Our lives in one chapter
932 Words
Aubree’s POV
I’ve lived my whole life protected by monsters.
Not the kind from childhood stories—
but the kind whispered about in back alleys,
the kind that rewrite cities with blood,
the kind that rules you before you even know their names.
Sebastian Moretti.
Michal Romano.
Our fathers.
Our kings.
The architects of the empire I was born into.
And their sons—
Abel and Carter—
the twins raised beside me like shadows I could never outrun,
my best friends, my protectors,
my almost-everything…
even when I wasn’t supposed to want any of it.
But tonight destroyed the last line between us.
Tonight turned breath into fire
and friendship into something dangerous.
The party was supposed to be small.
Just our families.
Just the people sworn to protect us.
Just enough to pretend this world didn’t own us.
I stepped outside to breathe,
bare feet brushing the cold marble as I slipped onto the balcony.
The night air kissed bare shoulders exposed by the red dress Sabrina made me wear—
“You look beautiful, sweetheart,” my mother said with a wink.
She didn’t know the dress would make the twins stare.
She didn’t know it would make Abel’s jaw flex
or Carter’s fingers curl into a fist
when they thought I wasn’t looking.
The moon dripped pale silver over the courtyard,
and for one perfect second, everything felt still.
Quiet.
Almost normal.
Then—
Crack.
Gunfire.
My heart dropped before my knees did.
Another shot.
Closer.
Louder.
The guards shouted.
Someone cursed.
A scramble of footsteps ripped through the air…
…and then they appeared.
Abel burst through the doors first—
reckless, wild, eyes burning like the gunfire had followed him inside.
“Aubree!”
My name tore out of him like a threat.
Or a prayer.
Before I could breathe, Carter was right behind him—
silent, focused, scanning every shadow.
His suit jacket already off, shirt sleeves rolled,
a single vein pulsing along his forearm
as though it were the only thing keeping him calm.
“Aubree, talk to me.”
Carter’s voice was low, sharp, cracking on the edges.
“I—I’m okay,” I whispered.
But Abel didn’t believe it.
He grabbed my face gently but firmly, thumbs brushing heat into my cheeks.
“You’re shaking.”
His voice wasn’t steady either.
“I’m not—”
“You are.”
He stepped closer, chest brushing mine.
The heat of him swallowed the cold from the night air.
“Don’t lie to me, Bree. Not tonight.”
Carter moved behind me then—
quiet as a ghost, warm as a furnace.
His hands hovered at my waist before settling,
steadying me without taking control.
“Let us check you,” he murmured against my ear.
No touch ever made me shiver like that.
Two hands.
Two heartbeats pressed into me.
Two sets of eyes dark with something neither of them had ever allowed to surface.
Abel’s thumb stroked the corner of my mouth like he didn’t mean to.
Carter’s fingers flexed at my hip like he meant to and stopped himself.
I had never been this close to both of them at once.
Not like this.
Not after I’d grown into the girl they used to chase around the pool.
Not after they’d turned into men—
dangerous ones—
with shoulders and stares and touches that made my breath stutter.
Abel leaned in—close enough that my lips tingled from the heat of him.
“You scared the hell out of us,” he whispered, forehead brushing mine.
Carter’s reply came like steel breaking:
“You’re not leaving our sight again. Not tonight.”
Not tonight.
Not ever.
It felt like a promise.
Another gunshot ripped through the distance and the three of us froze.
Abel’s body moved before thought—
he stepped in front of me, shielding me with his entire frame.
Carter pulled me deeper against him,
his hand spreading along my stomach,
his chest is a solid wall at my back.
Two instincts.
Two reactions.
Both claiming.
Both protective.
Both mine—and yet not at all.
“Stay behind us,” Carter whispered, breath brushing the back of my neck.
My knees weakened.
Abel glanced over his shoulder, jaw tight, eyes molten.
“If anything happens to her,” he growled,
“there won’t be a soul left to bury.”
The air thickened,
danger humming like electricity,
desire coiling beneath it until I couldn’t tell which was which anymore.
I should have pulled away.
I should have said something reasonable.
Instead, my palms slid up Abel’s back,
finding heat and muscle and a familiarity that suddenly felt forbidden.
Carter’s breath stuttered against my skin as he realized it—
as he felt me melt into both of them at once.
He tightened his hold.
Abel turned fully toward me.
And there, between danger and desire,
under moonlight and gunfire,
with two future mafia kings holding me like I was the only thing that mattered—
I broke the world.
I looked at them the way I was never supposed to.
As mine.
As more.
As something I wanted—
even though wanting them could get us all killed.
Their eyes changed in an instant.
Both of them.
Abel’s—hungry.
Carter’s—devastated.
Two storms.
Two hearts.
Both crashing into me at once.
That was the moment my childhood died.
That was the moment the Moretti twins stopped seeing me as innocent.
And started seeing me as theirs.
Their claim.
Their temptation.
Their future.
Their war.
- Writer
