Novel-novel oleh Twinkle

Audrey's POVI walked to his door.The corridor was dark and cold and the villa was completely quiet around me and I walked to his door and stood in it and looked at him.He was on the floor.Back against the bed, legs stretched out, sketchbook open across his lap. Not sitting the way he sat in chairs — composed, deliberate, the posture of someone who had chosen how to occupy a space. This was the floor version of Luca, the one that did not exist in public, the one that only happened when the human part of him had given up on maintaining the architecture and just — sat down.He was drawing.I looked at the sketchbook.It took me a second to understand what I was seeing because Luca drew structures, Luca drew floor plans and load-bearing calculations and the architectural signatures of things that needed to stand up, and this was not any of those things.It was the garage.Specifically it was the Hellcat, and me, standing the way I stood when I had both hands on the engine and was thin

Audrey's POVThe front door opened quietly because I opened it quietly and I walked into the villa and Luca was standing in the hallway.Not blocking it. Not positioned dramatically. Just standing there the way he had been standing at the window — completely still, hands at his sides, the composed face entirely absent and nothing replacing it yet.We looked at each other.The hallway was narrow and warm and smelled like whatever Theo had cooked earlier and the bond between us was doing something so loud it was almost physical, a frequency I felt in my sternum rather than my chest.I walked past him.Not fast. Not slow. Just past, the way you walked past furniture, the way you moved through a space that had something in it you were not ready to address yet, and I felt him not reach for me and I felt myself not stop and both of those things cost something but I kept walking anyway.Up the stairs.My room.I closed the door.---The villa had a specific atmosphere for the rest of the nig

Audrey's POVI walked out of the cafeteria with Ethan and I did not look back.A conscious choice. Made with my whole chest and zero apology. The bond told me exactly what all three of them were feeling without me having to turn around — Theo's specific loud silence, Adrian's calculating stillness, and Luca's jaw doing the thing it did when he was keeping something controlled that wanted out.I let the door close behind me and breathed the cold morning air and felt, for the first time since Friday night, something happening on my terms.It felt good."You okay?" Ethan said, falling into step beside me. He asked because he paid attention, because he'd clocked the specific quality of my okay this morning."Getting there," I said.He nodded and we walked toward the academic building with the cold doing its October thing and it was easy the way things were easy when nobody was performing anything."First period?" he said."Vehicle dynamics," I said. "You?""Same building," he said. "I'll

Audrey's POVOkay so. Six a.m. and I actually slept. Like, slept-slept and not just the fake kind where you lie there replaying the bench and the hallway and that one pause on repeat until your brain just gives up from exhaustion. Real sleep. Then real morning. Then that washed-out October light doing its thing through the curtains.I just laid there for a sec doing an inventory.Wolf was quiet more like she'd been up all night sorting through garbage and actually finished the job for once. Came out the other side with her stuff together.Felt like patience, honestly. Weird to feel that from her. I got up, threw on clothes, went down before anyone else was awake.Kitchen was empty, freezing, and I made my own coffee for the first time in forever because apparently I'd just been letting Luca or Adrian handle that without even clocking it. Made it exactly how I like it. Climbed up on the counter, mug in both hands, stared at the mountain, breathed.Bond was still buzzing on that weird f

Audrey's POVThe Hellcat smelled like oil and cold metal and something that had always, since I was small enough to fit under a car without a jack, meant safety.I sat in the driver's seat with the door open and my feet on the garage floor and didn't drive anywhere. Just sat. The way I'd been doing since I was thirteen and using the car as a place to put myself when there was nowhere else that fit.The garage was empty at this hour. Everyone else had gone in when the temperature dropped. The academy perimeter lights hummed their low steady hum and the mountain did its dark thing outside and I sat in the Hellcat and tried to find the edges of what I was feeling.Luca was silent and it bugged me.One second too long. That was all it had taken. One second of him not saying no immediately and the whole architecture of my chest had shifted.I put my head back against the headrest.The bond was doing something I hadn't felt it do before. Yes. The bond didn't break, that wasn't how it worked

Luca's POVShe walked away and I let her.That was the first thing. The most important thing. Every instinct I had — and I had a lot of them, most of them loud, most of them pointing in the same direction — said get up, go after her, fix it, and I sat on the bench in the terrible wind and didn't move and let her go.Because she'd asked me a direct question and I hadn't answered it.And chasing her down before I understood why I hadn't answered it would have been the worst possible thing I could do.So I sat.The valley did its thing below me. The wind did its thing around me. The bench was cold and hard and entirely deserved and I sat on it and looked at the tree line and tried to do what I did with everything that mattered — take it apart, find the structure, understand what I was actually looking at before I tried to say anything about it.The question had been simple.Do you feel something for them.And the answer should have been immediate. Should have been no, straightforward, cl

