JULIET POV Tears run down my face as the car moves from the cemetery, and I look longingly out of the window at the three boys I know I have no intention to ever see again. "Are you okay?" Lilly takes her hand in mine and squeezes it supportively. She probably thinks I'm crying over Mai, but these tears aren't for her. I'm crying for what could have been. I could have had loving parents all along, but Raquel Whittle took that from me. Maybe me and the Moretti brothers were destined to meet each other somewhere in life, but because of Raquel Whittle, that is forever jaded now. I saw the anger in Alessi's eyes and the disappointment in Alonso's. And Arcangelo. He just looked so sad and forlorn that my heart physically bled, standing in front of them. Maybe if I wasn't so fixated on ruining the Morettis, I could have fallen in love with only one of them and not all three. Me leaving is the best thing for all four of us. Now everybody's life can go on, even though I k
ALESSI POV Life has become dull after the disappearance of Juliet Monroe. It's as if the life we were living wasn't good enough before she came into it, which I find so fucking stupid. We were good before her, we had goals and ambitions, things we wanted to achieve. The worst part is the betrayal. I knew the girl was bad news the moment I laid eyes on her, but not to the extent that she wanted to burn us. And burn us she did. Maybe not in the way she initially planned, whatever those plans were, but she certainly succeeded in breaking a little bit of our brotherhood. At night, when I close my eyes I still dream of the tightness and warmth of her pussy, I still hear the sounds of her moan as I was plundering her. I even tried hooking up with a girl who looked the total opposite of her, to try to forget about the impact she had on me, but I couldn't even get a hard-on. How completely fucking pathetic. My brothers aren't faring any better. Arc has been keeping himself b
I stand in the doorway of what would have been my bedroom if my parents had the chance to bring me home. It's artfully decorated in subtle pastel pink and creams, with the name Amelia in a neon sign above the headboard. "Is it too much?" I didn't even hear Lilly approach, and she leans on the other side of the doorjamb peering into the room. "People thought I was bat shit crazy for decorating this room every few years." "Why did you?" She smiles softly. "I wanted it to be ready for when we found you. I had no doubt in my mind you'd come back to me." The more I find out how I was loved before I was even born, the more I resent Raquel for stealing me. Now, I feel like an intruder with my own flesh and blood. "We can change the name to Juliet." "No!" I say quickly, making Lilly look at me with longing. "Leave it like that." I haven't been sleeping in this room. Instead, I'm sleeping in one of the generic guest rooms that looks like it belongs in a hotel. I haven't
ALONSO POV I'm a robot, a machine. I'm still winning games because it's just second nature to me, but it's as if my soul left me. I hate Fly-girl. I hate her more than anything. She fucking ruined me, she played me and now I'm just a shell of the person I was before. I don't feel like working out, eating, partying or fucking. There's a constant ache where my heart is. What kind of witchery is this? I will never ever date another girl again. That ship has definitely sailed forever. "Hey man." Scott runs up to me, and I inwardly groan. "Great game." "Thanks." I don't want to talk to him. In fact, I don't want to talk to fucking anybody. He's been badgering me about getting Fly-girl's number. How the fuck can I give it to him when I don't even have it myself. The girl disappeared like a thief in the night. "Did you hear they arrested someone for the shooting?" Scott starts walking with me. "I wonder if Juliet knows. I'm sure she does. It's all over the
ALESSI POV I haven't seen Bailey at all. I don't know how she's doing or if the pregnancy is going well. Everything just went to shit after it came into light that Jake acted as her hitman. Our parents are at each other's throats and it's all her fucking fault. I still don't want a baby, but it is what it is. Her parents sent over a document to let us know that she has decided to keep the baby. I can't let her raise my kid. She's the most toxic person I've ever met. She's downright dangerous because no one would have ever expected her to do something as vile as that. We've been mad at Juliet for so long, but the biggest player has been Bailey all along. The only good thing that came out of all of this is that Alonso won the Heisman award at the end of the year. We tried celebrating how we normally would, but all three of us found the party that we arranged, unsatisfying. There's still no word on Juliet. Whatever protection program she is in is doing a really good
ARCANGELO POV Everyone is momentarily shocked in silence as we all look at Alessi with the baby in his arms, his expression resolute. He holds out the baby to Mom as if it's personally offending him. "What do you mean it's not your child!" Dad whisper-yells at him. "Do you know the hoops I had to jump through to see a fucking judge for custody?" Mom quickly takes the baby. " He wants to feed, so I'm taking him back in. Please sort out this mess." I rush to open the door for her, and I can't help but throw a quick glance inside the room. It looks like a proper setup for a hospital, and Bailey is lying in the hospital bed, sobbing with her mother stroking her hair. She's not the girl I thought I knew, but I can't help feeling sorry for her. We have completely shunned her after being her friend for all our lives. Our parents aren't best friends anymore because of what she did. Then I think of Mai's mother with the sad eyes. I drop a checque at their door every month and
AMELIA POV Henry smiles at me as we stroll along the gardens on my parents' property. "You look really good." "Thanks." I smile back genuinely. In my whole life, I have never felt this good, I've never been this free. It's like a puzzle finally clicked in my mind after hours and hours of therapy with Henry. I laugh more. I smile more. There is still an ache in my heart for Mai. And for them. My parents still don't know the whole truth about the man who I thought my father was, and I don't think I will ever tell them. I don't want to ruin what we've built. They're such amazing people, and if they find out what I've been through, it will absolutely crush them. My grandmother already feels guilty for not protecting me when I was born. She believes if she looked better after me after I was born, I would've never been taken by Raquel. But that's just wishful thinking. We don't know if that would have happened, so I'm not living on what if's anymore. I'
ALONSO POV - FOUR YEARS LATER I'm drunk. Yet, I don't stop drinking. I take another shot from a fake pair of tits that are displayed for me on a silver platter. I feel unhinged tonight, the memories I'm trying so hard to suppress banging at the back of my head. So the alcohol, the tits, the blonde hair that is fake as fuck, and the long legs are all a diversion. A diversion, so I don't have to think about her. It's been over four fucking years since she disappeared from my life, and I'm still thinking of her. She's a living parasite in my brain. I have everything I've ever wanted. Well, not everything everything, but I'm well on my way. Fingers that look like talons rove over my stomach, up my chest, around my neck, and into the back of my hair. Her body follows suit, and she glues herself to my front, the fake tits not even squished with how hard they are. Her breath warms my ear, and I have to admit that she doesn't smell half-bad. "Do you want to ge
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
ARCANGELO POV I look in the rearview mirror as I drive from the studio to the hotel I booked for Lola and her "kid," who didn't end up really being her own child, but her little sister. Cassy is a five-year-old hellion who has been entertaining me for the last two days ever since I put them on the company's private jet and brought them to New York. The last two days have been a whirlwind, and I don't know if I've ever laughed so much as I did in these two days. We've been in the studio ever since we arrived on Friday, and after she sang Mai's Song in that bar, I did the unimaginable and let her record it and made it into a duet. My music has always been personal. Every word of my lyrics, every note that I pen down comes from my soul, and sure, I've written songs for other artists before, but never one as deeply personal as Mai's Song. The way Lola sang that song like I had written it for her made me feel compelled to let her sing on it. I haven't asked her what happe