Broken bet

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Katsuki Bakugo entered the game for five hundred dollars, thinking he knew exactly how the story would end. He would win the bet, discard the target, and walk away with his reputation as the school's untouchable playboy intact. But he didn't account for Crystal Gemstone. Behind her sunny, forced smile lies a soul that understands pain-the kind of pain that turns Katsuki's rage into vulnerability. As she pulls him away from his toxic rivalries and gently disarms the aggression he uses as a shield, Katsuki finds himself standing in the wreckage of his own design.

The tension between them is no longer a game; it is a confession he isn't ready to make. Every time she tells him he is worthy of more than his reputation, every time she touches his hand to ground his anger, the clock in his mind screams closer to zero. He is falling in love with a girl who thinks he is a hero, all while waiting for the expiration date on their happiness to hit. He is living in a countdown to his own destruction, knowing that the moment the money is claimed, he will lose the only person who finally made him want to be good...
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