AMELIA POV I've never been scared of Charles Astor. To the world, he exudes this heard exterior, but with me, he has always been soft, almost like a teddy bear. Yet he is the same man who told me nobody messes with his family, and he sure has proved that over and over. He's proved it by succeeding in putting Alonso in the public eye for all the wrong reasons, and he succeeded in killing Eric Monroe without any repercussions. He did warn me, but I never thought that this would be the length he would go. I fear Charles Astor now, not for myself, but for Alonso. Who knows what he might do next if Alonso and I don't stay away from each other? I already know what I have to do, and I keep stealing glances to my father while we're meeting with the funeral director. He's calm and in charge, orchestrating the funeral of the very man he killed. And even though my mother knows what he did, what he's capable of doing, she's by his side in her classy self looking like nothing is wrong he
ALONSO POV I'm restless as I wait for any kind of news from Amelia. We've already been in Seattle for a day, and it's been radio silent. Apart from a small news article about the murder of Eric Monroe, there hasn't been any news about funeral arrangements. I'm even scouring social media to see if anyone hasn't spotted the Secretary of Defense out and about, but nothing. "I hate to tell you this, son, but maybe she doesn't want to see you right now." Dad claps my shoulder as I search various news sites for any information about a burial. I shake my head without saying anything. I know that's not true. There's no way I could crave someone the way I crave Amelia, and she doesn't want me. It's just impossible. I definitely didn't imagine our connection. "Maybe we should go home." He squeezes my shoulder. "There's a PR nightmare to deal with, and Kevin wants you in training." "No." I immediately get up from the table and walk over to the vast windows overlooking the river. We
AMELIA POV There are barely any people at the funeral. It's just me and my family, the Millers, and what I assume are a few drink buddies of Eric. I don't understand the pitying glances they send my way. I feel nothing for the man in the casket. Once upon a time, I feared him, I hated him, but never as much as I hated the Morettis. My heart clenches at the thought of Alonso in this fucked up city I don't want to be in. I don't want him tainted by its darkness. Even now, I'm not feeling sad because of my former father, but I'm sad because of what I have to do. After everything happened with me trying to get revenge on the Morettis, I thought I could finally live happily ever after. But my life wasn't meant to be easy, and I have to make another sacrifice. Eric will be cremated, so the service is short, and I breathe a sigh of relief when it's over. A chapter closed forever. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not grateful. Maybe not for the way that he died, but that I'm fi
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
I run without thinking, the trophy still clutched in my hand. I run blindly, not knowing where my legs are carrying me. I should've known when I finally end up in the suburbs, sweat dripping from my face. It's not like I have anywhere else to go unless I go to the police and report what my father has been doing. But then I would have to fill in paperwork, lay a case against him, and all I want to do is just to get the fuck out of here and not look back. This city has shaped me and molded me with grief and sorrow. I want to say goodbye to it once and for all. So I don't have any other choice but to ring the doorbell of the house that has been more of a home to me than my own over the years. The door opens, and Alyssa's younger brother, Blake's eyes widen when he sees it's me standing on the other side. I can't even imagine what I look like right now. "Moooooommmmmm!" He shouts, not taking his eyes off me. In the past, he would've just stepped aside and let me in without saying a
AMELIA POV There are barely any people at the funeral. It's just me and my family, the Millers, and what I assume are a few drink buddies of Eric. I don't understand the pitying glances they send my way. I feel nothing for the man in the casket. Once upon a time, I feared him, I hated him, but never as much as I hated the Morettis. My heart clenches at the thought of Alonso in this fucked up city I don't want to be in. I don't want him tainted by its darkness. Even now, I'm not feeling sad because of my former father, but I'm sad because of what I have to do. After everything happened with me trying to get revenge on the Morettis, I thought I could finally live happily ever after. But my life wasn't meant to be easy, and I have to make another sacrifice. Eric will be cremated, so the service is short, and I breathe a sigh of relief when it's over. A chapter closed forever. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not grateful. Maybe not for the way that he died, but that I'm fi
