28

I ate the scrambled eggs while Matias served himself another mug of coffee. I analyzed his red uniform and neatly styled hair. A slight tension lingered between us, but we acted as if our fight and the destruction from hours ago had never happened.

"I bought a TV online; it arrives tomorrow," I said, breaking our silence. "I'll also replace the other things I broke," I added.

"Okay, I can live without a TV for a day," he commented with a shrug, focusing on the bacon before continuing to eat.

"I’ve known him since we were six," I suddenly revealed, catching his unsettling gaze.

"I know," he said with his mouth full.

"We've known each other since we were six, said we loved each other at seven, kissed for the first time at nine, and started having sex at thirteen," I explained, stirring the scrambled eggs.

Matias rested his elbows on the table and drank his coffee.

"Is this your way of telling me how special your relationship is?" he scoffed, frowning.

"I hesitated," I replied, watching him freeze for a second. "I really hesitated, but I couldn’t say no to him," I declared, trapped in his gaze.

"Where exactly is this conversation going, Ryuuji?"

"It was the last time," I confessed quickly. "I'm saying it won’t happen again. Shin is with Artemis now," I explained, watching him bite into the bacon while calmly staring at me.

"Why?" he asked, leaving me confused.

"What?"

"Why is he with your half-sister?"

"They have feelings for each other," I answered, still confused.

Matias began to smile, making me uneasy.

"He likes her, but he still slept with you," he commented distantly.

"It’s different." The words rushed out, making Matias look at me with interest. I bit my lip and got up to grab a soda, his eyes following me across the kitchen, waiting for me to continue, but I remained silent, drinking my soda.

"Tell me," he ordered calmly. "Different how, Ryuuji?" he insisted, capturing my gaze.

"We’re not doing this again," I warned, leaning against the sink.

"But I still want to know," he countered, finishing his coffee.

I studied his relaxed face and let my gaze drift down to his neatly pressed uniform, not a single wrinkle in sight. If it weren’t for the earrings in his ears, he’d look like a model student at the Academy, but Matias was way too hot to be just another boring nerd. I cleared my throat and continued:

"Ever since I met him, I knew we were meant to belong to each other," I confessed, smiling as I remembered the first time we said we loved each other.

Matias looked away, lost in thought, and I was surprised when a smile took over his face.

"Sorry," I said with difficulty. It had been a long time since I last apologized to someone. It felt strange.

"For acting like a lovestruck 10-year-old girl?" he teased, making me laugh.

"No, for destroying your apartment." I sighed, running my fingers through my messy hair.

"And when you saw me for the first time, what went through your mind?" he asked, catching me off guard.

Silence consumed me. I pressed my lips together, recalling the night I saw him at the diner, then at the movies, and when we kissed behind the convenience store.

"I’d better head home. I still need to change before class," I said, leaving my soda can behind.

"You owe me this, Ryuuji," he replied, catching my attention.

"I apologized. In case you didn’t know, I don’t usually do that," I shot back, ignoring the anxiety forming in my chest.

"Fuck your apologies. I asked you a question," he stated, still sitting in the same position. God, how I hated his self-control.

"Don’t make me say it," I muttered, furrowing my brows.

"Okay, if you don’t want to tell me that, then at least tell me what happened that day," he accepted with determination, trapping me in his snare.

I smiled, and Matias smiled with me.

"If you want to leave, you have to answer one of the questions."

I held his gaze, fully aware of what I was about to reveal.

"When I saw you, I thought that maybe… I wasn’t born to belong to just one person," I confessed, watching his smug smile slowly fade. It was deeply satisfying to see him like that, so unsettled. "See you at the Academy." And I left the apartment, engraving his expression in my mind.

***

From the corner of the room, I watched my father talking with Kuren and one of the distributors. Tomy was sitting beside him, analyzing a map and typing something on his tablet. I cast a discreet glance at Artemis. We were still wearing our Academy uniforms when we were caught off guard by the invitation to this meeting.

"He wants something," I murmured, listening to Kuren go over numbers upon numbers.

"Do you already know, or are you still slow?" she mocked, looking at me challengingly.

I rolled my eyes and bit my tongue, holding back from cursing her out. I was beginning to question Shin’s romantic taste—how did he find her attractive?

"Gabriela is feeling insecure. Another one of her distributors broke the contract with the Lilies. Since the attack in the forest, she’s put all the police on high alert, monitoring every Hebi they can," my father explained, removing his glasses before taking a sip of whiskey.

"She’s more like desperate," Kuren corrected, organizing the paperwork. "Her performance is dropping, and the city is pressuring her to end the gangs. Well, she got elected based on that promise, but no real change has been made," he commented, making my father nod.

