Ronan
Dean called after my fight, his voice sharper than usual, edged with something between rage and panic. Said some guy’s house went up in flames. A man named Stanley. I blinked, confused for a minute. We’d never heard of a Stanley, not in any of our usual dealings.
Apparently, he owns a handful of car dealerships around the city. Which only adds to the confusion—because we don’t deal with cars. That’s never been our territory.
Then, our father dropped the real kicker. Said it was part of something new. A quiet expansion they hadn’t gotten around to telling us about. Classic. That’s how they work, keeping us out of the loop until they need something cleaned up or bodies buried.
But Dean and Bryce? They’re rattled. Pissed in a way I haven’t seen in years. And that tells me everything I need to know.
Stanley wasn’t just some random associate. He was part oftheirworld—the shadow side of the empire they pretend doesn’t exist. If I had to bet, I’d say he was helping them move product. Smuggling it in through his shiny car lots, hidden beneath seats and tucked behind panels.
Makes sense now.
And if someone took him out… They didn’t just hit Stanley. They hitthem. And whoever’s behind it just fired the first shot in a war.
I’m not sure whether to be pissed… or impressed.
That’s two associates and one warehouse—gone. Reduced to ash and chaos in days. Whoever’s behind it isn’t just making noise. They’re sending a message. And tonight, the guys left me on my own, which means there’s no buffer, no leash. No one to keep me from running off the rails.
Not that they ever could.
My mind doesn’t work like theirs. Never has. I don’t think in straight lines or measured logic. My brain builds connections like wildfires—fast, hot, unpredictable. Where they see coincidence, I see threads. Webs. Patterns forming in the dark.
And the one name that keeps dragging me back to center—if you can call it that—isBerk. She’s always accepted me. When the others didn’t understand my moods, my silences, the storms I carried around like shadows sewn into my skin—she never flinched. She justgot it.
Which is why, the second I spiral with theories and what-ifs,shecrashes into my thoughts.
If Cupcake really is her—and yeah, I’m not ready to fully say it out loud yet—it’s a hell of a coincidence that she’ssuddenly in this city, throwing fists in underground rings, right when our father’s empire is burning from the inside out.
Coincidences are for cowards.
I want the truth. The real story. I want to pull her mask off and look her in the eye andknow.
But I also don’t want to spook her. She’s a ghost that came back wearing teeth, and if I push too hard, too fast, she might vanish again. And I can’t take that. Not after all this time.
Something happened. Somethingbad.
And if she’s behind all this?
God help whoever lit that match.
If Berk’s out for blood, I’ll help her finish what she started, because there’s no way in hell I believe Reign’s letter.
Yeah, it was written in her handwriting—I’d recognize it anywhere. Every loop, every sharp angle, every familiar stroke. I grew up seeing it scrawled on Post-it notes, crammed into notebook margins, and sometimes written across our foreheads just to be annoying. There’s no doubt about that part. It was hers. That much is certain.
But everything after that? The words themselves? The message buried beneath the ink? That’s where it all starts to unravel.
According to the letter, Reign claimed Berk had slept with her boyfriend. A one-night betrayal that shattered everything. It was supposed to explain Reign’s sudden spiral. Supposed to make sense of the chaos she left behind.
And yet... none of it feels right.
Rowen and Emerson grasped at the excuse like it was gospel. They read the words and immediately believed the worst—furious, heartbroken, too raw to question it. That’s why any mention of Berk still sets them off, why they shut down when I bring her up. They think I’m in denial. That I’m too far gone, still clinging to some fantasy version of her that never existed.
But they’re wrong.
IknewBerk. We all did, but I saw her in ways the others didn’t. She had a heart that didn’t just beat—itbledfor the people she loved. She adored Reign. Respected her. Looked at her like a sister and a piece of her soul. There’s no part of me that believes she would’ve done something like that. Not to Reign, and not to us, and yet... the letter is damning.
Then there’s the so-called butt-text—that perfectly timed, too-convenient message that still crawls under my skin like barbed wire. Just one more spark tossed onto a fire already burning out of control.