Chapter 4 Chapter Four

ADORE

"No!"

The scream ripped out of me before I could stop it.

Adonis had Angelo on the ground and his fist was raised and he wasn't stopping, he wasn't stopping at all and nobody in the crowd was doing anything except cheering like this was entertainment.

Angelo could fight. Everyone knew Angelo could fight. So why was he just taking it?

"Adonis stop, please!" My voice broke on the last word.

"Your father must regret having a son like you." Adonis spat, chest heaving, fist pulled back.

Angelo's brow knotted in anger. "Fuck you!" He clenched out and in a flash his fist connected with Adonis jaw so hard the sound cut through all the cheering.

"Fuck all of you!"

And then he wasn't stopping either.

Adonis was on the ground and Angelo was still going and my heart was in my throat and I couldn't just stand here, I couldn't.

"Angelo please stop!" I pushed through the crowd, tears already blurring my vision. His fist was raised for another blow when my voice reached him and his arm just froze. Hung in the air. His other hand still twisted in Adonis collar but he didn't swing.

"What is going on here?"

Everyone scattered. The hockey coach and the principal cut through the crowd and the coach had Angelo by the arm and pulled him back before anyone could say another word.

"The tournament is three weeks away," the coach said, looking between them both. "I need my star players breathing, not bleeding."

Angelo said nothing. He stared at Adonis with cold flat eyes and then turned and walked away.

"Wait!" I ran after him.

He didn't slow down. Didn't look back. He went straight to his locker room, grabbed his bag and walked past me like I was invisible, like I wasn't running just to keep up with him.

"Angelo please!" I begged.

He stopped so suddenly I crashed right into his back.

"Ouch, sorry."

He turned and looked at me and there was nothing warm in it.

"What do you want?" He growled impatiently.

I opened my mouth and nothing came out the way I needed it to.

"I...I'm sorry about what happened."

"Wasn't that what you wanted?" he said and the coldness in his voice made me flinch before I could hide it.

I shook my head quickly. "No, of course not."

He took two steps toward me and I took one back without meaning to. He leaned down just enough to look directly into my eyes and I felt my breath catch.

"What do I have to do," he said slowly, "to get you off my back?"

My heart squeezed hard. I knew he was angry. I knew this wasn't really about me. Yes, it is the way I thought of it.

I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to tell him that I thought about him every single day and that his name was the only thing that kept me from falling apart in that dark room. I wanted to tell him that I wasn't trying to cause him pain, I was just a girl who had been quietly loving him for longer than made any sense.

But I swallowed all of it.

"Can we at least be friends?" I asked.

He scoffed. Short and sharp and dismissive.

"No."

"But why?"

"Because you are pathetic."

Each word landed slow and deliberate and I felt every single one of them.

He straightened up, turned around and walked away and I stood there watching him go, arms at my sides, chest aching in a way I didn't have words for yet.

He hates me now, what do I do to win back the heart of my best friend?

ANGELO

I walked away and didn't look back.

The anger was still burning hot in my chest but underneath it was something older and heavier that I had been carrying for so long I had almost forgotten what it felt like not to have it.

How was I supposed to look at her and not see everything her family had taken from me? How was I supposed to smile at Adore and forget my father? Forget my mother? Forget the way everything I had ever known collapsed in a single day because of the Don's family?

I couldn't. I wouldn't.

Once I had called them family. Once I had meant it. That version of me felt like a stranger now, someone young and foolish who didn't yet understand how the world actually worked.

I understood now because I was not that trusting anymore.

The only thing that connected me to any of them was a debt written in blood and I intended to collect every single drop of it. I had been building toward this quietly, carefully, one connection at a time, one step closer to being stronger than the Don himself.

And when I was ready, not one of them would be spared.

Not even Adore.