"But that works in our favor. While Gabriela is busy at City Hall, trying to contain reporters and all the public drama, our sales and profits increase every week. Her clients are becoming ours. With a little more patience and planning, the Lilies will soon cease to exist, and Gabriela will be nothing more than just another mayor," the distributor—whose name I had forgotten—said.

"Gabriela is too proud; she won’t let the Lilies disappear just like that. Not after everything she did to get where she is now," Tomy reminded us, still typing on his laptop.

"We need to increase the pressure," my father declared, making Tomy lift his head and meet his gaze.

"And how do you plan to do that?" Kuren asked.

"Tomy and my children can take care of it," he replied calmly, making Artemis and me stand up.

We left the office together, and I started planning everything we needed to push the city to its limit. People needed to question, to pressure Gabriela—we had to expose her incompetence in maintaining the city's security and control.

"I have a few things planned if you're interested," Artemis said as we walked down the stairs.

I studied her serious face and determined gaze. This wasn’t the time for fights. If the Lilies were going to fall, I needed to set aside my petty resentment toward her.

"Do you want to grab something to eat and talk about it?" I suggested, stopping in the grand hall of the house.

Artemis raised an eyebrow, unable to hide her surprise.

"Are you serious?" she questioned.

"I can put aside my distaste for your existence if it means destroying the Lilies," I stated, holding her gaze.

"How generous of you," she shot back, crossing her arms.

"I know," I agreed and headed to the kitchen, making her follow me.

The chef prepared two bowls of ice cream with sliced fruit and then left us alone in the kitchen. I scooped up some strawberry ice cream with fruit, the sweet taste and refreshing sensation making me sigh.

"Can I ask you something?" Artemis started as she tried her vanilla ice cream.

"Is it about Shin?"

"No," she replied, eating some fruit.

"What is it?" I prompted, looking out at the calm forest and the river a few meters away.

"What was it like in the reformatory?"

"A living hell," I answered, focusing on my bowl. "The food was terrible, the bathrooms were disgusting, and the other boys were a nightmare," I said, continuing to eat.

"Really? I thought it would suit you," she teased, making me smile despite myself. "The other members really missed you and were devastated when our father forbade them from visiting you," she told me gently.

Even if my father hadn’t done that, I would have. No one should have seen me like that. It was humiliating enough that Hitaki and Akemi had watched me waste away in that hellhole week after week.

"I know the two biggest Lily sales points in the neutral area. We could pay them a visit tonight," I changed the subject, making her nod.

"And I know where some of Gabriela’s most trusted Lilies live. We could visit them too," she suggested excitedly. "And we could take a stroll through the restricted area… for fun," she proposed, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

"I like that," I admitted, knowing it would drive them crazy.

"And Takashi—what was he like?" she suddenly asked, making me freeze.

"Just because I agreed to a truce doesn’t mean I want to be your friend," I shot back, finishing my ice cream and fruit.

"I already have friends. I just want to know what he was like," she replied with interest.

I remembered Takashi—his short hair, his deep, strong voice, and his terrible personality. He ran away from home at fifteen after breaking his arm and stabbing his abusive father. He was a lost boy who had strayed even further into the cold darkness.

"Takashi was already broken when he joined Hebi—so broken that not even having a safe home with friends who respected him was enough," I explained, stealing a bit of her ice cream. Artemis didn’t mind and remained focused on my face. "He became more aggressive, possessive, and he had so much pain inside him that he started to take pleasure in it," I said, leaning back in my chair, savoring the sweet taste of the ice cream.

"Shin told me you did what had to be done," she commented, full of curiosity. "I wanted to know…" she started, but I cut her off.

"We’ll gather the others when they get back from the Academy," I announced, ignoring her. "Until then, I’m going to sleep," I said, ignoring the strange sensation crawling under my skin.

"Ryuuji, I have a right to know!" she insisted seriously.

"Right?" I repeated, turning to her. "Who are you? You’re nothing but a bastard girl who had nowhere else to go. Fuck your rights—this isn’t your business. Takashi is dead, and that’s the end of it. Drop all this bullshit and focus on what Father told us to do," I ordered and walked out of the kitchen, my body burning under her piercing glare.

My head was pounding, and as soon as I reached the bathroom in my room, I threw up all the ice cream. My stomach felt like a rock, and my abdomen ached as I kept vomiting over and over. Exhausted and nauseous, I washed my face in the sink and took off my uniform before collapsing onto the soft couch.

The scent of blood invaded my senses, along with the sound of Takashi’s body hitting the river rocks.

"What the hell…" I whispered, covering my face with my arm. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t fall asleep.