Chapter 3 #3
I didn’t know he was the eldest grandson of the Flynn family.
And I certainly didn’t know that behind the wealth and prestige surrounding his family was a boy who lived with cruelty, abuse, and hatred every single day.
I only knew he looked...
Broken.
He stopped at the edge of the lake before slowly stepping into the water.
I frowned.
The lake was deceptively deep.
Everyone attending the gathering knew that.
Even experienced swimmers avoided venturing too far from the shore.
My fingers tightened around the lilac branch.
What was he doing?
He took another cautious step.
Then another.
The water rose to just below his knees before he finally stopped.
I released the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
Then someone else appeared.
Another teenage boy.
Irish.
About Romeo’s height.
I wouldn’t learn until years later that he was Sergei Flynn.
Romeo’s younger half-brother.
The son of his grandfather’s mistress.
Yet, despite his birth, Sergei was the cherished one—the child the Flynn family adored, protected, and favored without question.
While Romeo...
Romeo was the one they neglected, despised, and made suffer.
He approached from behind so quietly that Romeo never heard him.
Without warning...
He shoved him.
Hard.
Romeo pitched forward into the deeper part of the lake.
The splash echoed across the water.
For a heartbeat...
Nothing happened.
Then frantic arms broke the surface.
He was drowning.
The other boy merely watched.
A slow, satisfied smirk crossed his face.
Then he turned his back...
...and walked away.
As though he had simply discarded something he no longer wanted.
“Help!”
Romeo’s voice barely carried across the water before another wave swallowed it.
No one heard him.
The orchestra inside the ballroom drowned out every desperate cry.
The adults continued laughing, drinking, and dancing.
The children remained scattered across the gardens, too busy arguing over imaginary dragons and fairy tales to notice.
I didn’t think.
I ran.
The cold water swallowed my shoes as I splashed toward him.
I couldn’t swim.
I knew that.
But leaving him there wasn’t an option.
Near the shoreline lay a long fallen tree branch.
I seized it with both hands and pushed farther into the lake until the freezing water reached my waist.
“Take it!” I screamed.
Romeo’s movements were growing weaker.
His head disappeared beneath the surface.
Then, at the last possible second...
His hand broke through the water and caught the branch.
I planted my feet into the muddy lakebed and pulled with everything I had.
He was heavy.
Far heavier than I had expected.
The branch bent dangerously.
I slipped.
My feet disappeared beneath me.
For one terrifying moment, I thought we were both going under.
Somehow...
I found my footing again.
With one final desperate pull, I dragged him close enough to grab hold of his shirt.
I hauled him toward the shore inch by agonizing inch.
Just as we reached the bank, my stomach slammed against something sharp hidden beneath the water.
A jagged piece of rusted metal.
Pain exploded through my abdomen.
I gasped.
Warmth spread beneath my dress.
Blood.
But I ignored it.
Using every ounce of strength I had left, I pulled Romeo fully onto the grass before collapsing beside him.
He wasn’t moving.
Water spilled from his mouth.
I rolled him onto his side exactly as I had once seen in a first-aid demonstration at school.
Nothing.
Panic clawed at my chest.
I turned him onto his back and placed both trembling hands against his chest, pressing down over and over again, silently begging him to breathe.
“Please...”
Another push.
Another.
Another.
Then he coughed violently.
Water poured from his mouth as he drew in a ragged breath.
Relief crashed over me so suddenly my eyes filled with tears.
“I... I did it...”
I leaned closer, ready to give him another breath if he needed it.
Only then did I notice the blood covering his white shirt.
My heart lurched.
For one horrifying second, I thought he had been stabbed.
Then dizziness washed over me.
The blood wasn’t his.
It was mine.
It poured relentlessly from the deep wound across my abdomen, soaking both of us in crimson.
The shouting started almost immediately.
Adults came running from every direction.
The music inside the ballroom stopped.
Family guards. Servants. Medics.
Everyone surrounded us.
Strong hands lifted me away from Romeo despite my weak protests.
“I have to stay with him...”
No one listened.
The last thing I remembered was catching one final glimpse of Romeo coughing up lake water...
Before darkness swallowed me whole.
The memory dissolved, pulling me back to the present.
To this day...
Romeo Flynn had no idea I was the one who had risked my life to save his.
He believed it had been Yarina.
She had claimed the credit while I lay unconscious in the hands of the medics.
He believed her.
From that day forward, they grew closer with each passing month.
