“Your mate will appear at twenty.” Nathan waited years for that moment. For one person. Mikhail. His best friend. His first love. The one he could never have. So when Nathan turns twenty and sees Mikhail walk in with a girlfriend, smiling like nothing ever mattered, he finally lets go of a love he’s held onto since childhood. He drinks. He laughs. He pretends he’s fine. Until the string appears. A burning thread wraps around his wrist—tight, inescapable. And it doesn’t lead to Mikhail. It leads somewhere else. Somewhere worse. Right beneath a half-open door. Valentino. Mikhail’s older brother. The man Nathan has always hated. The man who looks at him like he’s a problem. The man fate has chosen for him. Now bound by a string he can’t ignore—and refuses to accept—Nathan is faced with a cruel truth: What if destiny doesn’t care who you love? What if it ties you to the one person you never wanted? And what happens when the more he tries to cut the string… …the tighter it pulls?