ALONSO POV I'm restless as I wait for any kind of news from Amelia. We've already been in Seattle for a day, and it's been radio silent. Apart from a small news article about the murder of Eric Monroe, there hasn't been any news about funeral arrangements. I'm even scouring social media to see if anyone hasn't spotted the Secretary of Defense out and about, but nothing. "I hate to tell you this, son, but maybe she doesn't want to see you right now." Dad claps my shoulder as I search various news sites for any information about a burial. I shake my head without saying anything. I know that's not true. There's no way I could crave someone the way I crave Amelia, and she doesn't want me. It's just impossible. I definitely didn't imagine our connection. "Maybe we should go home." He squeezes my shoulder. "There's a PR nightmare to deal with, and Kevin wants you in training." "No." I immediately get up from the table and walk over to the vast windows overlooking the river. We
AMELIA POV I've never been scared of Charles Astor. To the world, he exudes this heard exterior, but with me, he has always been soft, almost like a teddy bear. Yet he is the same man who told me nobody messes with his family, and he sure has proved that over and over. He's proved it by succeeding in putting Alonso in the public eye for all the wrong reasons, and he succeeded in killing Eric Monroe without any repercussions. He did warn me, but I never thought that this would be the length he would go. I fear Charles Astor now, not for myself, but for Alonso. Who knows what he might do next if Alonso and I don't stay away from each other? I already know what I have to do, and I keep stealing glances to my father while we're meeting with the funeral director. He's calm and in charge, orchestrating the funeral of the very man he killed. And even though my mother knows what he did, what he's capable of doing, she's by his side in her classy self looking like nothing is wrong he
AMELIA POV Being back in the city that holds so many bad memories to me feels both suffocating and freeing. Suffocating, because I swore I would never come back here ever again. Freeing because the two people who made my life a living hell are both dead. When I received the phone call that the man who I thought was my father, was murdered in a mugging gone wrong, I was on the verge of yet another panic attack, but then I realised he no longer held any power over me. I wasn't the vulnerable teenager he could abuse anymore. My relationship with my real parents might be in shambles right now, but I know what they're doing comes from a place of love and protection. It might be stifling, but I know they'll never abandon me. The hotel suite we're staying in is a far cry from the apartment I grew up in, and I'm still shocked that Eric Monroe still had me listed as his next-of-kin. His own family wanted nothing to do with him after he got married to Raquel. I can't blame them. They pr
ARCANGELO POV I glance at Cassie sleeping on the couch, and then I check the time on my phone. It's already past nine, and Lola is still going at it in the booth hours later. I wait until she finishes another take before pressing the intercom button. "Wanna call it a day?" She looks at me like I've personally offended her, hurriedly taking a sip from her water bottle. "What, no! I'm not satisfied with the song yet." I glance at Cassie again. "Cassie is out." I see the guilt in her eyes, and it's as if I feel it inside my soul. I don't want that look on her beautiful face ever again. "I can take her with me if you want." I say hesitantly. "I have to drop by my parents', she can sleep in my old bedroom if that's okay with you. You can just call when you're done, and I can come get you, or the driver can drop you at my parents'. I'll take care of her, I promise." Doubt and confusion cloud her eyes. I know what's going on in her head. You don't trust anyone in t
ALESSI POV Summer's leg bounces nervously as we wait outside the gynecologist to call us. I knew the kid inside her was mine, I've known it in my gut since I found out that she was pregnant. Just like I knew Bailey's son wasn't. I lay my hand on her leg, and it quiets, but not before she gives me a scathing side look. You could say I have taken over her life ever since those blood tests came back. I moved her things over to my apartment without asking her and succeeded in confiscating all her keys and hiding it from her. I also paid the rest of her lease so she doesn't have those expenses anymore. Morettis take care of what is theirs. And maybe she hates me a little right now, but sooner or later, she has to forgive me. Even if it's just for the sake of the baby. That's what my good conscience says. It says I should take care of both Summer and the baby without expecting anything in return, but fuck that. I'm making her mine. She just doesn't know it yet.
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