LOGINLila's POV I stood in the middle of the woods, my chest heaving.My mind was racing, trying to find a way out. Running blindly wasn't going to save me, not against men with guns and a whole mansion behind them. I needed a real plan.My father's voice came back to me then..when he was alive."Never run from the hunt, Lila," he used to say, crouched beside me when I was small. "Let the hunt come to you....Remember, patience kills faster than fear ever will."I took a slow breath and crouched low, the way he taught me.I made a soft clicking sound with my tongue, the same call he used to draw animals out of hiding.It didn't take long.A wild boar broke through the bushes ahead of me.It was big, with tusks catching the little moonlight coming through the trees.My heart slammed in my chest, but I stood my ground, remembering every lesson my father drilled into me.Suddenly, It charged at me.I jumped to the side at the last second and grabbed a broken branch off the ground.I drove it
Lila's POV I watched Damian shift, moving away from me, just slightly, and my chest tightened instantly.That small step he took back told me everything I needed to know.He was choosing himself.Not that I expected loyalty from him, not that he owed me anything, but something about it still cut deep, faster than I expected."Damian," I whispered his name, hoping he would look at me, say something, anything.He didn't answer.He kept inching backward.Then a gunshot cracked through the air, and before I could even process what was happening, he yelled, "Run! Now!"I grabbed his hand this time, not the other way around, and we bolted toward the woods, my bare feet tearing across the ground."Did you just shoot your Dad?" I gasped as we ran."No. I shot the ground," he said between breaths. "Just to keep them slow and distract them. Now move faster!""That was insane," I said, half laughing despite the terror pumping through me."Can you shut up and run," he snapped.We kept moving, br
Lila's POV The hand on my arm tightened as I tried to yank myself free, my whole body thrashing against whoever had dragged me into this dark corner near the back door.Another hand clamped over my mouth, muffling the scream building in my throat."Stay quiet if you don't want to die," a voice hissed close to my ear.I froze for half a second, then twisted hard enough to catch a glimpse of his face.Damian.I kept struggling anyway, kicking at him, desperate to get loose.At this point I didn't know who I could trust, not Ethan, not Damian, not their father.I hadn't been standing there for the conversation between Damian and Mr Blackwood earlier....but for all I knew, this was just another version of the same trap."Get off me," I said, breathless, the second his hand loosened on my mouth.He grabbed me tighter instead. "What the hell is wrong with you, Lila? Do you actually want to die tonight?!"I glared at him. "At this point, I don't know who to trust. How am I supposed to know
Lila's POV I ran to my room and slammed the door shut behind me, my back pressing against it like that alone could keep the whole mansion from crashing in on me.My hands were shaking so badly I could barely unlock my phone.I scrolled to Jojo's name and hit call, pacing back and forth across the room while it rang.He picked up on the second ring. "Lilly? It's late, are you okay?""Jojo," I said, my voice cracking immediately. "I need to tell you something and I need you to not freak out on me....""You're already scaring me," he said. "Talk!"I sat down on the edge of my bed, my knees pulled up to my chest, and I just let it out."Serena is dead," I said. "I killed her..."Silence hung on the line for a long moment."You what??" he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper."She came to the mansion," I said, the words tumbling out faster now that I'd started. "She was pretending to be me, she had Ethan believing she was me, and when I got there she pulled a gun on him. I didn'
Lila's POV The moment I and Ethan climbed out of the pool, I couldn't shake the feeling crawling under my skin.Damian had been watching us.I didn't need anyone to confirm it, I had felt his eyes on us the entire time, and now something about it sat wrong in my chest, heavy and sour in a way I didn't fully understand."I think we should go inside," I told Ethan, forcing my voice to stay light. "I want to rest a bit."He didn't ask questions, he just scooped me up without warning and carried me toward the mansion, laughing the whole way, completely unaware of the storm building behind my ribs.I smiled along with him, playing the part, even though deep down none of it felt right anymore.It wasn't like it should have mattered that Damian saw us.He knew about the plan, he had agreed to it, he was the one who suggested it in the first place.But knowing that didn't stop the feeling creeping up my spine, the sense that I had somehow turned into something dirty in his eyes, something wi
Damian's POVI stood by my window with a glass of wine in my hand, watching them down there in the pool, and I told myself over and over that I didn't care.I sipped slowly, letting the wine sit on my tongue longer than it needed to, trying to convince myself that whatever was happening between Lilly and Ethan meant nothing to me.But my eyes kept drifting back to the window anyway, back to the two of them laughing in the rain like the rest of the world didn't exist.I already knew she was easy.I had known that from the moment my father brought her into this family.But this, watching her throw herself at Ethan barely hours after our engagement made the front page, felt like a new kind of low, even for her.Yes, we had a plan.She was supposed to sleep with Ethan eventually, get pregnant, and give us something believable to point to when the divorce came.I knew that.I had agreed to it myself.I just hadn't expected it to happen this fast, this easily, like she'd been waiting for th
Lila Sinclair's POV I turned a little to the left, then back to the right, staring at my reflection in the floor-length mirror. My long dark hair tumbled down my shoulders, still damp from my quick shower, while the white sundress clung to my curves in a way I wasn’t sure was too much. I pouted at
Lila Sinclair's POV I stood in front of the gates of the Blackwood mansion with my suitcase beside me, looking like a rejected airport passenger who had taken a wrong turn into rich people's territory. The gates were tall black iron, twisted into fancy patterns that probably cost more than my ent
Lila's POV The mirror didn’t lie. “What do you think, JoJo?” I turned around, letting my gown flow around my ankles as I posed with a half-smile. The silk hugged me in all the right places... almost too well. On the phone, JoJo tilted his head like a fashion judge. “Baby, by now you should be
Lila's POV “I should go,” I murmured, tugging my hair into a quick ponytail as Ethan rose slowly from the edge of the bed.His hand brushed my cheek with a gentleness that made my heart squeeze. “Damn,” he whispered, voice rough from laughter and what we had just done, “I thought you were some sai







