1: Midnight Court

MIA

I fled from my own engagement party one hour ago and now I'm hiding in a locked university at midnight.

The gym smelled like sweat and old leather and something I couldn’t name. It made my skin prickle with awareness I wasn’t in the mood to examine.

The university athletic complex should have been locked, but I’d learned three days into my transfer that if you knew which side door to use and were willing to slip through shadows like a thief in the night, you could have the basketball court to yourself when the rest of campus slept.

And God, did I need to be alone right now.

I left two hundred guests in the ballroom of the Alaric estate, my father’s fury burning holes in my back as I ran. Silas, my fiance, was standing at that altar-like platform they’d constructed for the ring ceremony, his hand still reaching for mine, his smile filled with warning.

I could still feel where his fingers had dug into my wrist when he’d cornered me in the hallway before the ceremony. His voice possessive, promising me exactly what would happen if I embarrassed him tonight.

“You belong to me now, Mia. The ring is just a formality. Better make no mistake.”

So I’d done what any rational person would do. I’d smiled through the cocktail hour, then excused myself to fix my makeup, and climbed out the bathroom window in my five-thousand-dollar dress.

My phone sat in my car with forty-three missed calls. I’d stopped looking after the first twenty. My father’s texts had gone from concerned to furious to coldly threatening in the span of an hour.

“You have three months to fix this before the wedding, and if you’re not standing at that altar, I will destroy everything you’ve built here. Your trust fund. Your education. Your future. Do you understand me?”

I understood. I was nothing but a business asset. A merger agreement wrapped in Vera Wang.

I bounced the basketball once. Twice. The sound echoed through the empty space. The court glowed under harsh fluorescent lights, perfect and clean and mine in a way nothing else in my life had ever been.

Here, I wasn’t Gabriel Danvers’ daughter. I wasn’t Silas Alaric’s runaway fiancée. I wasn’t the girl whose mother had died under mysterious circumstances when I was eight, leaving behind nothing but questions and a silver crescent moon necklace that still felt warm against my skin. I was just breath and muscle and the perfect arc of a ball through air.

I drove toward the basket. My sneakers squeaked on polished wood, then I jumped and released.

The ball made a swish sound before it dropped through the net and hit the ground with a soft thud that sounded too loud in the quiet space.

“You’re holding your elbow too high.”

A deep voice said, making me spin, my heart slamming against my ribs. The basketball bounced away across the court.

I squinted until I could see the full silhouette of a man standing at the far end of the gym. He was half hidden in the shadows near the locker room entrance.

Even with the distance between us, every instinct I had screamed danger. The other urged me to run.

He stepped into the light and my breath caught.

He was tall. God, he had to be at least six-four, with shoulders that belonged on a classical sculpture and a face that should have been beautiful but was too sharp, saved from prettiness by a cut jaw that looked like it could cut glass. His dark hair was a little long, a few tendrils falling over his forehead.

And his eyes. My breath hooked when he stepped further and I caught sight of the bright pools. A mix of gold and amber that looked unreal.

“The gym’s closed,” he said. His voice was low and rough-edged, a veil of command behind it.

I lifted my chin, forcing myself to meet those almost unreal eyes even as my pulse hammered in my throat. Still, my voice came out hoarse. “The door was open.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re supposed to be here.” He tilted his head to the side, giving me a once over that made my body instantly feel hot.

“Neither are you, apparently.” I crossed my arms, ignoring the way my pulse had kicked into overdrive. “Unless you own the place.”

Something flickered across his face. Amusement, maybe. Or irritation. It was gone before I could name it. He moved closer, each step slow that it seemed almost predatory like he expected me to run with my tail between my legs.

I held my ground.

“I’m the team captain,” he said, that deep voice rolling over me and stealing the rest of my breath. “Xavier Volkov. And you’re trespassing on my court.”

HIS court. The possessiveness in his voice made something hot twist in my stomach. I should have been intimidated, apologized and grabbed my bag and left.

Instead, I picked up the basketball and spun it between my hands.

“Mia Winston,” I said instead. “And I’m pretty sure the university doesn’t put names on deeds. It’s everyone’s court during operating hours.”

“It’s not operating hours.”

“Then I guess we’re both breaking the rules.”

Xavier’s eyes narrowed. He was closer now, so close that I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands flexed at his sides like he was holding himself back from something. The air between us felt charged, buzzing with electricity that made the hair on my arms stand up.

It felt wrong. But it made me want to step closer instead of away.

“You’re the transfer,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

“Business major. Starting this week.” I bounced the ball once. “I heard the basketball program was co-ed. I was planning to try out.”

“Were you.”

The flat delivery should have pissed me off. I gave him a sarcastic smile instead. “Problem with that?”

Xavier stared at me for a long moment. I had the strangest sensation that he was seeing through me. Past skin and bone to something deeper, something I didn’t know how to name. His nostrils flared slightly, and his jaw clenched.

“You can’t be here,” he said finally, and now his voice was strained and a little rough.

“Why not?” my brows furrowed.

“Because I said so.”

I didn’t know when I laughed. His audacity was astonishing. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.” Xavier turned away, walking toward the locker rooms with that same predatory grace. “Go home, Mia Winston. This isn’t a place you want to be.”

Something about the dismissal and casual arrogance made fury spike in my chest. I’d spent the entire evening being told what to do, where to go, who to be, how to act.

I didn’t climb out of a bathroom window to escape that suffocation to let some arrogant basketball captain chase me away from the one space where I could breathe.

“One on one,” I called out.

Xavier stopped, but he didn’t turn around.

“You and me,” I continued, my heart pounding. “Right now. If I win, you stop acting like you own the place. If you win, I’ll leave.”

“No.”

“Scared?”

He turned then. The look on his face made my breath catch. His eyes were reflecting the light in a way that made them seem like they were glowing even more than before.

“You have no idea what you’re asking for,” Xavier said, his voice dropping to something that was almost a growl.

My skin prickled, that same warning to run echoing in my mind. The thought of how suffocating the engagement party and all of tonight had seemed made me a little wild and reckless. The need for freedom bled through me and pushed me forward.

I thought of Silas’s hand on my wrist. My father’s ultimatum. The wedding date circled in red on every calendar in my father’s study.

Three months.

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I cleared my throat.

The silence stretched for a breathless heartbeat. Then Xavier smiled, and it was nothing but sharp edges.

That small voice warned me of danger but then he was speaking and I forgot all about self preservation.

“First to ten,” he said. “Your ball.”

He produced a basketball from seemingly nowhere and chest-passed it to me hard enough that I had to brace myself to catch it.

I dribbled a few times. Xavier fell into a defensive stance that looked both casual and completely immovable.

I drove right. He cut me off effortlessly. I crossed over, went left, and he was already there. It was like playing against someone who could read my mind.

I went up for a shot anyway. His hand came out of nowhere, blocking it cleanly.

“One-zero,” he said, and there was something dark and satisfied in his voice.

We played. And God, he was good. Better than that even. He moved like water, like his body understood the game on some fundamental level that went beyond practice or skill. Every time I tried to get past him, he was there. Every time I went up for a shot, his hand was there to block it.

I managed to score three times. By the time he hit ten, I was breathing hard, my legs burning. Xavier looked like he’d barely broken a sweat.

“Good game,” he said, and I could hear the respect in his voice.

I bent over, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. “You’re better than good. You’re—”

The gym doors crashed open. And the moment I saw who walked in, my blood turned to ice. I realized I hadn’t escaped anything at all because they found me.