ALESSI POV I failed. I failed to protect my brother. Now, my family is trying to do damage control that may not succeed. Alonso is a fucking mess. Yesterday morning, images were shared on every social media network of some idiot influencer who had bruises and bite marks all over her body after spending the night with Alonso. The bigger problem is that the influencer is now nowhere to be found to tell the damn media that whatever happened between them was consensual, even though the images may look alarming. Apparently, she sent the photos to a friend to brag about her night with the infamous Alonso Moretti, and now it has blown up in his face. If you look at the photos alone, it does look like the girl was attacked. It's classic Alonso behavior, though, and the same reason I diligently checked out everyone he slept with in college. I clearly can't be everywhere at once anymore, and now we have a catastrophic problem. Brands are threatening to end their contracts w
AMELIA My stomach clenches in agony, and I screw my eyes shut, not wanting the light streaming from the open curtains to penetrate my soul. If it wasn't for Miss Daisy, those damn curtains would've never been open in the first place. I don't need light. The darkness was just perfect for me. I'm officially a prisoner in my own house. I'm even wondering if it is my house. Did I ever belong here in the first place? I might be an Astor by DNA, but I didn't grow up with them. As much as I love them, and as much as it was none of our fault what happened, the truth remains that when I was molded into a person, it wasn't under their hands. Yet I felt like I belonged when I met them, but I feel even more at home when Alonso holds me down and fucks me ruthlessly. Or when he transforms into a huge teddy bear afterward and snuggles me. Do I believe that Alonso did that to that girl? Yes. I also know that she was probably begging for it, too. I was jealous at first when I
ALONSO POV "The NFL has decided to suspend you until after a thorough investigation has been done regarding the pictures." I faintly hear Uncle Kevin's voice over the white noise ringing in my ears, and I take another swig of my father's expensive cognac that I swiped from his alcohol display. I gather he has enough money to replace it. The bottle is abruptly grabbed from my hand. "I'm not going to stand by and watch you kill yourself." My mother takes her own swig from the bottle and then slams it down on the table. "For fuck's sake, Alonso, this is not the end of the world." I shrug nonchalantly. "Might as well be." There's a hole where my heart used to be. My career is literally being flushed down the drain. All the hours I spent in the gym, all the plays I studied, the millions of game tapes I've watched. I've always loved to party, but I always only had two light beers. I could've been fucking it up, but I was so focused on that one dream. Then Juliet came al
AMELIA POV Nana brushes my hair while she's humming a melody under her breath. She's the only one who can get me to eat and take a shower, so the rest of the staff and household haven't been bothering me. "Did you know that you and your mother got this beautiful golden hair from your grandaddy?" Nana smiles wistfully. "He was such a handsome man. Stubborn as all hell, but he looked just like a movie star. All the girls wanted him, and then he picked plain old me." My eyes go to Nana's reflection in the mirror where she's standing behind me. Her hair has gone grey, but she's still a beautiful woman. "You're anything but plain." She pats my cheek lovingly before she resumes the brushing. "Your mother was the true stunner. I knew I was going to have my hands full with that girl the moment I held her in my arms. She had eyes for one boy and one boy only, no matter how many times I told her to explore a little." "My dad?" Nana scoffs. "No." That makes me frown. "I t
JULIET POV (seven years old)I kiss my mother's smooth cheek lovingly. "I will see you when school's out, Mommy." There's no response. She's been like this for over two weeks now. She just sits in front of the window and stares outside. If I didn't give her food and water, she wouldn't have been eating, either. I hover at the front door to our apartment, worried about her. She's so beautiful. Just last week, I heard my best friend's mom talk over the phone about my mother's beauty. "She's beautiful, sure, but she's a little absent, don't you think?" Those were her exact words. I don't think she's absent. Sometimes, my mommy just gets a little sad, and I know it's because she thinks of her own daddy and the life she used to have. She's always telling me how she grew up in mansions like a princess, how we don't belong in our small two-bedroom apartment in the city that never stops raining. That one day, she will whisk me away and back to the life that those stupid Morettis sto
JULIET POV (Fifteen years old) I fold my arms as I lean back into my locker, inwardly cursing the fact that my cheerleading uniform is way too exposing, garnering attention that I absolutely do not want. Connor Johnson is blocking me in with both of his arms, and I squint up at him. "Don't you have a girlfriend to bother?" I ask in a bored tone when, in fact, my insides are raging. I want to punch him, kick him in the balls, and maybe take a baseball bat to his head. He smiles that arrogant smile at me that I absolutely despise. "You know you're my favorite toy, Ice." Ice. Short for Ice Queen. In middle school, the delinquents started calling me that. I didn't go out on dates, I didn't talk to boys or bothered hanging out. Apart from school, cheerleading, and Alyssa, I didn't care about anything or anyone else. Ice Queen became Ice in high school, and ever since, every fucking boy in a twenty mile radius has been trying to break me. I've become a challenge now. Even seniors a
