JULIET POV (EIGHTEEN )
I look at the bruises on my neck, my gaze traveling from the dark finger marks to meet my dead blue eyes in the mirror.I've now been choked more times than I care to think about. That seems to be the abuse of my father's choice. He chokes me until I pass out.Sometimes, I stand over his sleeping form, and I want to kill him. I want him to know what it feels like when you have someone's hands wrapped around your throat and have the life squeezed out of you, wondering if this would be the last time you're alive.He calls me whore. Slut. Tramp.Your mother's daughter.For three years, I've been living in agony.I pushed Alyssa away because she would have seen what state I was really in.I've become the true definition of the nickname Ice Queen now.I don't even have a friend anymore.What pisses me off the most is that it wasn't even hard to discard of her. Just a few unanswered calls and texts. Giving her the cold shoulder at school. Before I knew it, she had new friends, her eyes refusing to meet mine in the classes we share or when I see her in the hallways.A friendship spanning thirteen years just thrown away. Just like that.It seems like my mother was right after all.Friends stab you in the back.I wish I could resent my mother a little more. If she didn't die, I wouldn't be so utterly alone. She could have protected me from my father's wrath.Instead, she chose to forget her sorrows by drinking a handful of sleeping pills and then taking a bath, ultimately drowning to her death.And I had to find her lifeless body.When I think back on that day, I get even more angry. The turmoil inside me is boiling, and it's threatening to spill over.Yet I keep all the fury carefully bottled inside me, just waiting for the day when I can finally unleash all the blackness from within.The Morettis has it coming.All of my despair starts with them, and that is where it will end.They have infiltrated my bloodstream, and they flow through me, keeping me hostage and obsessed.I want to destroy them. Learn their weaknesses and use it against them.Everything that I am was built on what the Morettis has done to my mother. They're the reason she took those sleeping pills, the reason she died.It's because of them that my father is living in a constant state of drunken haze, wanting to hurt me at every corner because I remind him too much of my mother.I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, panic clawing up my throat, and I can't breathe. I die over and over, oxygen struggling to get past my windpipe.I can feel my father's hands on my throat, and sometimes I wish that he got the job done. I wish that he would put me out of my misery once and for all.But I fight for my life every single time. I want to live. Even if it's only to make the Morettis suffer.My cheerleader coach beams at me as if she's the one that just got the biggest news."This is what you wanted, right!" She laughs excitedly as I stare at the piece of paper in my hand. "With your academic score, they're offering you a full ride!"My hand trembles slightly as my eyes go over the words in slight disbelief. I worked my ass off for this. When kids were out partying and dating, I was behind my books. I was working out, spending hours at the cheerleading club perfecting my technique.But this is more than what I could've asked for. A full ride? Good things like this don't happen to me."All they want is a photo op with you wearing the uniform and signing the papers. " She claps her hands like an excited toddler. "I mean, it's not the best cheerleading program. You could have done way better than them, but it's a great school."It's the best cheerleading program for me. Because it's where the Moretti triplets currently are, and cheerleading puts me straight in their path.I've received offers from schools that win national championships, but I was never interested in them. Cheerleading has always been a tool to get me out of my father's house. And I'm really good at it. There are even fan pages dedicated to me, but all of that is just background noise.I carefully fold the letter and put it it back in its envelope as of I'm not freaking the fuck out. I smile at my coach, even if it's fake. Over the years, one learns exactly how to convince people that you're happy."You can let them know I accept."Coach squeals and hugs me tightly. I fold my arms around her because that's the right thing to do to fit in, even though I hate physical contact. I much rather prefer the high five.But this is the end of an era for me.I'm fucking leaving this dreary city behind, with a full ride. I couldn't have asked for better.This is my chance to start over where nobody knows me.And my chance to destroy the Morettis.Like their parents destroyed mine.ALESSI POV In my life, I have never seen something more perfect than my twin daughters. Love like I've never experienced before took a hold of me when these two tiny little girls were born. I've always been my brothers' keeper, the one with the solid head on his shoulders. I think those titles were just preparing me for this role. A father. "Are they supposed to be that small?" Alonso peers through the glass of the incubator. "Are they sick? Why are they in the baby growing thing?" Arc joins Alonso to peer through the glass to the perfection that is my daughters. "It's just procedure." I enlighten them. "They were born on thirty-seven weeks, but they're healthy and perfect." Utterly perfect. They look like their mom, but babies' faces change every single day. "Dude, you have to tell me how do I get Summer to marry me."I tell Alonso. He managed to bag Amelia, even with all the shit that was going on at the time. "You just ask her." He tells me without
