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“What are you doing here?” I play dumb, hoping she’ll have a different explanation.

“Daddy said I’m your appointed.”

I don’t acknowledge her and go about taking off my jacket, putting my helmet away and kicking off my shoes. From the stocked fridge, I grab a cold beer, screw off the lid, and chug a few sips. With the back of my hand, I wipe my mouth and say through gritted teeth, “Yeah. So?”

She shifts to a sit and crosses her legs, perching on straight arms to push her tits out. “It’s destiny. We were always meant to be together, Ryan.”

Ignoring the sheer irritation making my muscles twitch at that thought, I flop down on the sofa across from the bed and kick my feet up on the coffee table, sliding my phone from my pocket. “I understand that was always their plan, yeah.”

Slinking off the mattress, she tries to be as seductive as she can, tossing her hips from side to side as she saunters toward me, then sits next to my ankles. All I can think about is her ass cheek prints on the glass top and how to clean them off.

“You don’t seem happy,” she says with a little pout.

Why do I have to have this conversation now ? I just got home from a busy day, and I’m exhausted. Uncertain blackness coats my vision for a moment as I close my eyes, pretending she doesn’t exist. Only, as I open them, she’s still sitting there, waiting for an answer.

Heaving a sigh, I lay it out for her when we lock eyes.

“Listen, E. We’ve been through this since high school.

I never asked to be exclusive after our first breakup and I still won’t .

I know you’ve been through the entire hockey team, possibly the baseball team, perhaps one of my brothers.

I don’t give a shit, honestly. You’re free to fuck whoever you want.

” Hiking up the beer, I chug the rest and spit out the words, “Even after we’re married. ”

The blue of her eyes crystalizes as her jaw drops with a gasp.

Tears spill onto her perfectly made-up cheeks, and I’m certain it has more to do with not being able to tell her friends what a fairytale engagement surprise she got from the future CEO of Cardell Enterprises than anything.

“What do you mean, even after we’re married? Ryan, I’m yours .”

I chuckle at that and pull up the football game I missed on my phone. “You’re everyone’s. You couldn’t be loyal when we were fifteen. You can’t now, I’m sure. I’m not blaming you, E. Have a great time. I just don’t want you.”

“B-but you have to obey…”

Though I’m watching my screen and ignoring her, I picture the life set before me.

One where Elina maintains a god-awful, cluttered white mansion on the west side of Northview in a gated community with a garage stuffed with holiday decorations.

Probably pregnant with who knows whose kid, and me, traveling in my RV, getting road head by some lot lizard, and making stupid phone calls, playing pretend CEO.

That could work, right? If I stayed away? Let her raise the other fucker’s kids?

Only problem is, all I can picture is that dark-haired woman with whiskey eyes sitting in the co-pilot’s seat next to me, a familiar expression of terror on her face when I floor the gas of our Class A and laugh at her shock.

“You’re not going to fuck me?”

“No. I didn’t ask you to come over. Leave your key by the door when you go.” Didn’t know she still had one.

With a huff, she abruptly stands, rushes to the closet, throws on a trench coat, and dramatically drops her key while maintaining pathetic eye contact. Like I’ll miss her or something.

The door slam rattles everything on the wall, but somehow, it settles my nerves.

As soon as she’s gone, I do what I’ve been longing to do…

Find my partner-in-crime.

The urge to dodge my prescribed life overwhelms me. It’s not so much running away from the assignments that the unseen forces have doled out for me. No. I’m being pulled toward the girl from the forest.

Out my floor-to-ceiling windows, I affix my eyes on the yellow glow of Northview’s cityscape and let the remembrance of her sink in. A hint of her vanilla scent. The way her dark locks flowed in the breeze. Passion filling her eyes as she told me life would get better.

She’s out there somewhere, alive and free, and I want that for myself.

I want her for myself.

In two steps, I snag a stool at my dining bar table and lift the lid to my laptop.

First, I take a screenshot on my phone of her pretty face kneeling before me, then I run it through a reverse image search on my computer.

This leads to some douchebag’s profile on Pixtagram with the username nicoinque .

He’s got his tattooed arm tossed over her shoulders possessively, pulling her in for the picture. In the caption, he refers to her as “Pip-Squeak,” which makes me cringe. My jaw tightens at the way she’s looking at him with something like reverence.

My blood stills in my arteries, and I stretch the tension out of my neck. His name...Nico Griffin . Like Apollo Griffin? The Delta president?

Who is this woman?

The stool sways when I stand, grab two more beers and leftover chicken from the fridge, crack my knuckles, then buckle down to work. Every photo of her stabs my guts with a pang of odd jealousy that I haven’t been there with her throughout her life already.

She’s tagged in his pictures, and giddiness overtakes me when I follow them to her personal account. A flood of information makes me shift in my seat as I learn each new fact about her.

Northview University sophomore in Criminal Justice.

Ballroom dancer with some Beta bitch partner named Mitch.

Short videos surface of her hips swaying seductively in a samba, sharpened turns in the tango, and smooth slides in the waltz.

The movements cause a thickening situation in my jeans.

I add the clips to my bookmarks to study later.

Nico shows up randomly in her shots when she’s looking fine as hell. At a party, the Maned Marauders hangout, and summer vacations. Doesn’t look like they’re together, though. His feed is filled with random women covered in ink and piercings, but no one I recognize from society.

It seems she’s close with her family and from the city of Gnarled Pine Hollow, about an hour from here. Used to be a dystopian shithole, but things changed there about twenty years ago, I was told.

Penelope Lynn Freidenberg . That sounds familiar.

She’s a twin and also has an older brother…and a father who was an MMA fighter under the name of Million with bear tattoos inked on his neck. Maximillian Freidenberg of The Freidenberg Foundation, one of the trustees on the Board of NU.

I think I just found my in…