PRIVATE RUIN

S A F I Y A

Elegant. Guarded. Fractured.

Safiya Diallo was raised to value family expectations over personal desire. At Ashcroft College, she keeps and regulates what she can control - grades, her routine and her emotions hidden. Making sure all is intact, she refuses to let worthless distractions pull her off her balance. However Alessio Moretti represents what she fears and runs away from, and yet she finds herself melting whenever he's near. Wanting him feels like betrayal. Letting him see her feels like losing her grasp on control.

A L E S S I O

Unreadable. Ruined. Feral.

Alessio Moretti learned early that love wasn't really reliable - only something that was talked about yet never truly stayed. College is just another place where he keeps power, fight, fuck and repeat, trusting his dominance more than people. Safiya Diallo gets under his skin with her deadly composure and he hates how easily she could throw him off his game and draw his attention. He tells himself it's irritation. It's easier than admitting it's something that he never learned to name.

Forced into similar worlds, and yet divided by strained backgrounds, Safiya and Alessio circle each other in a relationship defined by unresolved tension and unspoken want with a dangerous pull that neither wants to admit. The line between resentment and hunger blurs, and neither of them is prepared for what happens when it does.