Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
BASTION
Luca was one second away from having a breakdown over a hoodie.
Not even a nice one. Just one of Emilia’s ratty, oversized, thread-pulling ones she wore when she wanted to be difficult.
And today? She wanted to be difficult.
“You can’t just shove it like that,” he muttered, snatching the hoodie from her hands and folding it like he was filing legal documents instead of packing.
Emilia flopped dramatically onto the mattress, the zipper of the duffel bag smacking her wrist as she went. “Why not? Someone else is gonna deal with it when I get back anyway.”
Luca’s jaw twitched. “That’s not the point.”
“It’s literally exactly the point,” she said, already reaching for another pile of clothes. She balled up a silk shirt like it was a rag and launched it into the duffel. “Not my job. Not my mess.”
She wasn’t even looking at him now.
That pissed him off more.
“You don’t get it,” he said under his breath.
“Nope,” she said. “And I’m not trying to. ”
I stood in the doorway, watching him spiral. Watching her push him.
This wasn’t about the shirt. Or the suitcase. Or even the flight.
This was about her .
Because she was leaving, and Luca couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t plan around it. Couldn’t schedule it into a pretty little checklist the way he’d done with everything else in his life.
Packing was the only thing he could still control—and she was ripping it out of his hands one crumpled over expensive fashion piece at a time.
“Luca,” I said quietly.
He didn’t answer. Just folded the hoodie again—tighter this time—then opened a new section of the bag and reorganized everything she’d touched.
“You’re gonna have to let her pack like a menace, man.”
“She’s not a menace,” he muttered.
“Did you just see her socks ? She threw them like confetti.”
She smirked at that, still sprawled on the bed like she wasn’t lighting fire to every nerve in his body.
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” she said, softer now. “It’s not like I’m coming back.”
That was the problem.
We were not coming back.
Not to this room. Not to this campus. Not to her.
Seven more days, and we’d be flying to Villain for good. Taking our place in the empire. Setting up territory. Managing our inherited kingdoms like loyal sons of the dynasty machine.
We’d already been flying in and out more—meetings, site inspections, estate preparations. And every time we left, it got harder to return. Not because we didn’t want to. But because coming back to her was starting to feel like waking up inside a dream we knew we were about to lose .
Vince noticed first.
“Why the fuck are you two dragging this out?” he’d asked a week ago, flicking ash into a tray like he wasn’t gutting us with every word. “You’ve already got the keys to the city. You’re stalling.”
We didn’t answer him.
Nik just leaned back and said, “Let ’em have two more weeks of fun.”
As if that’s all this was.
Fun.
As if she was just a college fling, a reckless twin fixation we’d forget once the skyline of Villain swallowed us whole.
But she wasn’t fun.
She was the thing killing us slowly.
Every new laugh, every stretch of bare skin under soft light, every time she let us touch her, hear her, love her— ruined us.
We hadn’t told anyone it was her. That this was why we were clinging to academy walls like boys who hadn’t already bled men.
But Nik knew.
Vince suspected.
And Emilia?
She packed like none of it mattered.
Like what we had wasn’t delicate and temporary and already counting down.
Luca finally gave up. He tossed the folded hoodie onto the bed, raking a hand through his hair like he was trying to exorcise the obsession.
Emilia stood and stretched, the hem of her shirt lifting just enough to show the curve of her stomach. She walked toward the second duffel bag by the window, then paused.
“How’s Villain? ”
The question hit sharper than it should’ve.
I glanced at Luca. He was already looking at me.
Neither of us answered.
Emilia nodded like she didn’t expect us to. “That good, huh?”
She crouched to shove a pair of heels into the side pocket, but she wasn’t really focused on the shoes anymore. Her voice was light, too light. The kind of casual that wasn’t casual at all.
“I’m flying out early next week,” she said. “Back to the estate overseas.”
That was the first matchstick.
Luca went rigid.
I blinked once, slow. “You what?”
She stood up, dusted her hands off, and turned like it wasn’t a bomb she’d just dropped. “My mother’s hosting that gala—what is it? The Midsummer something-or-other. Anyway, I’m expected.”
Of course she was.
A legacy daughter at a legacy event.
But hearing her say it—hearing the finality of leaving in her voice—felt like being gutted from the inside out.
Not the gala. Not the estate.
Gone.
And we weren’t even going to be here when she left.
She stepped toward us, hands on her hips now, gaze cutting between us like she was tired of pretending we didn’t all know how this would end.