IZEL'S POVJace was going to leave me. Richard was making sure of it.I stood at the top of the grand staircase, gripping the cold marble balustrade so hard my knuckles were stark white, totally frozen in place as I watched my entire world fall apart in real time.Below me, the front door was wide open, letting in the freezing night air. Jace threw his heavy black duffel bag over his shoulder, his face completely pale, his chest rising and falling in short, uneven gasps. He didn't say a word to his dad. Richard stood by the open door, his jaw locked, his arms crossed over his chest like a prison warden enforcing an execution order.Just before Jace stepped out into the pouring rain, he paused. He turned his head and looked straight up the dark staircase. Our eyes locked across the massive foyer, and the sheer, raw agony in his dark eyes almost brought me to my knees. He didn't say anything out loud, he couldn't, but the message was so loud it made my ears ring.Then he walked out into

The deafening metallic ring of the silver tray hit the floor and seemed to echo forever.My mom didn't knock. She didn't wait. She grabbed the brass handle and pulled the butler's pantry door wide open.The bright overhead light from the hallway flooded into the narrow dark space, blinding us both.My hands were still wrapped around Jace's neck. His arms were locked tight around my waist, pinning me against the dark cabinets. We were breathing so fast our chests were practically heaving together, our lips swollen and bruised from kissing just three seconds ago.My mom froze in the doorway.The silver cake server clattered out of my limp fingers, hitting the hardwood with a dull thud.The silence in the hallway was so sudden and violent it made my ears ring. The ambient jazz music playing in the dining room felt like a sick joke in the background.My mom’s face went completely slack. The warm, happy smile she had been wearing all through dinner dissolved into total, unadulterated shock

The high of destroying Vivienne lasted all the way through the front door, right up until the moment my mom called out from the dining room."Izel? Jace? Is that you? Come inside, dinner is almost ready!"Jace and I froze in the entryway, our hands untangling so fast we almost knocked over the coat rack. The shared thrill of our victory was still vibrating through my veins, making my skin flush hot, but walking into that house felt like stepping directly back into a trap.We walked into the formal dining room, where the table was laid out with fancy linen napkins, glowing candles, and heavy silver cutlery. Richard was uncorking a bottle of red wine, looking happier and more relaxed than I’d seen him in weeks, while my mom set down a steaming dish of garlic roast chicken."There they are!" my mom beamed, coming over to press a quick kiss to my cheek. "We’re having a double celebration tonight. Richard got the official call from Jace’s doctor approving his light physical therapy, and Pr

JACE'S POVI practically sprinted behind Izel down the damp, echoing concrete corridors of the indoor athletic complex, my chest burning, my heart hammering a frantic warning against my ribs, but I couldn't stop her. She was marching straight into the lion's den, and I was terrified she was walking into a trap.We pushed through the heavy metal doors of the indoor pool house. The air hit us instantly, thick with the heavy smell of chlorine, stale humidity, and damp concrete.Up on the rusted metal bleachers near the shallow end, a flash of bright red leather caught my eye.Vivienne was sitting at the very top, lounging against the aluminum railing like she owned the entire university, swirling an iced coffee and wearing a sharp, vicious grin that made my blood boil."Well, look who finally decided to show up," Vivienne called out, her voice echoing off the tiled walls. She stood up, smoothing down her designer skirt, holding her phone tightly in her hand like a loaded weapon. "I figur

Izel's Pov"Izel, sweetie," Wendy asked again, her voice floating over the counter, "what's wrong?"My heart plummeted straight into my shoes. My thumb slammed against the power button, flipping my phone face down on the cold marble island so fast the glass made a loud, terrifying smack."Nothing!" I squeaked, my voice cracking so badly I sounded like a middle schooler. "Just, random campus spam! Someone sent a super gross graphic link to the whole art department group chat. It literally made me sick to look at."Jace didn't miss a single beat. He slid his phone casually into his pocket, leaning back on his barstool with his arms crossed over his chest, looking like the coolest, most unbothered guy on the planet even though I could see his chest rising and falling way too fast."Yeah, it's totally annoying," Jace chimed in, his tone smooth, cold, and completely flat. "Some stupid virus going around the student portal. Dad, we actually need to leave right now if I'm going to grab my bo

Jace's POVI stared at her, my brain completely flatlining.Did I actually just hear her right?"What did you just say?" I whispered, my voice sounding incredibly rough in the quiet room.Izel pushed herself up slightly against the pillows, her dark eyes flashing with that stubborn, furious fire that always made me want to kiss her until she forgot her own name. "I said no one is moving anywhere, Jace. Stay in your room. If anyone is meant to move, it is me.""Absolutely not," I snapped back instantly.The very idea of her packing up her clothes and leaving my sight made my chest tight all over again. The panic was immediate and blinding."Izel, I am the one causing the problem here. I am the one waking you up in the middle of the night. I will take the attic.""You are recovering from a literal cardiac event!" she whispered furiously, pressing her small hands flat against my chest. "You are on heavy beta blockers! You get out of breath just walking to the bathroom some days! You have

