for too long.Five minutes later, I quietly turned a knob and silently walked into a ward, just in case she was asleep, but I was relieved to find her talking to a nurse.When she saw me, a tired smile broke across her lips, and despite my damn self, tears began to brush my lids.I stopped, staring down at her bed, scared that if I spoke, I’d break down completely—in front of
MYLES."...And he threw a tantrum. Can… you imagine that…" Natalie's voice trailed, her eyes darting hesitantly between Jade and Leo, then back at me.I shrugged."Uhh, are you two alright?"Obviously not, because at that question, Leo narrowed his gaze toward me, and Jade to Natalie. Did they get into a fight? Swallowing a mouthful of Coke, I glared. "You're dampening the table. What's going on?""Dampening the table?" Leo scoffed bitterly. "Jade looks quite happy, don’t you think?"I turned to Jade, whose gaze was just as fiery as Leo's. Muttering something unintelligible, she dropped her eyes to the table, pretending to study her fingers.Since middle school, when we became friends, Leo and Jade had never been so openly mad at each other. What exactly happened in the space of yesterday?Natalie gave a slow shrug, picked up her can of soft drink, and continued, “…so I told him I had someone I liked, so I didn’t want anything serious with anyone else, and he got mad.”Jade forced a l
**MYLES** I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Sticking my nose where it didn’t belong, trying to defend someone who, for all I knew, got himself into this mess to begin with. If there weren’t traces of him being a cold-hearted, manipulative jerk, maybe his uncle wouldn’t have singled him out of seven billion people on Earth. What did I care if he was being used? I glanced at the bathroom door, listening to the shower still running. It’d been almost an hour since he went in. Was he... I squared my shoulders and sank back against the sofa. The question was: *was he being used?* With how easily he got into people’s heads... I rolled up my sleeves, staring at the red dent around my wrist, and grimaced. *Fucking Asher.* If this wasn’t karma, I had no idea what was. In the shadows, he’d pinned me against the wall, his eyes fixed on the hickeys on my neck. Smirking, he’d said, “He’s a big fish. I don’t even blame you.” His face twisted into mock hurt as his grip on my wrist tightened.
We stayed in silence, eyes locked, and every time his hardened, I felt my rage soar. He got it all wrong. He thought—that I... and Tristan... He got it all fucking wrong.His eyes lit up—snarky, intrusive, amused—as he raised his glass, swirling the deep crimson liquid with a dark kind of menace. The silence grew heavier, and for just a flicker of a moment, I swore I saw something cross his face. Regret? No. That couldn’t be it.Or maybe the terror was finally making me lose my damn mind."You’re ruining everything I’ve built." His voice came soft, dangerous, a murmur threaded with warning, like he was talking more to himself than me. I froze."Tristan isn’t just anyone," Domenico continued, his eyes flicking up to mine, sharper than a knife. "He’s my sweat, my blood, and my empire."I stopped, narrowing my eyes.He said it like that meant something. Like Tristan wasn’t flesh and bone, wasn’t someone who laughed, who smirked, who... cared. No—Domenico didn’t see Tristan as a person at
TRISTANThroughout the ride to the Manor, Myles doesn’t look at me. His eyes stay fixed on the windshield, watching the lights spill onto his ashen face. His fingers tighten around the strap of his bag.The vans continued to follow behind us, their bright lights illuminating the road. Each time they beeped, Myles flinched.What was going through his mind? I wanted to know. If only I could read his eyes, but he didn’t spare me a glance.“Questions you want to ask?” I broke the silence as I parked in the center of the Manor's compound, questionable-looking men surrounding us, surrounding him. Waiting for us to get out.Myles finally looked at me, his eyes hard and accusing. “Something tells me I’m about to have them answered anyway.”It stung.I shut my eyes and exhaled. “You’ll be out of here in no time. He’s my uncle; he’s not going to hurt you.”But Myles, a bitter smile crossing his face, glanced around the compound and muttered, “Your uncle. Well,” his hand reached for the door, wh
EROSThe chase had stopped, ever since the night they spotted him scaling Jade's window. He hadn’t seen them again.Perhaps the Godfather decided Myles wasn’t worth the fuss now that he was no longer seeing his most priceless possession. But the real question was—would Tristan keep it that way?Eros had known the bastard since they were eleven, the grey-eyed boy whose gaze was just as soulless as the Boss’s—maybe worse. The only human who could make the Boss’s demeanor shift.They became friends, more out of necessity than connection, but as days passed and chaos surrounded Eros at every turn, he realized maybe the grey-eyed monster wasn’t so bad. Eros knew bad—his father, his stepbrother—but Tristan? Tristan had looked out for him.So, they became best friends. Even though Tristan was always one step away from plunging him into his grave, he had also always found a way to get him out of it.It was over, right? His father didn’t want him dead anymore, right? So why was he squatting by
‘Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep…’ The sound grated against my nerves, cutting through the quiet of the afternoon. Standing at my window, I resisted the urge to grab my hockey stick and chuck it at the smug bastard below.Tristan sat casually in the driver’s seat of his sleek black car, his head tilted back like he had all the time in the world. He didn’t look impatient—no, that would require some level of normal human behavior. Instead, his gaze was locked on me, sharp and unyielding, as if daring me to ignore him.I cursed again, clutching the strap of my practice bag. He said four. Four! Not three, not three-thirty—four. And yet here he was, honking like a madman an hour early, as though time itself bent to his whims.I glanced at the clock again. 3:01.He’d been here for one minute and already made it feel like an eternity.Taking a deep breath, I swung the window open and leaned out. "Tristan, what the hell are you doing?"He grinned up at me, that infuriatingly perfect smi
JADE "What the hell is he doing?" Natalie sneered, her eyes—along with hundreds of others—fixed on the figure at the center of the school wielding a water pipe. "That's nudity! How do they allow it?" Leo cleared his throat loudly, flipping a page of his book. "Apparently, you're the only one not into him. Right, Myles?" Myles frowned at Leo. "What does that mean?" Leo said nothing, returning his gaze to the show before us. At the center of the school compound, watering the flowers lined along the walls, was Tristan. But somehow, it seemed the pipe had gone out of control, drenching the thin white shirt he wore. The material clung to his skin, leaving little to the imagination. From the second floor, we had a perfect view, close enough to make out every swell of his muscles—and by God, was this Greek god built. Girls oohed and ahhed, swooning each time he moved, each time he looked up squinting, and every damn time he "accidentally" flexed. But I saw it. None of this was a clums