Page 18 of Queen of Vengeance

His whole body shook from how tense his muscles were.

A few people gave half-hearted claps, and the rest looked confused.

Everyone expected Jax to win.

The judges continued announcing, but people were already getting up and leaving.

After the ceremony, I filed outside to look for Zane and Jax to congratulate them.

Mair, of course, was following closely behind, quietly teasing me about Jax.

I spotted Zane and rushed over to him. “Zane!” I flailed my arms in the air, trying to get his attention.

The closer I got, the more the rest of the crowd came into view.

“I’m so incredibly proud—” I started to say, but my sentence trailed off as I got close enough to see Jax and his girlfriend Chika making out behind one of the marbled columns of the auditorium. I felt like I was sucker punched in my heart. I backed away slowly, trying to erase the image from my mind.

“What was I thinking? That just because I gave up my chance to compete, that he was suddenly going to turn around and want to be with me? I really am just a foolish girl if I thought that.”

Zane tried to wave me down, but his face dropped as he saw my expression change.

“I don’t feel so good, Mair.” I clutched my clothes’ thin, cheap material, hoping it would alleviate the building-up inside pain.

Mair grabbed my shoulders and led me away. “Come on, you don’t need to see this,” she said.

As soon as I wasn’t within earshot of anyone, I let out a heartbreaking cry. I crumbled over myself, clutching my knees to my chest, as I sat in the grass next to a quiet pond and sobbed harder than I ever had in my young life.

Mair knelt next to me and patiently waited. “I don’t know why you do this to yourself, Lea. He’s only making you miserable, so what’s the point? You’re worth so much more than that. If you stopped talking to him right now, you’d be better off for it, and he’d be lost without you. You and I both know that’s the truth.”

Although her voice was firm, it was exactly what I needed to hear.

She held my face with both hands and forced me to look into her blue eyes. “You are so ridiculously talented. It pains me that your self-worth equates only to whether Jax notices you in a day. Some boys are far more worthy of your attention.”

I dragged my wrist across my face, wiping my wet cheeks.

“Who? Zane?”

I scoffed at the idea, but her face dropped suddenly as if she wasn’t expecting me to say his name. “I’m only kidding, Mairy! I have no interest in Zane.”

She laughed it off, shaking her head unevenly, but I could tell that it bothered her. “Of course! Why would I think otherwise?”

“You don’t have to worry, Mair. It’s me and you. I would never do anything to jeopardize our friendship.” I pulled her into my arms and hugged her tightly.

“I know, Lea… I know.”

6

DIESEL

Diesel paced to and fro, his heavy boots thudding against the wooden floors, sending vibrations through the dilapidated shack that rumbled like distant thunder.

Diesel’s head Beta, Striker, explained to him the absolute clusterfuck that was the raid the night before due to Jax and Zane’s interruption. She explained how some passing guards almost caught them because Jax and Zane had to leave early for some school function.

At this point, Diesel was already fuming.

That was precisely what Striker wanted, too. She turned away from him, grinning and baring her teeth as she explained the situation of the Nadir family.

“You threatened them, and they still didn’t pay the protection fee?” Diesel questioned as if insinuating that Striker had not done her job correctly.

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