And I could do nothing except watch from a distance as the boy who unknowingly owned a piece of my heart gave his trust... and eventually his affection... to someone else.
Yarina let out a quiet laugh, the sound carrying an unsettling confidence.
“You still don’t understand, do you?”
She crossed one leg over the other, completely at ease.
“The Romeo Flynn I knew ten years ago died the day he walked into Ravencliff. The man who walked out...” She smiled. “...is something far more dangerous.”
“I was at Flynn Manor earlier today. I watched him wipe out almost an entire generation of his own family without blinking.”
“Men begged. Women screamed.”
“He didn’t care. Only his grandfather was spared.”
She tilted her head, studying my reaction with unmistakable satisfaction.
“He controls the Flynn empire now. He commands an army. He has more money than most governments. And when Romeo Flynn gives an order...”
“...people die.”
A slow smile spread across her face.
“So let’s stop pretending this ridiculous arrangement has any chance of succeeding.”
She rested an elbow on the armrest, her expression almost admiring.
“Romeo doesn’t love you. He has never seen you. He has never wanted you.”
Her voice softened, becoming almost cruel.
“But he has loved me for years. I’m the woman he came back for. I’m the woman he would burn kingdoms to protect.”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“So if you think you’re going to marry him, spend two years in his house, walk away with hundreds of billions, and somehow keep him...”
She laughed.
“You are gravely mistaken. Romeo Flynn is mine. And if you dare try to take what’s mine...”
Her smile widened. “I’ll make sure you regret it for the rest of your life.”
Father leaned back in Grandfather’s leather chair, his fingers steepled beneath his chin as he absorbed everything Yarina had said.
His expression gave nothing away, but I knew that look.
It was the face of a man weighing risks, calculating outcomes, and searching for the move that would leave him three steps ahead.
Silence settled over the room.
No one seemed eager to break it.
I lowered my gaze to the legal documents resting in my lap, but the words no longer made sense. The elegant print blurred together until all I could see was a single name.
Romeo Medved Flynn.
Of course, the man who had walked free today wasn’t the quiet young man I’d once admired from afar.
He had become something far more dangerous.
A man capable of annihilating his own family.
A man powerful enough to reshape the city’s criminal underworld in a single day.
Any sensible woman would stay as far away from him as possible.
And perhaps I should have done the same.
Especially when his heart already seemed to belong to my sister.
I wasn’t about to compete for a man who clearly wanted another woman.
Walking away should have been the easiest decision of my life.
The thought stole the air from my lungs.
Because I knew I was lying.
Lying to Father. Lying to Yarina.
Lying to myself.
Ten years had passed...
Yet some hopeless part of me still longed for Romeo Flynn to notice me.
To truly see me.
And, impossible as it seemed...
To one day love me.
The room suddenly felt smaller, the walls closing in beneath the weight of old memories.
I had spent years trying to bury those feelings.
Years trying to convince myself that a childish crush was exactly that.
Childish.
I threw myself into relationships with men who looked perfect on paper.
A quiet accountant whose greatest ambition was opening his own investment firm. He remembered anniversaries, brought flowers for no reason, and treated me with unfailing kindness.
I felt nothing.
Then came the ambitious lawyer who filled candlelit dinners with poetry and grand promises about the future. He was intelligent, handsome, and charming enough to make my friends jealous.
Still nothing.
After him, I dated one of the younger associates from an allied Bratva organization. Unlike the others, he understood the dangers surrounding my family. He never asked uncomfortable questions or flinched at armed bodyguards waiting outside restaurants.
He should have been the right choice.
He wasn’t.
Each relationship ended the same way.
Respect.
Affection.
Friendship.
But never love.
Because somewhere along the way, Romeo Medved Flynn had become a part of me.
He had become my first love without ever realizing I’d existed beyond being Yarina’s sister.
And I had accepted that reality years ago.
He had loved Yarina.
Not me.
Never me.
So why...
Why would fate drag us back into each other’s lives now?
Not through chance. Not through forgiveness.
But through a marriage contract drafted by two people who were already dead.
The irony was almost cruel enough to laugh at.
I tightened my grip on the documents until the edges dug into my palms.
This had stopped being about money. About investment portfolios or diamond mines.
It was about reopening a wound I’d fought for years to close.
And judging by everything Yarina had said...
Romeo had returned as someone capable of breaking far more than hearts.
Father finally spoke.
“But, Yarina...”