Chapter 3
Aoife
Iadjust my collar a third time and stare at the girl in the mirror, waiting for her to crack and reveal me.
A gray cardigan is allowed instead of the black jacket if the weather ever warms, which is rare in Hollow Edge. Plaid skirt. Gold crest branded over my heart. Uniform snug as a trap.
My fingers brush over the crest and I laugh. Mafia families hate each other yet send us to the same school.
These four years will be long.
I smooth invisible wrinkles out of my skirt. The tie strangles my throat, but I keep it tight. Punishment. A reminder. The ring on my finger glints under the light, too bright, like it’s laughing at me.
I get in the car, trading one prison for another, the latter being marriage. The drive’s short. Hollow Edge blurs past as Blackstone swells ahead.
We stop just outside the gates, where all the students slowly exit their cars. They make you walk through the gates to feel the building’s power.
I step out. The air thickens, chills. Blackstone looms ahead. Every step toward the building feels heavier, the closer I get, the more I feel it, the history, the power. Shadows whisper names to see who flinches. I do.
I pass through the gates and pause at the base of the stone staircase, tilting my head back. The archways above the main doors are lined with gargoyles. Watching, waiting for their next victim. The stairs gleam dark and slick, as if blood has washed over them more than soap.
Walking inside, the air shifts again.
Candles flicker in black sconces. Chandeliers sway. The grand staircase, oak and iron, wide enough for an army. It rises to a landing where stained-glass filters light like confession. The stairs hum with memory. I ache to know their history.
I force myself to move. Step by step. Breath by breath.
Students file in around me, their voices a low murmur. I keep my head down, ears open. I hear names in sharp accents, O'Connell, Vasilyeva, Moretti, Harper, Zhang. Mafia blood. Dynasty blood.
Every crime family has a representative—Irish, Italian, Russian, Middle Eastern, Korean. Everyone is someone or owned by someone.
But the rules? The rules are ironclad. No fights in public. No blood in the halls. No retaliation without permission.
You want to survive Blackstone? You follow the rules. I don’t know what happens if you break them, because I’ve not heard of anyone who dared to.
I keep moving with the flow of students, heading toward the registrar’s booth at the far side of the entry hall. I feel someone staring.
I see him.
Across the corridor, half in shadow, wearing the uniform, tie loose, shirt open enough to show the chain at his throat. Rolled sleeves showing his tattooed arms, matte black watch. Effortlessly disheveled. Matteo Messina.
My heart stutters, slams. He’s watching me.
I look away fast, fixing my gaze on the front of the line. My pulse screams behind my ribs. The weight of the ring on my finger feels like lead. I force myself to breathe, to move, to pretend like I didn’t just feel the ground tilt under my feet.
He’s the enemy. Always has been. Always will be.
Even if I wasn’t engaged, he’s the last person I should be looking at. Yet… he looked at me first. At least that’s what I’m going to tell myself.
I walk over to the board where the other students are standing around. Above are letters, and I go to the one for the letter O, and I scan it until I find my name: Aoife O’Brien – Room 317B. Paired with: Nora Quinn.
Quinn. I know the name. Lower-level Irish crew, dock shipment family. Not high-tier like mine, but still part of the structure. I’ve never spoken to her.
I head toward the dormitory halls, following a group of girls climbing another staircase.
Everything in this building creaks, but not with age, more like a warning.
The corridor stretches ahead, mirrors warped from age bending our reflections into strangers.
Brass numbers cling to each door, old and dull, like they’ve survived things no one speaks about.
I find our room and push the door open. Dark and cold. Stone and old perfume. A single narrow window. Two iron beds. Scarred desks. Walls stained with unsaid stories.
Nora’s already here, sitting cross-legged on her bed, unpacking books.
She looks up. “Aoife?”
“Yes.”
“I figured.” She doesn’t smile, but there’s no hate in her voice. Just calm recognition. “I’m Nora,” she says. “We’ve never met, but our dads did business once. I think yours took over that whole port line after.”
I nod, unsure what to say. “You’re Quinn Shipping?” I ask.
“We are. Now it’s just me and my brother keeping it afloat.” She shrugs. “You know how it is.”
I don’t. Not really. My family doesn’t struggle; they don’t survive. They conquer.
She unzips a duffel bag and pulls out a Blackstone map. “Wanna walk the grounds once we’re unpacked?” she asks. “Scope out the routes. Figure out who’s here this year.”
I nod again, this time with a little more ease. She doesn’t treat me like I’m precious, doesn’t treat me like I’m poisoned either. For the first time today, I almost feel like I might breathe normally again. Almost.
By the time our bags are unpacked and our beds claimed, the sun’s crawling through the high windows like it’s reluctant to shine here. Blackstone Academy doesn’t feel like it belongs to the real world. It feels like it exists between lives, where past sins breathe, and future ones wait to be born.
Nora stretches, arms overhead, and smirks. “Ready to meet the wolves?”
“Let’s get it over with,” I mutter, pulling my blazer back on.
We step into the corridor, and the air is even thicker than before. It always is when the place is filling with power. You can taste it in the silence.
We wander through the east wing first, high arched ceilings, massive oil paintings with cracked varnish, and rows of lockers more like private vaults than school storage.
Nora walks like she owns the place, even if she doesn’t. In a place like this, confidence keeps you from being eaten. I respect it. She nods at people in passing, mostly Irish kids. Some I recognize. Some I don’t.
