chapter 19
Avira
Mama hums. “According to the lighting there, you should wear a dark color.”
“I’ll wear one of my yellow dresses,” I reply, chewing.
I don’t even care how much I will—or won’t—impress Roxion Marco, a Formula One racer and son of some very powerful man. He’s coming to San Diego from New York solely for this blind date. I can already picture myself marrying such a hardworking man.
I place my empty plate on the table and turn to Daddy. “Daddy, honestly, I’m not ready for marriage. I’m just nineteen. There are so many forty-year-old women I know who are happily single.”
“You’re at the perfect age for marrying, pumpkin. And unfortunately, you don’t have a cool enough dad to let you stay single forever.”
I pout. “Wen is also single, and Iselyn and Autumn are too.”
“It’s Wen’s turn after you, and Iselyn is also going to marry very soon. Damir told me he’s finding a suitable guy for her. And Autumn is younger than you.”
I scrunch my nose. “Pa is better than you, Daddy.”
He laughs. “Pa forced your aunt to marry Damir, knowing very well how much she loved Alessio.”
I purse my lips. “You all married the person you loved, and now you’re making your children go through arranged marriages.”
“No one is stopping you from marrying the man of your choice,” he says, flicking my forehead. “But you have none.”
I rub my forehead. I do have one, but he’s the ass who picked these men for me.
Mama speaks excitedly, “I ordered this dress for you. It will arrive in half an hour, then you can start getting ready.”
I glance at the dress on her phone. It’s the color of dark chocolate, smooth in texture, and simply beautiful. Now that I have the opportunity, I’ll flaunt my figure, disregard his judgment, and master the happy-without-you, fake-attitude energy for Zloban Bennett.
The place where we’re having this lunch date is a cozy restaurant owned by my family. It’s not very big, but the vibe is nice, though I’m dealing with a very strange problem here.
He’s nowhere near this restaurant. I’ve looked around so many times that I could recognize the face of every person sitting nearby, even if I met them on the street three days from now. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that he’s watching me. It may sound overdramatic, but I can feel his eyes on me.
And the Formula One racer is not here. What kind of girl shows up to her first date before the guy? And not five or ten, thirty minutes before, and he still hasn’t graced his ass here.
I take out my phone from my golden purse, snap a selfie with a pout, capturing the restaurant behind me, and send it to Wen.
As usual, she’s glued to her phone and texts me instantly.
Wen: ‘Holy shit. Who are you?’
Me: ‘Your hot sister.’
This dress could make a bamboo look hot.
Its wide neckline exposes my collarbones thoroughly.
It hugs my waist, the fabric over the chest falls in layered, flaring folds down the hips.
It ends mid-thigh. But of course she can’t see most of that in my selfie.
The hotter detail than the dress is my pony, hair not covering my collarbones is the whole point here.
Wen: ‘Babe, this Marco guy is going to fall flat on his ass. Be ready to witness his death.’
I grin.
Me: ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll send you a snap of his dead body.’
“Excuse me.” A thick voice comes from my left.
I look up and take in curly blonde hair, dark-blue eyes, a square-shaped face, definitely a handsome guy standing in front of me.
The image I had of him was far uglier than he actually is.
He has a face I could easily cast as a side character in my books.
And to ruin my date before it even starts, the face I usually reserve for every main character flashes in my head.
“Are you Avira Bennett?” he asks with a polite smile.
I stand, offer an awkward chuckle, I’ve just taken a small tour of content in my head while staring at his face. “Yeah. You must be Roxion.” I extend my hand, politely.
He takes my hand quickly. “Nice to meet you, Avira.”
“Same here, Roxion. You have a nice name, by the way.”
He releases my hand and sits opposite me, grinning. “You too, beautiful and unique, just like you.”
My cheeks heat at the first compliment of my life from an outsider. In the next moment, the hairs on my neck prick with a strange, ominous sensation.
“This is my first time in San Diego,” he says, looking out the window.
“I hope you like the city.”
He nods with a smile, a friendly one, not the grumpy scowl of some bastard. Don’t think about him, Avira. Remember he wants to get rid of you.
“So, what are your hobbies?” he asks.
“Writing.”
“Writing?”
“Short stories on blogs.” I can’t tell him my pen name before we’re literally married. I can’t risk letting people in the underworld know about it, or I won’t be able to attend any signing events. My father and my so-called adopted brother will force me to change the name.
“Ah, that’s a cute hobby. Can I get a subscription to them?” He smiles like he genuinely wants one.
I nod, returning the smile. “Why not. Give me your number and I’ll send you the link.”
I hand him my phone. He saves his number and returns it to me.
The waiter arrives to take our order. He chooses seared dry-aged ribeye and lobster mac and cheese.
I grin. “I also love the lobster mac and cheese,” then, looking at the waiter, “same for me, please.”
“So you’re a Formula One racer. I heard people in your profession have the reflexes of a cat. Can you show me some stunt?” I tease.
