Lahat ng Kabanata ng Claimed by My Rival: Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

AMARATwo hours.That was how long I’d been pacing for. How long it had been since we’d been forced to bring the engagement party to an abrupt end.Dante was quite the actor himself. His eyes held the tensed pain he probably was going through. But none of the guests read through him. Cassian had been there to pull him away quickly enough.And I’d been told to head back to my room.I bit my lip, kicking my heels off before turning to the mirror. Staring back at my reflection, it was hard to ignore how I mirrored everything expected of the wife of a don. A trophy. All a performance.Dante didn’t love me, and I held the same endearment. But in the months to come, we’d spend all the time convincing the general public that we actually did.“Are you okay?”I really meant it at the time. Of course I’d done a bit of research on Dante. Learning he had an allergy to cherries had been a bit blindsiding in all honesty.But oh how wonderful it was to have seen him so…powerless.He’d known it was m

AMARA“Dante’s sister?”I didn’t move for a while, too stunned to even speak. Slowly, the corners of her lips tugged up. She nodded, closing the distance between us in one single step.“Yes,” She continued. “Dante’s sister. Surprised?”My mouth remained open for a while. His family was estranged for all I knew. And I had done my best in digging up as much as I could about his family.But nothing about them was known. Nothing that could be of any major benefit to me. Dante was as elusive as they came. If there was ever anything to be learnt about his past and the truths they held, he had done a stellar job at completely hiding it all from me.She plopped her bag on one of the plush chairs and turned to the house excitedly. The glint that had been in her eyes before seemed to glimmer even brighter than before.“Where is my brother?”Cassian, who had been silently watching this entire time finally moved. He slid into her view with the grace of someone who had been forced to do this multip

AMARAEvery breathe you’ll take is to your own demise.My eyes remained trained on my phone for longer than I’d have liked. The text glared back at me as if in mockery.I held back the urge to laugh.Almost a week since everything hit the fan and since the shot-gun engagement. And they were finally making their move.The blunt message from an anonymous sender stared back at me tauntingly. I didn’t need to go in depth or search furtively to know who it is.It could be narrowed down to three sources: My father, who had more reason to send an assassin for my head, my brothers, who quite frankly would never hold off the opportunity to meddle in my life in one way or the other. The last wasn’t something I wanted to admit to myself.Because accepting it was true would only pull me deeper than I was willing to go. Two sharp knocks on the door drew me out of my soliloquizing.I drop the phone without hesitation, and watched it hit the ground with a long clatter. Still riding the high, I stompe

AMARAThe chair was freezing.The heavy iron cuffs bit into my wrists with a brutal clack, locking my arms to the steel armrests. Cassian didn’t look at me as he secured the restraints. His jaw was set, his eyes fixed on the concrete wall of the holding cell."You know this is a mistake, Cassian." I said, my voice steady despite the frantic beating of my heart.Cassian checked the lock one last time. "Marcel Varco nearly put a bullet in the Boss’s skull at the downtown armory today. Your name is on the digital paper trail. My opinions don't matter."He turned on his heel, walked out, and slammed the heavy iron door. The lock engaged with a deafening thud.I was left in the buzzing silence of the dungeon, my mind spinning. Marcel Varco. An old acquaintance of Dante's father. A ghost. Varco had ambushed them downtown, and somehow, my phone was used to coordinate it.But how? I had been in the penthouse all morning. I hadn't spoken to anyone except Celeste.The heavy tumblers of the door

DANTE“Kaz, no!”Amara’s scream was the catharsis to what happened next. Before anyone could move towards Kaz, the glass imploded, sending shards of shrapnel flying in any and every direction.For someone who had been wearing such a smug grin a moment ago, he was also caught in the crossfire, the impact of the explosion sending him flying across the room.“Fuck.” He let out a groan that sounded frighteningly close to death.I could barely see anything. Could barely remain aware of anything that wasn’t my own breathing. I coughed, my chest spasming painfully.“What’s going on?” Amara’s cry was the first thing that reached my ear.It sounded a bit to the left. Swatting as much of the dust as I could, I reached out to nothing, still gritting my teeth as I held on to a dwindling hope.A few seconds of touching nothing, but broken glass, and I somehow found her. She wrapped her hand around mine instinctively, nearly collapsing into my hold. Despite the vision in the room being near nil, I