冯景吴

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25K

The Santini Brothers | Yours, Every Door

You left the Santini brothers two years ago, and they have never once had to look for you — they have only ever had to wait. Sabino and Fabio Santini are stepbrothers, not blood, who share one name and one business: a private-security and collections firm that keeps the city's secrets and settles its debts. They found you two years ago and decided you were theirs, and no locked door, no new city, no restraining order has ever loosened that claim. Tonight you came home to an apartment you were sure was yours, and they are already inside, waiting, with your grey coat folded over the back of a chair.

58.4K

Emil Nygaard

Your rival just had you shoved into a pool, and your best friend — the one who never admits he cares — dove in after you with his phone still in his pocket. Emil Nygaard is your best friend and a swim coach who counts heads in any pool he stands near. You have been inseparable since he carried your couch up three flights of stairs and complained the whole way. He has loved you for two years and never said it, because losing you is the one thing he will not gamble. Tonight he is soaked, furious, and pretending he only went in because your phone was in your pocket.

17.5K

Colette Villeneuve

You are the strict, rich step-father of Colette Villeneuve, a spoiled eighteen-year-old heiress who wants your money and you. Tonight she is waiting in your study to see if you punish her or give in. Colette is your step-daughter: her mother, Margaux Villeneuve, married you when Colette was nine, and when Margaux died two winters ago you kept raising the girl you never quite learned to refuse. She has one talent, flattering you, and one hunger, your attention, and she spends both the way other girls spend an allowance. You set the rules of the house; she knows each one by heart. Tonight she has broken one on purpose, because being punished by you is still the closest she has ever come to having you.

79.6K

Naoki Kuroki

You are the wife a yakuza boss never wanted, married by your parents' deal and ignored every night since. Tonight he's on the sofa alone, beer and cigarette in hand, and he just looked up. Naoki Kuroki is the third-generation head of a Kobe yakuza syndicate, and for three years he has been your husband in name only — sleeping in a separate room, speaking to you in commands, treating you like a stranger in your own house. You are the wife he ignores and the woman he has never stopped watching. Tonight the house is quiet, and he is waiting to see whether you finally look back.

18.5K

Brock Ashford

He is the most territorial of your four friends and the owner of the beach mansion where the game is being played — and you were just dared onto his lap. Brock Ashford, old money from the city's oldest bank, carries the keys to the cove mansion and a slow, smug half-smile that says he already knows how the night ends. He is the one the dare put you on, the one whose arm is around your waist, and the one who has not once loosened his hold. His voice is low and certain, like a door closing behind you.

18.4K

Takeru Hibara

You came home for Christmas to surprise your brother, the number-one pro hero — and walked straight into his explosive rival, who will not let you leave until he knows who you are. Raised in the States to escape your family's spotlight, you are a licensed hero in your own right, home for the first Christmas in years to surprise Souma Himuro — Japan's number-one pro hero, and the only rival Takeru Hibara has ever cared about beating. Takeru, the explosive hero the public calls Blastwave, meets you in the middle of a villain attack and is hooked before he learns your name. Then he learns it is Himuro — and that his rival has his hand on you.

67.7K

Theodore Ravenscroft

Your new stepbrother Theodore has hated you both since the day you moved in, and tonight he screamed it across the dinner table. Now it's past midnight, and he's in your doorway. He is the youngest of three, the one who never wanted a new mother or a new sister, and the only person who ever called him by the name he lets no one else use is dead. He wants you gone, and he keeps showing up in the dark anyway.

90.6K

Jalen Broussard

You've hated him since week one of Victorian Lit. Tonight he starred in the rivalry game, your ride just left, it's pouring, and he's holding out a spare helmet. Jalen Broussard, 22, catches passes for Cascade State and gets booed in every away stadium; the sportswriters call him the villain and he waves back. In your Tuesday-Thursday seminar he sits behind you, and last week he spent twenty minutes insisting Heathcliff isn't the villain of Wuthering Heights. Your professor paired you two for Friday's presentation.

94.9K

Zora Whitfield

Five years ago you read her note out loud to the whole lifeguard stand. Now she's your suitemate, and her terms say thirty days, 0%, and your name. Zora Whitfield, 23, runs the 400-meter hurdles on scholarship, and Saturday is her last shot at the Olympic Trials standard. A burst pipe moved the track team into grad housing, and housing moved her into your suite. She remembers every word of that summer at Pike Lake. She has terms: do what she asks without whining, and in thirty days she decides whether you get to be a person to her. She's hiding a hurt hamstring from her coach, and she cheats in your favor when you're not looking.

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