Love Me Less

"You're not scared?" He echoed my words, a slight humor in his tone. My eyes however, were fixed on the dangerous blade being swung around lightly.

I swallowed my saliva and couldn't find the courage to reply.

Swiftly he lowered the blade and my eyes fluttered shut, expecting a stinging pain but all I felt was the looseness around my wrists where the rope once bound me.

My eyes flew open in shock.

He was still right in in front of me with a blank expression.

It was frightening so I lowered my gaze.

"That's right." He straightened up to his feet and looked down at me. "You should be scared."

~~~

Kita Ianthe was seventy-two hours from being sold when a masked stranger walked into the room, called in a debt, and put a bullet through the brains of the man who kidnapped her. He made it very clear he wasn't doing it to be kind.

He also gave her his coat. Sent her home with bus fare in her pocket like it cost him nothing.

Someone dangerous, yet not quite like them.

She never got his name. Told no one he existed.

Then she transfers schools for a fresh start and finds his eyes again, unbothered and unreadable, behind a desk that calls him her assistant teacher.

He doesn't know her, or he's very good at pretending he doesn't.

Around him stands a world she was never meant to see - hidden identities, underground empires, and a new stepbrother who's said maybe ten words to her and made every one feel like a warning.

Kita couldn't help but feel her new world; family, friends, and school, seem to have danger lurking behind every corner.

But her real danger was actually closer than that.

One man wants to control her.

One man loved her in silence for years.

One man was lying to everyone she trusts - including the girl who loved him one-sidedly.

And somewhere behind a mask, a fourth waited for her to figure out which of them she should actually fear.

Kita wanted a quiet life.

But the intensity of the men surrounding her, promised the exact opposite.