“Stop stalling.”
Luca flinched.
“You belong there,” she said. “In the city. Not here, hovering around a dorm room just because I’m still in it.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it .
She exhaled slowly, then said it—clear, final, like she’d rehearsed it.
“That’s why I’m not coming back next semester.”
The air in the room dropped ten degrees.
“I talked to Alexander. We agreed it makes more sense for me to finish the last semester overseas. Focus on family obligations. Brush up on my French.”
Luca turned fully toward her. “You’re serious.”
She nodded once. “Yeah.”
I stared at her, trying to understand what I was hearing—what she was really saying.
“You’re just leaving?” I asked.
Her jaw ticked. “I won’t have you flying back and forth just to check on me. Splitting your attention, splitting your loyalty… that’s how men like you die.”
Luca’s hands were clenched into fists at his sides now.
I saw the way her hand moved—subtle, but deliberate—as she reached for something near her suitcase.
Then she turned, crossed the room, and dropped a thick envelope onto the bed with a dull thump .
The second it hit the mattress, I knew.
So did Luca.
Because stamped in red wax, still intact, was the Adams family seal.
My stomach dropped.
“What the fuck is that?” Luca asked, his voice quieter now. Dangerous.
Emilia’s tone matched it. “A contract.”
Neither of us moved.
She crossed her arms again and looked at me first, then Luca. “It came last week. Overseas estate. Summer gala circuit. Political networking. Some old dynasty arrangement Alexander pulled up from the vault and decided to make useful again.”
My chest turned to ice. “A betrothal?”
She didn’t answer.
But she didn’t have to.
Luca reached for the contract. His fingers hovered above the seal, trembling slightly before he snatched his hand back like it burned.
And then she dropped three more contracts onto the bed.
Each one just as thick. Each one stamped in gold and blood.
Luca’s head snapped down.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.
“All of them,” she said calmly, almost too calmly. “Caplans. Rhone. Even the fucking Thatch heir. All promised meetings. Formal evaluations. Summer events lined up like cattle auctions.”
I couldn’t speak.
“I’m not the powerhead,” she said softly. “I’m the person married to the powerhead. That’s what dynasty daughters are. We carry the bloodlines, link the names, bind the contracts. That’s the job.”
“Bullshit.” Luca was shaking now.
“It’s not bullshit. It’s legacy. It’s everything I was raised to do.”
“You’re not doing that ,” he spat. “You’re not auctioning yourself?—”
“I’m not,” she snapped, voice suddenly trembling. “ They are. My name. My body. My bloodline. None of it’s ever been mine to give.”
Her chest rose and fell like she was holding in a scream.
“This is killing me,” she whispered .
“Then marry us ,” Luca said. “You want to talk about dynasty? About bloodlines? Then tie yours to ours and end it. ”
Silence.
“You know we can’t,” she said, broken. “Crows aren’t allowed to take a marriage oath until twenty-one.”
She looked away.
“And even then,” she added, “your grandfather chooses the bride. Or… brides.”
Luca flinched. I went still. Because I knew exactly who the fuck she meant.
Damius Crow.
The man who’d haunted every chapter of our childhood. The man still sitting, watching the empire Vince built like it was his own personal chessboard.
The reason I had to fake a different personality every time we went fucking home.
I looked at Luca.
He was already spiraling, jaw locked, arms tense, fists at his sides like he was trying to hold something in.
But it wasn’t working. I could see it in the way his chest rose too fast, the way his mouth kept twitching like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find words sharp enough to cut through what he was feeling.
Because the thought was too loud in both our heads.
What if we’re forced to marry someone else?
What if we’re separated?
The dynasty wouldn’t allow us to share her. Not like this. Not in the open.
They’d tear the choice out of our hands and gift-wrap us for legacy deals—different wives, different houses, different lives. All under the fucking guise of tradition.
Emilia wasn’t just some beautiful thing we touched too long and got addicted to. She wasn’t some college-year fling or rebellion or phase we’d grow out of.
She was the part that made me feel whole .
Like I could finally breathe.
Like I could finally belong to something without having to break myself to do it.
And now?
Now she was standing in front of us with contracts in her hands— elegant , expensive , dynasty-stamped contracts—and all of them were threats. Each one a pretty piece of parchment designed to pull her away. One inch at a time.
Not because she wanted to go.
But because her last name said she had to.
Because in our world, want didn’t matter.
Only duty did.
Emilia didn’t say anything else.