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."
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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 wasn’t nervous. Me? Nah. Not the type. 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. And parked outside? Bentleys and Aston Martins lined up like they were bloody 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 like some Game of Thrones fever dream. Right in the centre: the crest. Shield with blood-red roses and a lion mid-roar, crown perched above like a flex, 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 parked the Ducati outside the gates, killed the engine, and the silence that followed was louder than any exhaust. Helmet off. Hair sticking up in every wrong direction. Face revealed.
Boom. They moved.
Six. No—seven men in black suits, black ties, black everything, stepping out of shadows like a synchronized act. All of them built like they bench-press small cars for fun. Sunglasses on, even though Glasgow hadn’t seen sunlight since Jesus was a boy. Even the way they adjusted their cuffs looked like Morse code.
The one in front zeroes in on me like I’m a fly buzzing too close to his pint. No smile. No blink. Just straight-up death glare.
“Name.”
I held up the bouquet like a hostage negotiator. “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. “Mate, I’m not about to storm the Bastille with lilies, but sure. 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.
