Defiant. Sweet. Alluring.
A business deal gone wrong brought me to her doorstep.
She's everything I shouldn't want; everything I was against after watching my mother's obsession destroy her.
Still, I can't stop myself from craving her.
I should know...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Bravery and stupidity are the same things; the outcome determines your label.
My father had drilled that saying into my head when I was eleven.
It all started when I went up against a bigger kid at school for bullying Mikhail, and I got my ass handed to me. I was still just a skinny kid, and he had a group of friends just as beefed up as him.
When I told my father, he'd just shaken his head at me and called me a fool.
Eleven-year-old me had been furious, and I'd mouthed off to him. Of course, I got my ass handed to me again by Viktor, who my father trained alongside me at the time before Igor finally explained what he meant.
"What you did wasn't wrong, Alyosha. It was brave of you to stand up for Misha against a boy like him, but it's foolish to go into wars you know you have no chance of winning. The boy was bigger and he had friends with him. You could have called Viktor to assist you. With the two of you against him, you would have won.
"It's not enough to just have the intent or courage, son. Do you have the strength and ability to back it up?"
I learned the hard way, but ever since that one time, I never picked a fight I knew I couldn't win.
Surely, Reina would understand that. We lived in the same house for years, and she'd done her fair share of snooping.
Surely, she would also know that I had no qualms about ending her life and coming out of it unscathed. But she'd still worked up the nerve to leave the safety of her glass palace and seek out Ariana.
Bravery or stupidity? Some would say the latter.
I impatiently tapped my fingers on the steering wheel to distract myself as I waited for the light to turn green. I feared if I didn't do something to occupy myself, I'd do something drastic like turning this car around and hunting Reina's SUV down until she got it in her skull that everything I considered mine was off-limits to her.
Worse yet, I'd pick up the phone and blow up on Igor.
Both choices were unlike me, but then again, I couldn't remember the last time I was this livid or close to losing my temper.
I chanced a look at the passenger seat, and I ground down on my jaw.
Ariana sat quietly in the passenger seat, legs crossed and her elbow propped on the armrest while she twirled a blonde lock around her finger absentmindedly.
She hadn't said a word since she got into the car with me, and it was obvious as the minutes went by that she had no intention of doing so.
I opened my mouth to speak, and she finally adjusted in her seat, staring at me from the corner of her eyes.
"If you're going to yell, I suggest we postpone this conversation until later, when you're much calmer and less likely to raise your voice."
Red spread in my veins like poison. "I'm afraid such a time will never exist because there'll never be a time when I'll be calm about this."
