All Chapters of Switched at the Mafia Auction: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

~ Avelyn ~The studio smelled like lavender polish and polished wood, the kind of fragrance that usually grounded me, made me feel like I had a purpose.Today, it just made me nauseous.The instructor today was a tall woman named Seraphine with a ballerina’s spine and demon’s eyes, paced in front of me like she was stalking prey.“Again,” she snapped, clapping once. “You’re dragging. The Grand Blossom isn’t a funeral procession.”“It feels like one,” I muttered.“What?”“Nothing.”I stepped back into position, inhaled, lifted my chin.My body went through the motions like I was puppeteering myself from outside my skin.Turn. Slide. Crossstep. Elegant pause.I used to be fluid here, grace was the one thing I had control of but today I was a storm in human shape.Every time I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrored wall, I barely recognized the girl looking back. My shoulders were tense, eyes too bright, lips bitten raw. My hair clung to my forehead where sweat gathered, and the stu

~ Avelyn ~I didn’t wait to hear another word.The moment Xander’s voice cut the last piece of me, I moved.I didn’t remember walking, just the sound of my shoes against the marble and the sting in my throat that felt like a burning sensation mixed with the blur in my eyes.I didn’t grab a coat, didn’t grab money or bothered grabbing anything except the phone in my pocket and the rage suffocating me.I left the mansion like a ghost walking out of its own grave.Much to my surprise, the guards didn’t stop me, though I doubt anything could surprise me anymore. Maybe they were too shocked at how I headed out casually or maybe Xander had told them to let me go just to watch me break somewhere else. My guess is the latter was a better bet. In any case the gates slid open, and cold air slapped my skin.All I wanted to do was run, it wasn’t bravery and definitely not logical but it was survival.I stumbled down the long driveway, legs shaking, vision unstable.The world was a smear of

~ Xander ~There are two kinds of silence in life.The first is harmless, the silence of sleeping cities, quiet mornings, steady breathing.The second is the kind that lands like a bladestill, heavy, and sharpened to kill.The moment Avelyn walked into that apartment…we fell into the second kind and I watched from behind because I simply couldn’t miss the expression on Kyle’s face tonight. She stood there in the threshold, backlit by the hall light, eyes wide and ruined.Ariana stood in front of Kyle facing the couchAnd Kyle…Avelyn’s perfect, gentle, loyal Kyle looked like a child who just spilled gasoline and realized the room was already on fire.Her voice didn’t come at first and I watched as she stared with red-rimmed eyes, parted lips, white knuckles gripping the doorframe. I could take a wild guess what was going through her head. The sharp sting of betrayal and the breaking her hope in her being. You could almost hear her heart cracking in real time.And still, no one

~ Avelyn ~Morning sunlight spilled into the bedroom without permission. Thin, gold bands slicing through the blinds and landing on my cheek like they were testing if I was worth waking. The warmth should’ve been comforting. Instead it sat on my face like a hand trying to pry open my eyelids. It failed.The world pressed down in silence, heavy and suffocating. Nothing in me wanted to get out of bed. Muscles curled into themselves, skin buzzing with exhaustion. The blankets swallowed me whole, and it was easier to drown in them than swim upward toward reality.Xander’s mansion was always quiet. Not the comforting quiet of a home, but the dead quiet of a museum, expensive, calculated, cold. Every trim, every polished surface, every marble tile screamed superiority. It reminded me that people like him could buy silence just as easily as they bought girls.A sting started behind my eyes. Not crying, just the irritation that comes before grief wakes. Turning away from the sun didn’t help.

~ Avelyn ~I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard.It felt like the car was suddenly too small, too quiet, too heavy with air that didn’t belong to me.He wanted the land.Not just any random property. Not the warehouse he used to gamble away. Not the apartment he let Laura pretend was hers.The land where my mother was buried.The only thing I still had of her.I stared at Miguel, and every memory I’d buried under distraction and exhaustion clawed its way back. His face didn’t even look guilty or hesitant, like he’d just asked for a bank transfer and not the grave of the only woman who ever treated me like I mattered.“You’re not serious,” I said slowly. “You can’t be—”“I’m very serious, Avelyn.” He spoke without even bothering to look directly at me, like this conversation had bored him long before it began. “You will sign the transfer.”It wasn’t a request.He never asked. He only took.“Why?” My voice came out small and sharp. “What could you possibly need it for?”His eyes s