Page 4 of Desperate Actions

How she had to fight through the tangled mess of dyslexia, the way words slipped through her grasp like water.

How she spent long nights with tutors and speech-to-text programs, hammering away at a system that wasn’t made for a mind like hers.

And she did it.

Of course, she fucking did.

Aella Fury doesn’t lose.

She laughs at something Andrea says, her head tilting back, midnight-dark hair falling in glossy waves down her spine. The sound snakes under my skin, wrapping around my ribcage like a noose.

Christ.

She’s still so beautiful, it hurts to look at her.

But I’m not the same man she used to know.

Not the man who danced with her under fairy lights and left before dawn.

Now, I know what my hands are capable of. What my soul has withered into.

I’ve spilled blood, taken lives, waded through the kind of nightmares that crawl inside a man and make a home in his bones.

And she’s stillAella.

Soft for this world. Untouched by it.

I shouldn’t even be thinking about her.

But I’ve been waiting for this moment.

For her.

For the chance to finally take what’s always been just out of reach.

This time, I’m not running.

Which only makes my predicament more fucked up. Because while she’s giggling and having fun, I’m sitting here like a monster plotting away, concocting a plan to make her mine.

“You alright?”

Junior’s voice cuts through the low hum of conversation, his sharp gaze pinning me in place.

For the first time, I notice he’s been watching me.

I nod, a short, clipped movement.

Nico Fury Jr. is a chip off the old block—broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed, and built from the same ruthless stock as his father. He’s my best friend, the closest thing I have to a brother. But I’ve never told him how I feel about Aella.

Because she’s his blood, his first cousin.

And I’m not sure he wouldn’t try to stop me from taking her.

So, I keep it to myself.

Let the monster inside me coil and wait.

Balor clears his throat, drawing the room’s attention.

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