He laughs. “I would love to, if this place weren’t so sophisticated.”
I scan the surroundings. “No one will know. Let me toss this glass at you.”
He laughs harder. “You are very interesting. I was expecting something else.”
I throw the glass toward his left, and he catches it so quickly, placing it down as if it had always been there.
“Wow. Impressive.”
He chuckles. “Hearing this from Zloban Bennett’s sister means a lot.”
“You know him?” My question comes out bitter.
He nods. “I met him and Matleon at one of the Underworld races.”
“Ah, Leo has company that makes cars.”
He nods. “And Zloban participates in races with them.”
That’s something I had no idea about. It shows just how little I know about him.
“I didn’t know he participates in racing,” I mutter.
“He participates, and wins every single time. He sets records that only he could break.”
“That’s… nice. So, where in New York do you live?”
I change the topic. I have no interest in listening to his praises.
I’m so done with him being perfect at everything, feeling proud of that, and wanting to tell him how proud I am, how lucky I feel to have him as my man, only to get slapped with the reality that he doesn’t give a damn about how I feel and he’s not my man.
And I’m not just avoiding stories of him being amazing since yesterday, when he proved he had no feelings for me. It’s been this way ever since I stopped seeing him as my brother. Since I started hiding what I feel from him, from everyone.
Now, every desire I have suffocates me—wanting to do something but knowing I can’t.
You don’t get everything you want, Avira. You can’t have Zloban. Focus on the good man sitting across from you. But I’m not marrying him. He’s such a sweet man, he deserves someone who loves him, not someone who can never love anyone other than her adopted brother.
The waiter arrives with our food.
We start eating in silence.
After finishing, I offer him a walk outside. He agrees.
“I’ve always had an interest in high-speed vehicles,” I tell him as we stroll through the restaurant’s greenhouse rose garden. A low tune hums in the background, and a few couples sit scattered around.
He smiles. “You can come see my next tournament.”
“Okay. When is it?”
“Next Thursday. I’ll send you the ticket.”
I extend my hand. “Your phone.”
He places his hand on my palm instead of the phone, grinning mischievously. “You owe me your website link, Miss Bennett.”
He lifts my hand and twirls me around, making me giggle, but the sound is drowned out by the shattering of glass.
In the next second, I find myself on the floor with Roxion covering me. The screams and shouts of the startled couples fill the greenhouse. He shifts his body protectively, his face tense with a frown. “Let’s get out of here.”
The men Daddy sent with me also come into the greenhouse and surround us. He helps me up, then picks something from the floor, and we move out of the greenhouse, through the restaurant, and outside. His eyes scan the surroundings, on alert.
A car is waiting for us. He opens the door for me, helps me inside, and follows, closing the door behind him. His eyes constantly scan the outside through the windows, the seriousness on his face never fading.
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“It was Phantom.”
“Phantom who?”
He finally turns to me. “Underworld’s most-wanted sniper. He’s been very active since last night. My dad refused to let me come here because of it. LA and San Diego have been in red zones since last night.”
“But how do you know it was a sniper?” I ask.
He turns and shows me a cut on his bicep. I cover my mouth. “You need first aid.”
He shakes his head. “I’ll deal with it after I drop you off.”
“Was it from a bullet?”
He nods, frowning. “It wasn’t meant to kill. Phantom never misses his target. It was meant to chase us away. But why?” His frown deepens.
“And how do you know it’s that Phantom guy?” I ask, unable to follow.
He pulls a bullet from his pocket and shows me. The tip gleams black, the color merging into brown in a strange pattern. Intricate spiral grooves are etched along its shaft.
“This is Phantom’s bullet. No one knows how to replicate the coloration and pattern of this bullet.
Apart from the color, these grooves are another sign, they stabilize the shot over extreme distances.
Only he takes shots beyond three kilometers, and for that, he needs bullets like this.
If you see a bullet like this, it’s him. ”
He watches me with a serious look. “It could be related to you. I’ll tell Zloban about it.”
I nod and look away.
Underworld’s most-wanted sniper. Phantom. An old conversation between Pa and Ma replays in my head, one I didn’t understand back then but can now, very clearly.
“He’s something humans have never seen before, Flora. He can aim from distances people can’t even imagine. I’m so proud of him.” Pa’s voice had been full of pride.
Ma scoffed. “You’re proud of training someone to kill. His intelligence could have been used for the benefit of humanity, but you and Alex are too busy turning him into a weapon.”
“We’re not making him into anything. No one can force him to be what he doesn’t want to be.
You can’t understand what satisfies his soul.
He’s capable of destroying the whole world and feeling not an ounce of regret afterward.
He becomes Phantom when his darkness focuses on killing a single person.
That’s far better than burning everything to the ground. ”
I need to see him and ask what he wants. First he staged this bullshit, and then he hurt the very person he called here from New York to go on a date with me.