JULIET POV (EIGHTEEN ) I look at the bruises on my neck, my gaze traveling from the dark finger marks to meet my dead blue eyes in the mirror. I've now been choked more times than I care to think about. That seems to be the abuse of my father's choice. He chokes me until I pass out. Sometimes, I stand over his sleeping form, and I want to kill him. I want him to know what it feels like when you have someone's hands wrapped around your throat and have the life squeezed out of you, wondering if this would be the last time you're alive. He calls me whore. Slut. Tramp. Your mother's daughter. For three years, I've been living in agony. I pushed Alyssa away because she would have seen what state I was really in. I've become the true definition of the nickname Ice Queen now. I don't even have a friend anymore. What pisses me off the most is that it wasn't even hard to discard of her. Just a few unanswered calls and texts. Giving her the cold shoulder at school. Before I knew it, s
JULIET POV Today is supposed to be my prom. Of course I'm not going. Not for a lack of trying from Connor Johnson's part. I don't know how the idiot actually has a girlfriend but keeps asking me out. And how stupid is the girlfriend for staying with him while he's actively pursuing another girl. Girls are as stupid as boys. My choice of school is public now, thanks to my chosen university, who sent me a cheerleading uniform and a photographer who made me do various poses so they can publish the images on their social media. My father had his hands around my throat as soon as he found out about that publicity stunt. I'm counting down the days until graduation so I can get the hell out of dodge. My high school cheerleading coach has hooked me up with a summer job in the West Coast at a cheerleading camp for elementary to middle school students. I'm eighteen now, so I don't need the permission of my father to do anything anymore. Freedom is lurking right around the corner. If I
AMELIA POV Nana brushes my hair while she's humming a melody under her breath. She's the only one who can get me to eat and take a shower, so the rest of the staff and household haven't been bothering me. "Did you know that you and your mother got this beautiful golden hair from your grandaddy?" Nana smiles wistfully. "He was such a handsome man. Stubborn as all hell, but he looked just like a movie star. All the girls wanted him, and then he picked plain old me." My eyes go to Nana's reflection in the mirror where she's standing behind me. Her hair has gone grey, but she's still a beautiful woman. "You're anything but plain." She pats my cheek lovingly before she resumes the brushing. "Your mother was the true stunner. I knew I was going to have my hands full with that girl the moment I held her in my arms. She had eyes for one boy and one boy only, no matter how many times I told her to explore a little." "My dad?" Nana scoffs. "No." That makes me frown. "I t
ALONSO POV "The NFL has decided to suspend you until after a thorough investigation has been done regarding the pictures." I faintly hear Uncle Kevin's voice over the white noise ringing in my ears, and I take another swig of my father's expensive cognac that I swiped from his alcohol display. I gather he has enough money to replace it. The bottle is abruptly grabbed from my hand. "I'm not going to stand by and watch you kill yourself." My mother takes her own swig from the bottle and then slams it down on the table. "For fuck's sake, Alonso, this is not the end of the world." I shrug nonchalantly. "Might as well be." There's a hole where my heart used to be. My career is literally being flushed down the drain. All the hours I spent in the gym, all the plays I studied, the millions of game tapes I've watched. I've always loved to party, but I always only had two light beers. I could've been fucking it up, but I was so focused on that one dream. Then Juliet came al
AMELIA My stomach clenches in agony, and I screw my eyes shut, not wanting the light streaming from the open curtains to penetrate my soul. If it wasn't for Miss Daisy, those damn curtains would've never been open in the first place. I don't need light. The darkness was just perfect for me. I'm officially a prisoner in my own house. I'm even wondering if it is my house. Did I ever belong here in the first place? I might be an Astor by DNA, but I didn't grow up with them. As much as I love them, and as much as it was none of our fault what happened, the truth remains that when I was molded into a person, it wasn't under their hands. Yet I felt like I belonged when I met them, but I feel even more at home when Alonso holds me down and fucks me ruthlessly. Or when he transforms into a huge teddy bear afterward and snuggles me. Do I believe that Alonso did that to that girl? Yes. I also know that she was probably begging for it, too. I was jealous at first when I