In the courtyard, three guys in Blackstone jackets smoke like extras from a gangster film. The tall blond waves us over.
“You two look like fresh meat,” he says, grinning.
“Seasoned enough,” Nora fires back.
We laugh, and it eases my chest. Sean Gallagher, Rory Burke, Lena Doyle. Names that matter back home, kids raised in loyalty and fear.
“Heard they still run midnight sessions,” Lena says, voice low.
“Still not allowed to talk about nights,” Sean says. “Old stories.”
“Ghosts,” Rory mutters.
“What happens if someone breaks the rule?” I ask.
Silence. Maybe they don’t know either.
Rory flicks ash. “You disappear.” True, or just a story to scare us. I don’t question it.
Maybe it’s best not to talk about what we don’t know.
We keep walking toward the west garden.
And I feel it again, that crawl down my spine, like eyes sliding over my skin, stopping at the back of my neck, pressing between my shoulder blades. I don’t need to look to know who it is.
Matteo.
He’s here.
I feel him like static, like a storm cloud rolling in slow and quiet. I grit my teeth, keeping my gaze forward, and head down the corridor like nothing’s happening.
But it’s happening.
I round the corner and slam into him. My breath hisses. His warm calloused hand snags my elbow. I jerk back, his touch still ghosting my skin.
“Hello, little lamb,” he says, low and smooth, mocking, dangerous.
My jaw clenches. “Get out of my way.”
He doesn’t move.
“Didn’t think you’d show,” he says, eyes scanning my face. “Figured the sea swallowed you.” His lips curl, but I don’t look away, not even when he drags on his cigarette.
“Disappointed?”
“Not the word I’d use.” I feel it again, that twist in my gut. That pull, that heat, and I hate it.
I shift my weight, trying to step around him, but he mirrors me.
“You always run?” he asks.
“I’m not running,” I snap at him, which only makes him smile again.
“You’re wearing a ring that says otherwise.” His eyes drop to the ring, a symbol, a sentence.
“Watch yourself,” I say. “Some of us bite.”
He steps closer. I don’t move; I won’t. Even though every inch of me wants to bolt, breathe and scream.
“Good,” he murmurs. “I like teeth.” The air between us tightens. Hate. Heat. Something dark and tempting.
“You’re the enemy,” I say flatly. He must know that, he must know our families despise each other.
Is this a game?
“And you’re pretending that still matters.” My hand curls into a fist at my side.
“It does,” I whisper.
He leans in, not touching, not quite. Just close enough to let his breath ghost across my cheek.
“Then why aren’t you walking away?” he asks.
I take a step back, finally. “Because I know better,” I say. What the fuck does that mean? I should walk away, but for some reason I can’t move.
“Do you?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. I turn and walk, every step feeling heavier than the last.
He doesn’t follow, but I can still feel his eyes burning into me.
“Then why aren’t you walking away?”
I grip the stairwell as I descend. He’s a Messina. I’m an O’Brien. That should be enough.
But it isn’t.
“Hey.” Nora’s voice finds me halfway down the stairs. She jogs to catch up, sharp eyes locking on mine. She saw. I know she did. “You okay?” she asks, but it’s not soft. It’s edged with suspicion.
“I’m fine,” I lie. I can’t tell her the truth.
“That was Matteo Messina, wasn’t it?” I stop walking. She crosses her arms. “What the hell was that, Aoife?”
I turn toward her, jaw clenched. “It was nothing.”
“Didn’t look like anything,” she points out, but I’m sure everyone in this place knows what my Uncle did to his family, so everyone will know there is no kindness there for me.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters here,” she says. “You don’t bump into a Messina for nothing.” I look past her, where daylight bleeds through stained glass, golds and reds streaking stone like blood.
“I’m engaged,” I say quietly. “To someone else.”
Nora doesn’t blink. “Exactly.”
We start walking again, silent this time, until we reach the hallway outside our room. The sound of laughter floats up from the common lounge below. Someone’s playing piano in the main hall, low, eerie, too elegant for the hour.
“I get it,” she says. “He’s something but dangerous. With your family history, he’d want your blood and his family owns this school. The city too. They’re untouchable.”
“I’m not interested.”
She drops it, and I’m thankful.
We change into Blackstone’s loungewear. Even that feels like a uniform, like the school owns us.
The loudspeaker cracks overhead. “Curfew in thirty minutes. Lights out at eleven. Common areas locked until morning. Gardens open but guarded.”
Nora cracks the window, and cool damp air slips in. The academy glows gold, every window lit like a secret. Beyond the gates, the Hollow deepens darker.
I sit on the ledge, tucking my knees up, staring at the courtyard below.
“Do you think any of the stories are true?” I ask.
Nora shrugs. “Depends on which stories you’re talking about.”
“The ones about what happens after lights out.”
She leans against the opposite wall, arms folded. “I think there’s always truth in legend, and I think people with power like to test the edges of it.”
A flicker in the courtyard arch. A tall figure walks alone, hands in pockets.
Matteo.
He doesn’t look up, doesn’t pause. Vanishes into the eastern wing like the building swallowed him.
I lie back, the ceiling high and dark, like a sky out of reach.
My ring catches the light. Reminder. Weight. Cage.
Promised to a future I didn’t choose. A man I don’t want. A world never mine.
Matteo watched me like he knew a truth I refused to face. Like he saw past the ring and the name, straight into the storm I won’t speak aloud.
I close my eyes. Sleep won’t come. Not tonight.