Chapter Two
Estelle
T he apartment's single bulb flickered above the kitchen table like a dying firefly, casting sickly yellow light over the dingy laptop I'd been staring at for what felt like centuries.
The air was thick with the smell of instant coffee, my third cup today, and that persistent mildew odor that clung to everything despite my weekly bleach wars with the bathroom tiles.
God, I was pathetic. I rubbed my eyes until stars danced behind my lids. Twenty-four years old, and this is my life. Giselle would be laughing her ass off.
Leo's soft snores drifted from the bedroom, the only peaceful sound in our chaotic world. Above us, the neighbors were having another one of their legendary fights, complete with bass-heavy music and what sounded like furniture being thrown.
To our left, someone was practicing what I could only assume was interpretive death metal on an electric guitar.
Welcome to paradise. I shifted in the wooden chair that had been trying to cripple me for the past four hours. The thing dug into my spine like it had a personal vendetta.
I squinted at the laptop screen, the words blurring together like they were written in a foreign language. The essay staring back at me was a masterpiece of teenage apathy: "She is a hero because she's brave and stuff."
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Shakespeare is rolling in his grave.
I dragged my hands over my face, feeling the grit of exhaustion settle deeper into my bones. The digital clock on our ancient stove blinked 12:17 AM in angry red numerals, each number a tiny accusation.
Four more essays to go, then the lesson plans for next week's remote tutoring sessions. Each session meant another seventy dollars toward keeping this roof, however leaky and depressing, over our heads.
Any kind of degree didn't get you very far when you grew up in the slums and looked like you belonged there.
I reached for my water bottle, taking a sip of what had once been ice water and was now tepid disappointment.
Everything in this apartment had a half-life. The ice melted too fast, the coffee went cold before you could finish it, and hope died a little more each day.
But I had to be the strong one. Leo needed me to be unbreakable, even when I felt like I was held together with duct tape and four mugs of coffee.
The apartment had settled into its nighttime routine of creaks and groans, punctuated by the skitter of god-knows-what in the walls. I'd given up trying to identify the source. As long as whatever lived in there stayed hidden, we had an understanding.
I leaned back, the chair groaning in protest, and checked the security app on my phone for the hundredth time tonight. Four camera feeds glowed back at me: front door interior, front door exterior, side window, back patio. All quiet and all clear.
For now .
Damon's men hadn't tailed us today, but they would again. They did it just to mess with us, to remind me that they were watching, waiting, calculating how much pressure it would take to make me crack.
The black SUV with tinted windows had become as familiar as the mailman, idling across the street like some sort of predatory animal.
I'd started switching up our route home, taking different buses, walking through the maze of back streets I'd learned to navigate as a kid.
I shook my head. I had to focus. Focus on something other than my impending doom.
But my traitorous mind had other ideas. Instead of concentrating on the essay about literary heroism, it wandered back to the golden man I'd met earlier.
Jax Easton.
Even thinking his name made something flutter stupidly in my chest. I could still see him in that classroom doorway, backlit by Seaside's crystal chandeliers like some sort of fallen angel who'd decided to slum it with the mortals.
He had golden hair that looked like it had been styled by professionals, a jawline that could cut glass, and that suit—that suit probably cost more than I made in six months.
He'd smelled like expensive cologne, something clean and masculine that made my mouth water and my brain short-circuit in ways it never did before.
I had to get it together. He wasn’t for me. He wasn’t even my species.
But it was his eyes that had engraved themselves in my head. Blue, the kind of electric blue you saw in magazine photos that had been Photoshopped to perfection. Except his were real.
They'd locked onto mine with an intensity that felt physical, like he was reaching across the classroom to touch me without moving an inch.
I'd met rich men before. Seaside was crawling with them during pickup, but none had looked at me like that. Like I was a mystery he needed to solve, a lock he wanted to pick.
Like I was worth looking at in the first place.
And the way he moved... All predatory grace and confident swagger, like he owned every room he entered and everyone in it should be grateful for his presence.
