Renna Rose Lancaster is the girl people stare at like she belongs in a glass case, a life airbrushed into unattainable perfection.
But Renna knows her life is nothing but a golden prison coated in pretty lies that keep her muted and small.
Her day...
"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Bouquet of flowers in one hand. Ego in the other.
Nerves?
Somewhere between the two, trying very hard not to get crushed.
Don’t get me wrong—I'm not the type to get nervous.
Okay… maybe my palms were slick. But that was the throttle’s fault, not because I was about to step foot into the fortress of doom.
Fortress was the right word, by the way.
Blythswood Square wasn’t just rich, it was obscene. Every townhouse looked like it had been dipped in champagne and polished with the tears of peasants. Roman columns so tall they could double as launchpads for rockets. Balconies curled in wrought iron like they’d been stolen straight out of Versailles. Bentleys and Aston Martins lined up as if they were just taxis.
The Lancaster residence didn’t sit on the square—it owned it. Black iron gates loomed higher than a prison yard, roses and lions carved into the metal. Right in the centre was the family crest that was a shield with blood-red roses, a lion mid-roar and a crown perched above, banner curling beneath with Latin carved deep enough to scare the soul out of me.
Fide et Consilio.
Yeah. No kidding. Faith and counsel.
I killed the Ducati's engine and the silence that followed was louder than any exhaust. I took my helmet off and once my face got revealed they moved.
Seven men in black suits stepped out, black ties, black everything, sunglasses on, even though Glasgow hadn’t seen sunlight since Moses was a boy. The one in front zeroed in on me like I was a fly buzzing too close to his pint.
“Name,” he said.
I held up the bouquet. “Uh… Callahan. Aadam Alaric Callahan. Here to see Renna.”
No response. No nod. Not even a twitch. Just pure statue mode.
One of them stepped closer, hand twitching like he had half a mind to drag me in by the collar. “Identification.”
I sighed, digging out my license. “Here. Have a good stare.”
He snatched the license, handed it to another guy, who immediately muttered into a mic like he was reporting a UFO sighting. Meanwhile, another genius stepped up and gave me the full pat-down—about as gentle as sandpaper. A third waved a scanner over me like I was airport luggage.