The Don's PovThe cemetery was twenty minutes outside Palermo.I came alone. I always came alone. My men knew better than to follow me here — not because I had forbidden it, though I had, but because there were limits to what loyalty required and watching an old man talk to a grave was beyond them.The drive was quiet. The kind of quiet I had stopped fighting somewhere in my sixties, when I'd finally understood that silence wasn't empty. It was just everything you weren't saying, collected.I had a great deal collected.The cemetery sat on a hillside, old stone walls, cypress trees standing like they'd been placed by someone with strong opinions about atmosphere. The morning was cool. October in Sicily always arrived with manners — politely cold, apologetically gray, nothing like the violence of August.Alessia's grave was in the far corner, under the cypress nearest the wall. Simple marble. Her name, her dates, a small carved lily because she had loved them and I had remembered and t

''Celeste's POV''The thing about sitting still was that it gave your brain too much material to work with.And my brain, left unsupervised, was a menace.It had been doing this thing lately where it replayed moments I hadn't even known I was storing. Not the dramatic ones — not the arguments or the near-death experiences or the time Azrael had looked at me across a room like I was either the best or worst thing that had ever happened to him and honestly both felt accurate. No. My brain, being specifically cruel, had decided to archive the small things.The way he'd handed me a glass of water once without being asked, like he'd simply noticed I needed it.The half-second before he smiled, when you could see him deciding whether to bother hiding it.The way he'd said my name — not 'Celeste' like my father said it, clipped and proprietary — but like it was a complete sentence on its own.I was eating toast at my father's kitchen island at 7am, thinking about this, when I decided I was d

''Azrael's POV''They left me alone at 9am with half a loaf of bread, specific instructions not to die, and a list of things I was not permitted to do that Liora had written on actual paper and stuck to the refrigerator with a lemon-shaped magnet.The list read:'1. No cliffs.''2. No water.''3. No wandering.''4. No wandering and calling it something else.''5. Eat the soup on the stove.''6. Do not touch Auntie's radio.''7. If something hurts, sit down. Do not "push through it." You are not competing in anything.'I read it twice. Found it both deeply patronizing and oddly touching. Stuck it back under the lemon magnet and made myself coffee.The argument about whether they should go had started at breakfast and concluded approximately forty minutes later with Liora's aunt winning through sheer force of personality and a speech about how the market in the village only had fresh anchovies on Tuesdays and if they missed it they'd have to wait another week and she was not, she made c

Azrael's POVI found the boats by accident.In my defense, I wasn't supposed to be outside. I was aware of this. The island rules had been recited to me with such frequency that I could probably recite them backwards in my sleep — don't wander, don't go to the cliffs, don't go near the deep water, don't exist unsupervised in any capacity that might give Liora's aunt another reason to curse at me in Italian.But it was a Tuesday. Or possibly a Wednesday. Time moved differently on Linosa, slow and thick like honey, and I had spent the morning watching a gecko on the bedroom wall and wondering if this was what losing your mind felt like or if it had always looked this peaceful.I needed air.The path behind the house led up a slight rise between two ancient walls of volcanic rock, and if you followed it far enough you came out on a flat shelf that overlooked the northern water. I'd found it three days ago during what I was officially calling 'a supervised walk that ran slightly long.' Li

Celeste's POV""Here's the thing about grief nobody tells you.It doesn't feel like sadness. Not really. Sadness was something you could point at — a rainy Tuesday, a bad phone call, the last episode of a show you loved. Grief was different. Grief was waking up in the morning and reaching for your phone to tell someone something funny before remembering that the person you wanted to tell was gone, and then lying there staring at the ceiling while your brain slowly, cruelly caught up with reality.Every morning. Like a fresh delivery.I'd been doing that for three weeks.The Rivera townhouse was immaculate and suffocating and full of people who kept touching my shoulder and asking if I needed anything, and the answer was always "yes, actually, I need the one thing none of you can give me," so I smiled and said "I'm fine" until the words stopped meaning anything at all.Sofia was still there. In the guest room. Sitting on the edge of my father's secret like it was a chair she'd been ass

Azrael's POVI didn't know why I went to the beach.Liora had specifically, explicitly, and with great dramatic emphasis told me not to go near the water alone. Her aunt had said the same thing, except with more Italian and what I was fairly certain was a curse of some kind directed at my general existence.And yet. Here I was. At the water.In my defense, it was four in the morning and everyone was asleep and my ribs only screamed a little when I breathed now, which felt like progress worth celebrating. Also the ceiling of that bedroom had become my personal enemy. I had memorized every crack in the wood. We were not on speaking terms.The island at night was a different thing entirely. Black water, black rocks, and a sky so full of stars it looked fake — like someone had gotten carried away with the decorating. The air was cool and sharp and smelled like salt and something green I couldn't name.I found a flat stretch of sand between two rock formations and sat down carefully, becau