Chapter 4
SHANNEN
The ballroom swallows the light like it's hungry for it. It's pitch black, save for the occasional flicker of lightning through the towering windows—dramatic as hell, maybe even a little cliché, but there’s something darkly erotic about it. The music pulses low and heavy, making the floor vibrate under my heels. Almost everyone here is wearing a mask, pretending to be someone they’re not, and it’s perfect.
People are clustered together, laughing with friends—probably with the same people who once made my life a fucking nightmare—but I don’t recognize any of them. Not really. Most of their faces are hidden, and even if they weren’t… I never cared enough to remember them.
Except for one.
There’s only one face burned into my memory. One face I can’t forget, no matter how hard I’ve tried. But as my eyes sweep the room, heart thrashing so hard in my chest it feels like it might burst through my throat, he’s nowhere to be seen.
I shove that familiar twist of panic back down into the pit of my stomach where it needs to stay and force myself through the crowd, shouldering past sequined wings and dollar-store capes, dodging plastic skulls and cobwebs strung like nooses across the ceiling.
The Halloween crap is a little over-the-top, but as I move toward the edge of the room and spot the bartender, I come to a complete stop, staring at him like a dick-starved demon who’s two seconds from begging to be ruined on the sticky side of the bar.
He’s got that face-paint thing going on—white and black smeared like war paint, hollowed-out eyes, and a smirk that says he’d follow you down a dark alley… not to hurt you, but to fuck you raw against a brick wall while you clawed at his shoulders and begged for more.
Yeah. I’m into it.
Okay. Fuck Phoenix.
The demon behind the bar leans forward on his forearms and tilts his head, waiting for me to say something, but before I can get a word out, someone slides up behind me, close enough that I can feel their heat on my back.
“The lady will have red wine. It matches her hair.”
Lame.
The second I turn my head, the floor drops out from under me as recognition slams into me like a car crash I saw coming and still couldn’t avoid.
He’s wearing a Phantom mask—white, pristine, and theatrical as hell.
It only covers half his face, but he doesn’t need a full disguise.
I’d know him anywhere. Not because he looks different, because he doesn’t.
That mouth is still carved in the same smug, mocking line it always was.
And the way he stands there, comfortable and cocky, makes my skin crawl.
Brandon Michaelson.
He used to slap my books out of my hands just to watch me crawl around on the dirty floor.
He'd hurl trash at me in the middle of a crowded hallway—apple cores, wads of gum still wet from his mouth that stuck to my hair, and once it was a half-eaten sandwich that exploded ketchup across my shirt—and all he did was laugh, like my humiliation was the best part of his day.
But the worst was the fire. He waited for me to be distracted before taking a lighter to the ends of my hair during gym class and grinned as the flames ate through the strands.
I’ll never forget the smell.
He was the cruelest bastard in a school full of monsters. Well… almost the cruelest. But he was the boy who made sure I knew I was prey.
I look at him now, and for a single, vicious moment, I find myself hoping that something finally happened to him.
That someone, somewhere, had enough of his shit, grabbed him by the throat, and dragged a blade across his face, slicing deep enough to leave a scar he couldn’t charm his way around.
Maybe that mask isn’t a costume at all, and finally, the outside is just as ugly as the inside.
I turn back to the bartender with his inked knuckles and perfect jawline, shaking my head like Brandon’s some annoying fly I need to swat away.
“Cosmopolitan, please.”
“So she’s a city girl, huh?”
God, just shut the fuck up.
Brandon tries to chime in with his order, but I slam my card down, making it crystal clear I’m not here for him.
“You’re giving off bad energy, gorgeous. Did I fuck you in high school and forget your name?”
“Nope. I just don’t get wet for men who peaked at prom.”
His smile falters, and his face contorts like I just spat in his drink. “What did you just say to me? ”
“Oh, come on, you heard me just fine… Now be a good boy and kindly fuck off.”
He stares at me like I just slapped him across his privileged face, and the shock in his eyes is absolutely delicious. I face forward, completely satisfied, but the silence behind me is short-lived when his voice suddenly explodes across the room.
“Yo, quarterback! Been waiting for you to show up!”
Every muscle in my body locks up because the next time I turn around, it’s going to be him. The one I came here for. The one I hate so much, his name still tastes like blood in the back of my throat.
