JUDAH’s POV : The library turned out to be a bad place for making out. Noted. After leaving the librarian with a heart attack, Blondie and I dashed out of there and I spotted an empty classroom across the library. Not wasting any time, I pulled Blondie into the classroom and closed the door shut. Blondie shook her head at me and stifled a laugh. Meanwhile, I was reduced to a grinning mess, unable to contain the desire to kiss my girl. Putting my hands on both sides of Blondie’s face, I was trapping her in place as I looked at her with fire in my eyes. She looked up at me and bit her lip, and my face delved down to find hers. Our lips had touched and I was about to deepen the kiss, when suddenly— * RING ! * RING! * RING! * The stupid bell had to ring and ruin the moment. I let out a frustrated groan and Blondie

JUDAH’s POV : “You two think you’re very sneaky, but people all over town have been talking, and I’ve heard it all,” he said again. Shit. This town’s a lot smaller than I thought. "Well, okay, but, sir—" "Do you like to play games, son?" "Excuse me?" "Because games are for kids. And you two are adults. Turning eighteen. Going off to college soon. So I'm gonna treat you all as adults, you hear me?" "Yes sir," I replied immediately, "And no sir, I'm not playing games with your daughter if that's what you're implying. I'm very serious about her," "We live in a small town. Tight-knit community. People talk around here. I've heard some things about you. And to be honest, they're not very good," "But that's not very fair, isn't it? To judge a person before you get to know them," I wanted to appear confident, pausing for a beat before I said, "Sir," "Which is what I'm trying to do right now," he said with a long sigh. I was raking my brain trying to find the words to say to get hi

- - - - - TWO MONTHS LATER - - - - -BLAKE’s POV :“Thanks for meeting me here,” I said as I rolled down the car’s window.The black SUV parked right next to me also rolled their window down, revealing Danny’s face, wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. “No problem,” he said.“You got what I asked?”“It’s all there,” Danny pulled out a big brown envelope and I quickly swiped it from him before anyone in this parking lot might see.“What happened to your face?” I narrowed my eyes at him. Underneath his sunglasses, I could see bruises and cuts all over his face.Danny stifled a laugh and pulled his sunglasses down, revealing the full scale of his wounds. “Underground fighting ring,” he answered. “It’s a fun sport,”Danny used to work as my family’s personal investigator slash bodyguard. Now that he was in his sixties, he decided to retire his muscles, but we could still use his expertise from time to time. This time was no different. For the past two months, he had been spying and finding

TAYA's POV : I had to do a double look to make sure that it was in fact Blake Harrison, standing right in front of me. In front of Judah's house out of all places. I was so shocked to see him, but the craziest thing was that he wasn't even surprised at all to see me. It was like he was already expecting me to be there. "Hey," he said calmly. "Uh... hi,” I stammered. I looked around to see that he was alone. Judah and his bike was already gone. “W—what are you doing here?" "I came to find you,” he replied. “How’d you know I’d be here?” “I was following you, all through the town," he explained, pausing for a beat as he said, "Can we talk?" "Following me all around town? That's kind of creepy, Blake," I narrowed my eyes at him and held onto the door. "No, actually that's just plain creepy," If Blake was trying anything funny, I was ready to slam the door shut at any moment. But he wasn’t doing anything. He just let out a sigh and said, "Yeah. I guess you can say I'm desperate. I

TAYA's POV : My head was spinning as Ava's words and stories wouldn't leave me be... "We all know that James Harrison owns half the island. He's got a monopoly on all the businesses here and Max didn't like that. James wasn't even from Hawaii. He moved in here and he started buying out lands, establishing big businesses, and driving out small local shops. Max hated it, especially when Castro's was starting to get hit. Max had been plotting his schemes to take down James Harrison for as long as I could remember. But James is the most powerful man on the island, there was no way a small-time criminal like Max could get to him. But that all changed when we met Judah," As she was talking, I could picture it happening in my head. Judah came back after years of being away from Hawaii and he met up with Max, the one guy that took his side when nobody else did. "What Max did was pretty shitty. But I've done some pretty shitty things too. And at the end of the day, we have each other's bac