AMELIA POV What was supposed to be the happiest time in my life has become one of the worst. Alonso is lying with his head in my lap, my fingers running through his hair as we're waiting for news from the doctors who are operating on Arcangelo. Bailey striked again. This time, she got caught, and her fucking parents can't get her out of this one this time. The shooting is on every social media site, it's trending on the internet. Videos are circulating around from fans. I feel so sorry for Lola. She's still wearing the dress she performed in, clutching Cassie to her chest as if she might lose her, too. They gave her something to wipe the blood from her arms, but there's a faint streak of it left on her cheek. The world would be a worse place if Arcangelo died. I kiss Alonso's cheek, and his eyes flutter open, sorrow in the swirl of green and brown. Alonso would not be the same person if he had to lose one of his brothers. They're all an extension of each other, and I pra
ALONSO POV I'm in seventh heaven. I know the bomb will explode very soon, but right now, I'm blissfully holding my wife in my arms as she's coming down from another orgasm. My wife. I fucking love the sound of that. It's not the way I wanted to do it. She deserves a big wedding with a designer dress and a big, fat diamond ring, and I promised her that I would give her all of that, but she said our wedding was the best. I thread my fingers through hers and kiss the diamond wedding band on her finger. I've already arranged appointments with jewelry designers for her engagement ring, and then I will do it the right way. "I fly out tomorrow afternoon with the team." I reluctantly tell her. "I want you there, but I also don't want you in the open where Bailey can easily get to you." She sighs and nuzzles her face in my neck. "I know. Maybe I'll arrange to see my parents while you're not here." "No!" I say definitely. "We face them together, I'm not sending you into the lion
ARCANGELO POV I must have died and gone to heaven. I have the girl I've been pining over up against a wall with her full, succulent lips eagerly moving under mine. She was a vision tonight in the elegant black dress with her dark curls spilling everywhere. Her lips were painted a fiery red that enticed me the entire time, and I just couldn't stop myself anymore. I tried being respectful because she has a child. My plan was to make her fall so irrevocably in love with me that by the time I did kiss her, she wouldn't be able to resist me. I wanted her to trust me implicitly, to make her feel that I would never let her down, that I'm solid. I hope I did enough because just this one taste of her is making me addicted, and I don't think I would be able to stop touching her now. She groans underneath my mouth, opening those lips like a flower, and I take that opportunity to plunge my tongue inside. She tastes like mint and desire, and a groan rumbles from my chest. I think I might
LOLA POV I don't exactly know what is going on with my life right now. It's like I'm in a twilight zone, part of a family in an instant. Arcangelo refuses to let me and Cassie go back to the label's apartment, and at first, I felt slightly awkward being at his parents' house, but everyone else handled it like it was completely normal. I understand that Alessi's ex-girlfriend apparently almost killed Alonso's girlfriend a few years back, so everyone who might be in danger right now has to stay here. But I'm not even his girlfriend. I'm just one of the artists he signed. Right? Wrong. I've never experienced anything that I feel for Arcangelo. The sexual tension is brewing underneath the surface whenever we touch. It's in the songs that we write together, in the way we gaze into each other's eyes when we think nobody is watching. Every night, after a big dinner, and I've given Cassie her bath and taken a shower, we climb into his bed. About an hour after when Cassie is f
ALONSO POV I can't believe one girl has the power to have all of us on our toes. I, for sure, never thought the sweet girl that we grew up with would turn out to be some obsessed psychopath. Apparently, Evan and Sammy Micheals have Bailey's son. They took her son from her when she was starting to talk about us again over the phone. My parents are pissed because they weren't even warned. Let's just say that the friendship between the Morettis and the Micheals would never be salvaged again. "What's with the security?" One of my teammates asks as we finish up at the stadium. "You good man?" Fuck, I love this team. We're new, and certainly the underdogs, but we're becoming a family. They've been concerned about me ever since the allegations of sexual assault. It's dfficult being in the public eye, and they all know how it feels to be under such scrutiny. "I'm good, but there's someone who's a bit too obsessed, just being cautious." "Be careful out there." He claps me on the s