ALESSI POV I failed. I failed to protect my brother. Now, my family is trying to do damage control that may not succeed. Alonso is a fucking mess. Yesterday morning, images were shared on every social media network of some idiot influencer who had bruises and bite marks all over her body after spending the night with Alonso. The bigger problem is that the influencer is now nowhere to be found to tell the damn media that whatever happened between them was consensual, even though the images may look alarming. Apparently, she sent the photos to a friend to brag about her night with the infamous Alonso Moretti, and now it has blown up in his face. If you look at the photos alone, it does look like the girl was attacked. It's classic Alonso behavior, though, and the same reason I diligently checked out everyone he slept with in college. I clearly can't be everywhere at once anymore, and now we have a catastrophic problem. Brands are threatening to end their contracts w
ALONSO POV I felt on top of the world right after the win. I showed the assholes who said I was just a rich kid who was overhyped. I had the girl I always wanted waiting for me, and they showed how she and my mom hugged on the jumbotron. For a second life was everything I ever wanted. Then, like an ice-cold bath, reality came knocking on my door when Uncle Kev reminded me that we still had the press conference afterward and that things might get sticky there. Now I'm sitting next to Uncle Kevin waiting for the vultures to spew me with their questions, my leg bouncing nervously. Uncle Kevin's hand reaches underneath the table to squeeze my shaking leg, and I still. The first question is aimed at him. It's entirely professional. How he feels about the future of the team. How he developed the team so that we played so well. My eyes rove over the sea of reporters. Which one of them will bring up the alleged sexual assault? It could be any of them. Was my father able to s
AMEILIA POV I'm nervous when Alonso takes me up to his family's box. This will be the first time I will face them after everything went down, and they undoubtedly know what I tried to do. Even though the triplets don't hold it against me, I still don't understand how they don't, I don't know how their parents will treat me. They have every right to treat me as the piece of shit I am. Maybe everything I'm experiencing right now with my real parents is my punishment for trying to break a family apart. I'm so worlds away from that girl, I still can't believe I carried that vengeance in my heart. I was lying awake most of the night, my head tucked in the crook of Alonso's neck with his breathing softly rustling my hair, and all I could think of was how I did him wrong. I had sex with his brothers, the same brothers whom he shared a womb with, and who means the world to him. And even years later, when I saw them again, I still had this pull towards them. I don't know why it feel
SUMMER POV My heart hammers in my chest as I look up into the gorgeous eyes of Alessi Moretti. Is that disappointment that flashes in its depths at my words? Alessi Moretti was everything I never knew I wanted. He was like a knight in shining armor when he first showed interest in me. I've received plenty of interest from men at the hospital ever since I started working there over two years ago, but I never took the bait. You see, I've always been looked at as the pretty girl. The one every boy in school wants to have sex with, but not commit to. Once, I let myself be that girl, and I got discarded and forgotten about. I vowed that no man would ever make me feel like I'm disposable again. Yet, I fell for Alessi's beautiful exterior and gallant gestures. I should have known he was just like all the other assholes who were just out to use me and discard me. I've never felt so dirty after he told me that he wanted his keys to his apartment back. Keys I never even asked
ALESSI POV I'm feeling jittery, and nervous as fuck. Usually, I would tell my brothers as soon as something as big as an ex-situationship being pregnant happens, but now is not the time. I'll tell them after the game. My mother narrows her eyes at me like a hawk. "Is everything okay?" You can't hide shit from her. "Everything is good." I lie. Everything is shit. I can't believe I'm going through the same shit again! And unless Summer was really sneaky and fucking someone behind my back in the hospital, there is a big chance that child might be mine. I ran away like a fucking coward after I looked into her chart. Memories of my mother placing Bailey's child into my arms and the panic attack that I almost had when I looked into his face came running back to me, and I couldn't breathe. I had to get out of there. I've been avoiding her at work, and I think she's been avoiding me too, but I know that I'm going to have to address the issue as soon as possibl
LOLA POV My eyes go to Arcangelo for probably the hundredth time as I go over the contract with not one but three lawyers present. This can't be happening. Not to me, at least. Good things like this don't happen to people from my part of the woods. People always ask me why I don't just sign with a label and get Cassy out of the dump we stay in, but I wasn't about to sell my damn soul for a record contract. This contract is different, though. It allows me to have control over the kind of music I want to make and the image I want to portray to the world. It's unheard of, is what it is. My father was a musician, one of the best. The music he wrote got stolen, and he never saw a dime of the money it made. So you can call me shaded. Because of this industry, my father became a drug addicted alcoholic who ruined everything in his path. Including me. I had to learn from a very young age that I had to take care of myself because the adults in my life wer