Velvet Vengeance

WARNING MATURE CONTENT | R-18

The next morning, searching for answers, I found a hidden ledger sealed beneath the floorboards of my father's old office.

Names. Numbers. Codes.

And a final message tucked inside, written in his handwriting -
one I wasn't meant to see unless something had gone terribly wrong.

That was the moment I realized that
my father didn't leave me with grief.
He left me with a secret.
And secrets have shadows.
Now, those shadows walk beside me every day.

Mateo Sebastian Ferrante the boy who's known me forever, whose protectiveness feels too familiar, too heavy, as if he's guarding sins that aren't his.

And then him- Raven Alessandro Maranzano. The stranger with arrogant eyes and a presence that slices the air, the man I met only because someone started following us after school.

He stepped into the danger without hesitating, as if he'd been waiting for me. As if saving me was inevitable.

Two men.

Two truths.

And one girl caught in the middle of a story she was never meant to survive.

I used to think grief was the worst thing my father left me.

But now I know better.

He left me a war.