The one I still dream about in ways I shouldn’t.
I tell myself not to look. Not to move.
I can’t do it. I can’t look. Can’t ? —
“Brandon Michaelson, how the hell have you been?”
Holy shit—he sounds different now.
Just hearing his voice again twists something low in my stomach, unearthing emotions I’ve spent years trying to bury.
Hate.
Fear.
Want.
Anticipation.
Hurt.
And buried under every jagged shard of pain is a fucked-up, feral ache that whispers,“ You miss him .”
No.
No, no, no.
Fuck that.
Fuck that memory. Fuck that feeling. Fuck that one right off the edge of a cliff and straight into the sea.
I didn’t survive him just to fall back under his spell.
I stare down at my drink, gripping the glass so tightly I think it might shatter in my hands.
The condensation slides down my fingers, cold against skin that’s already gone numb.
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to get the hell out of here, to run back to my hotel and catch the first flight home.
But I don’t move. I can’t move. Because somewhere deeper—buried beneath the panic, and the years of pretending I was fine—there’s a part of me that needs this.
The part that’s been curled up in the dark and feeding off rage for ten years.
“I’m great, man. Although I thought there would be more people here tonight.”
“The place is packed out with people.”
“I meant our people,” Brandon clarifies with a cruel laugh. “And trust me, this chick is definitely not it if you’re thinking about talking to her.”
“I’m not fucking deaf,” I cut in, disguising my voice as best I can without making it sound as fake as I feel.
When I turn to face them, my eyes land on Phoenix for the first time, and holy fucking hell…
I thought I was prepared. I must’ve told myself a hundred times it wouldn’t matter, that however he looked now couldn’t touch me.
But that was a lie because nothing could have prepared me for the sheer gravity of him.
He’s not a boy anymore. He’s taller, broader through the shoulders, and his dark hair is perfectly disheveled like someone’s been running their fingers through it all night.
He’s devastating and has the audacity to be even more beautiful now than he was when he destroyed me.
My chest aches. My hands tremble. But I keep my chin up.
Because I didn’t come here to fall apart… I came here to make sure he does.
“Not deaf, but you’ve got bite,” Phoenix says, his gaze lingering on me.
He doesn’t recognize me.
“And who might you be?”
“No one you’d know,” I reply, lifting my drink to my lips. “Different circles.”
“Fuck, I should’ve just brought my wife with me,” Brandon gripes, rolling his eyes so hard I half expect them to launch out of his face and smack the nearest wall.
Of course, the self-obsessed cuntweasel actually found someone stupid enough to marry him.
“You’re married?” Phoenix asks, and the question catches me off guard—not because I didn’t expect it, but because it means they haven’t kept in touch, not even a little.
“Yeah, Kylie. I met her in college. What about you? Did you ever get married?”
My breathing stops.
My heart stops.
The whole fucking world stops.
“Fuck no. I’d never tie myself down like that.”
Of course he’s still this version of himself.
I don’t know what I expected… maybe a sign that the boy I once knew was still buried somewhere beneath all that arrogance. A spark of something human that said he’d grown, and maybe he wasn’t still clinging to being a complete piece of shit.
Something that said I hadn’t imagined it all.
But no, that Phoenix is gone, and what’s left is the man who shattered my heart and threw our history in the dirt like it was never worth a thing.
Desperate for anything to distract me from the wreckage Phoenix is sure to leave behind tonight, I lean across the bar and curl a finger to beckon the bartender closer. He bends toward me, bringing those dark, kohl-lined eyes level with mine.
“What time do you get off tonight?”
He flashes ten fingers, then two, that wicked smile spreading across his face.
Okay, so I’ve got until midnight to be done with Phoenix because there’s no way I’m leaving this place without knowing what it’s like to have that man’s mouth on me.
“Dude, have you seen Ava? She’s here as some kind of queen, rolling around on a throne with wheels,” Brandon says, grinning like he just cracked the joke of the year. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, she still looks good. But come on, man. I bet she’s real humble now. She might even say yes to me.”
Phoenix lets out a low chuckle. “You really think the chair is enough to knock the attitude out of her?”
“Probably not.” Brandon shrugs, lifting his drink. “But I’m happy to knock it out of her whichever way feels best.”