When he'd crouched down to talk to Avery, his thighs had strained against the fabric of his perfectly tailored pants, and I'd found myself wondering what those thighs would feel like under my hand?—
Stop it. I slammed my hand down on the table, the sound echoing through the quiet apartment. Stop thinking about his thighs. Stop thinking about him at all.
But the damage was done. My pulse picked up, heat pooling low in my belly in a way that was both mortifying and entirely unwelcome.
When was the last time I'd felt anything like this? When was the last time I thought about a man's body and felt that sharp spike of want?
It was never. Because I didn’t have time for want. I only had time for survival, and that was it.
I shoved away from the table, chair legs screeching against the scratched tiles, and paced to the window that overlooked our slice of urban paradise.
The streetlamp outside cast yellow light over the overflowing dumpster, its lid hanging open like a mouth mid-scream. Trash bags were torn open by raccoons, creating an abstract art piece from a horror movie.
I watched my reflection in the glass—hollow-cheeked, hair escaping from its ponytail in exhausted wisps, dark circles under my eyes like purple bruises. I looked exactly like what I was: an overworked, underfed guardian hanging on by her fingernails.
Definitely not the kind who turned his head.
Yet when he'd shaken my hand, his grip firm and warm, his thumb brushing across my knuckles in what could have been an accident but felt deliberate, I’d felt it. That spark, stupid and dangerous, shot up my arm and settled somewhere behind my ribs where it had no business being.
I'd yanked my hand back like he’d burned me, busying myself with Leo's backpack to hide the flush creeping up my neck like a neon sign advertising my attraction to a man who was so far out of my league he might as well have been from another planet.
"Estelle."
The way he'd said my name still echoed in my head, low and smooth. He'd tasted it on his tongue like he was trying to memorize the flavor, and I'd felt something inside me respond that had been dormant for so long I'd forgotten it existed.
No one had said my name like that in years. Maybe ever.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, watching my breath fog the surface. The street outside was empty except for a stray cat picking through the scattered garbage, its movements cautious and quick.
It was smart—survival first, everything else second.
Jax Easton was dangerous in ways that had nothing to do with his career in the ring. I'd seen the tabloids at the grocery store checkout, him draped over models at premieres, champagne flutes in jeweled hands, his smile all calculated charm and white teeth.
He was a comet blazing across the sky, beautiful and destructive, burning up everything in his path…
And I was a cold stone worn smooth by necessity, stuck to the earth by gravity and responsibility.
We existed in different universes.
Different dimensions.
Different realities.
Leo sighed in his sleep, the sound pulling me from my spiral of self-pity. I moved toward his doorway, drawn by the magnetic pull of maternal instinct that had taken root the night he became mine.
He'd kicked off his blankets again, small legs tangled in sheets that had been washed so many times they were pilling over. One arm was flung over his stuffed T-Rex, a birthday find that had become his most prized possession, while the other curled against his cheek like he was still a baby.
He was beautiful. Brown hair falling across his forehead, those long lashes that I envy, skin still holding the golden warmth of childhood.
I eased onto the edge of his bed and smoothed his hair back from his forehead.
Sometimes he got nightmares—fragments of memories from when Damon’s men appeared, confused images of raised voices and strange men with hard eyes. On those nights, I'd sit right here until dawn, guardian angel and bodyguard rolled into one exhausted package.
He deserved so much more than this. The thought hit me like it did every night, sharp and unforgiving. He deserved a room with windows, a bed that wasn't a thrift store rescue, a life where the sound of sirens didn't make him flinch.
But all I could give him was this: a roof that leaked when it rained hard, secondhand everything, and the fierce, desperate love of someone who would die before letting anyone hurt him.
Even if Damon could provide a better home, which was debatable considering his line of work, he'd pay for it with his soul. The cartel enforcer wanted his son groomed to take over his legacy of violence and drugs when he was old enough to hold a gun.
I tucked the blanket around Leo's small form, throat tight with the familiar cocktail of love and terror that defined my existence. He stirred lightly, mumbling something about dinosaurs, and my heart clenched like a fist.
I wouldn’t ever let them take him. Whatever it cost, whatever I had to do, he was staying with me.