All Chapters of SAVED BY MY BROTHERS : Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

The morning shift had a particular quality that Lilly had not fully appreciated until she was standing in the middle of it having gone to bed at two in the morning.She moved through the restaurant on autopilot — wiping down the counter, checking the orders, trying to remember why she had agreed to cover this shift — when a voice cut through the noise.“Are you okay?”She looked up.Ethan.Standing at the counter, looking at her with the careful attention she had noticed he gave most things, unhurried and genuine.“I’m yes. I’m okay.” She straightened. “Thank you. For last night. You didn’t have to do that.”He nodded once, accepting the gratitude without making anything of it. “Can I get a burrito?”“Of course.”She put the order in and had it back to him within minutes, sliding it across the counter.“Here you go.”He took it. Paused. “Aren’t you tired? You were at the party until late and now you’re here.”Lilly looked at him. “I didn’t plan the scheduling very well,” she admitted.

Lilly found a seat in the stands and told herself this was fine.She did not like hockey. She had never liked hockey. The noise, the speed, the general atmosphere of controlled aggression — none of it was her. But she was here, in the stands, with her scarf and her determination, because a supporting girlfriend showed up to watch her boyfriend play. Even a fake one.She settled in and looked at the ice and prepared herself.“Hi.”She turned. A girl had taken the seat beside her — pretty, put-together, smiling with the open friendliness of someone who considers strangers a resource.“Hi,” Lilly said.“Are you here to watch our team?”“Yes.”“Amazing. Who are you rooting for specifically?” The girl leaned in slightly. “In the team, I mean.”Lilly smiled with just enough awkwardness to be genuine. “Zane, I think.”“Same.” The girl’s smile stayed but something behind it adjusted. “How do you know him? Are you two friends or—”“Zane’s Mauli.”Jade dropped into the seat on Lilly’s left, com

Lilly didn’t go back to the dorm that night.She sent Hannah a quick message — something came up, don’t wait up — and stayed.They talked for hours, the two of them, moving through grief and memory and the years in between with the particular ease of people who were always meant to find each other again. At some point the talking slowed and the quiet took over and they both simply fell asleep where they were.The smell reached her before she fully woke up.Pancakes. Warm and buttery and specific in the way that certain smells are specific — not just a food but a feeling, a place, a version of a morning that belonged somewhere safe.Lilly opened her eyes.Maya was standing beside the bed holding a tray — pancakes, a cup of tea, a small pot of honey — smiling the way she used to smile when Lilly was small and mornings were uncomplicated.“Wake up, my love. Eat.”“Good morning, Aunty.” Lilly pushed herself up slowly, still half inside sleep.“How did you sleep?”“Well. Really well.”She

Lilly held Rue’s gaze and didn’t look away.“I feel deeply sorry for your mother,” she said. Her voice was even and clear and carried exactly as far as it needed to. “Because if she is as powerful as you claim — if her name is everything you say it is — she wouldn’t be proud of a daughter who hides behind it to ruin other people’s reputations.” She paused. “All because a boy she liked didn’t like her back.”Rue’s expression did something complicated. Then she scoffed, collected herself with the practiced efficiency of someone who has learned to retreat without appearing to, and grabbed Hannah’s hand. They walked out.The class watched them go.Lilly stood in the particular silence that follows when something has been said that changes the shape of a room, and felt the questions she didn’t have answers to begin to arrange themselves behind her eyes.Hannah caught her in the corridor just outside the lecture room, her face carrying the specific pale quality of someone who has just had a

She stopped halfway down the street.I could destroy her with one word, she thought. One call to Mum and everything Rue has built her confidence on crumbles in an afternoon.The thought sat there, available and tempting.She didn’t use it.That wasn’t who she was. Not yet. Maybe not ever. She had come here to be Lilly — just Lilly — and the moment she reached for her mother’s name as a weapon she became something else entirely.She started walking again.And how am I going to tell Hannah I quit?She was still composing that conversation in her head when a hand grabbed her wrist and she walked directly into something solid.She looked up.Zane.“Why did you do that?” She hit his chest with the side of her fist. Solid as a wall. “You scared me.”“I’m sorry, Mauli.” He held up both hands. “I was coming to check on you at the restaurant. I saw you walking out looking like you were planning someone’s funeral and I didn’t want to get in your way so I waited. Surprise.”“I wasn’t planning an