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THE REFUSAL
Last Updated:
2025-09-06 13:10:22
Latest chapter
THE HIDDEN RIVAL THE REFUSAL
Rival’s POVMorning smelled like iron and adrenaline.I woke with blood still under my fingernails, bruises blooming across my arms like dark flowers. My muscles ached, but it was the good kind of ache, the reminder that I’d stood my ground.The reminder that I hadn’t broken.Thomas handed me coffee without a word, his eyes saying everything his mouth didn’t. He didn’t like it....me walking out to bait them, me sending them back limping. But he didn’t understand.If I kept pretending Samuel could haunt me from the shadows, he’d own me forever.Today, I was taking that ownership back.The knock came before noon.Not soft. Not subtle. Three loud pounds that rattled the thin apartment door like a gunshot.Thomas froze, mug halfway to his lips.I didn’t freeze. I stood.The moment I opened the door, I counted four men. Not the same as last night bigger, meaner, wearing black coats with Samuel’s stink all over them.“Boss wants a word,” the tallest said. His voice was flat, like he didn’t
THE HIDDEN RIVAL BITE BACK
Rival’s POVBy the third day of their little parade, I couldn’t take it anymore.The same car. The same shadows leaning against walls like vultures. The same smug smirks every time I caught their eyes. Samuel thought he could leash me from a distance—break me with silence and stares.He forgot who the fuck he trained.I’d been prey once, bleeding in the pit, forced to fight like a dog. I wasn’t prey anymore.Tonight, I’d remind them.Thomas paced behind me, rattling off risks like a broken record. “It’s too dangerous. You don’t know how many are out there. We should wait until—”“Until what?” I cut him off, tying my boots tight. “Until they walk through the door and drag me back? Until they get bored of watching and put a bullet in your skull to get a rise out of me?”His jaw locked, but he didn’t argue again. He just stood there, fists clenched, while I slid my blade into my boot and tucked a second one under my sleeve.I flicked the light off, leaving us in shadows. “They want to wa
THE HIDDEN RIVAL TIGHTEN
RIVAL’S POVPlanning to leave was easier said than done.We weren’t booking flights and packing bags like tourists. Not with Samuel’s eyes everywhere. Every move had to be invisible, every step quiet. One wrong slip and his men would be dragging me back in chains or worse.The morning started with Thomas scribbling on scraps of paper, crossing things out so hard the pen nearly tore through. Bus schedules, cash stashes, the names of two people in New York I trusted enough to scrawl down. My ribs throbbed as I leaned over the table, watching him pretend he had a plan while the weight in my chest told me we were already running out of time.“You’re overcomplicating this,” I muttered.Thomas didn’t look up. “I’m not overcomplicating. I’m making sure we don’t end up dead in a ditch before Jersey.”“Optimist.”He smirked, faint. “Realist.”We’d barely gotten three steps into arguing routes before the first knock came at the door. Not the light kind, either the heavy, flat rap of someone who
THE HIDDEN RIVAL THE ESCAPE IDEA
RIVAL’S POVThe apartment was too quiet.Not the calm kind of quiet—no. This was the kind that pressed on your ears, made your own heartbeat sound like a drum. I lay flat on the couch, staring at the ceiling fan creaking above me, its slow blades doing nothing to ease the heaviness in my chest.Thomas’s words from earlier kept looping like a broken record. Bleeding for Samuel or living for yourself.I hated him for saying it.I hated him more because it was true.By the time I sat up, the city lights had already bled through the blinds, striping the room with neon. My ribs burned, but the ache was drowned out by the restlessness gnawing under my skin.Thomas was at the table, hunched over a deck of battered cards like he thought shuffling them would solve his rage. He didn’t look up when I moved.I cleared my throat, voice rough. “What if we left?”That made him pause. His hands stilled on the cards, head lifting slow. His eyes narrowed like he wasn’t sure he’d heard me right.“Left?”
THE HIDDEN RIVAL BEING FOLLOWED..
RIVAL’S POVThe morning heat clung like a second skin. Asphalt shimmered in waves, the air thick with exhaust and dust. I walked fast, boots pounding the cracked sidewalk, jacket clutched in one hand because I couldn’t stand the press of it against my ribs anymore.Thomas’s voice followed, sharp and grating:“Rival! Wait the hell up!”I didn’t.Every step jarred the bruises across my body, every breath felt like shards pressing into my chest—but I kept moving. Because if I stopped, if I turned, I’d hear him start again with the teasing, the worry, the questions I didn’t have answers for.I needed space.Except Thomas didn’t believe in giving it.Heavy footsteps closed the gap, then his hand snagged my arm.“Don’t walk away from me!”Pain spiked through my side where his grip jolted me. I yanked free with a hiss. “Don’t touch me.”His eyes widened at the bite in my voice. Then his jaw clenched. “You think stomping off fixes anything? You wake the whole damn neighborhood last night with
THE HIDDEN RIVAL SHADOWS IN THE DARK
RIVAL’S POVSleep didn’t come easy.I lay on the couch long after Thomas disappeared into his room, staring at the ceiling while the old clock ticked its steady, merciless beat. The pile of envelopes sat on the table like a quiet accusation, thick with escape routes I didn’t know how to take.Run, or stay or perhaps Leave and break.Every choice carried its own kind of death.My ribs ached so bad I could feel the pulse of it under my skin. Each breath rattled against bone, sharp and shallow. Every time I closed my eyes, the pit came back, Samuel’s grin from above, the roar of the crowd, the mountain of a man collapsing into the dirt. And behind all of it, a voice whispering what Thomas had said: One night you won’t come back.I turned onto my side, groaning at the stab of pain. Stared at the wall. Stared at the shadows until they began to shift.At first I thought it was my ribs playing tricks. The way pain messes with your head. But no—the longer I watched, the clearer it became. Th
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