Two Worlds Collide

Chapter 2: my new life

Becca POV

Present Day, Chicago

Chicago smelled different.

Like ambition and gasoline. Like everything I wanted and everything I was trying to forget.

And I’m hoping it’s not. Cause I’m trying to get out of that life not run into another.

I zipped up the last of my duffel bags and stared around the new apartment: bare walls, half-open boxes, unfamiliar silence. It was small, but it was mine. My own space, far from Wisconsin, far from him, the man who called himself my father.

Bzzzz.

My phone vibrated on the nightstand. One look at the screen and my stomach twisted.

Dad:

The man I was running from, the life I was running from.

People assume that growing up the daughter of a mafia boss means luxury, power, a life dipped in gold.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

My father, Victor Moreau, didn’t love. He controlled.

He was tall, always suited in dark, custom-made Armani, his graying hair slicked back with military precision. His voice was calm, almost too calm for the kind of job he does. The kind of calm that came before someone got shot in the head. Cold steel in human form. His eyes? Gray. Lifeless. Like he could kill anyone and anything in his way in cold blood. He was fearless and feared.

He never raised his voice. He didn’t have to. Silence was his favorite weapon. That, and fear.

In Wisconsin, I wasn’t his daughter.

I was his investment. His pawn in the next generation of the Moreau legacy.

From the moment I turned thirteen, I was trained, not loved, not nurtured…trained. In etiquette, negotiation, surveillance, firearms. Not by him directly, of course. That would’ve required some form of actual parenting. No, he had men for that. Trainers. Killers. Monsters disguised in expensive cologne.

By sixteen, I’d seen more blood than some soldiers.

By seventeen, I wanted out.

I’d seen what this life did to people. I saw how it broke my mother, slowly, until one day she just… stopped existing inside. She was still breathing, still hosting dinner parties for criminals, still smiling in photos.

But I swear to God, her soul left the moment my father and his people killed her sister in cold blood, years ago, back in Wisconsin. Before then was the good years, the happy years. I can’t remember anything after that, it was so long ago and the bad memories have begun to overshadow the good such that all what’s left is pure darkness…

I couldn’t save her. I was just a girl with too much knowledge and nowhere to put it.

So I smiled. I obeyed.

I learned to lie with grace and charm my enemies better than my friends.

But inside? I was planning my escape.

What am I running from?

The blood on my hands, even if I never pulled the trigger.

The fear of waking up to gunshots. The deals made in the middle of the night. The way my father looked at me like a weapon waiting to be activated. The promises he made about “my future” in the family business. The way he told me, right before I left:

“Run if you want, Becca. But college is your last curtain call. When it ends—you come home. Or I drag you.”

So yeah… I’m running from a legacy built on fear, violence, and control.

I’m running from becoming my father’s heir, his monster in heels.

But the thing about running is, sometimes the past runs faster.

And I have a feeling mine just bought a first-class ticket to Chicago…

“Stay focused. Don’t forget what comes after.”

Still staring at my screen, staring at the text glaring back at me. No good morning. No I miss you. Just a thinly veiled threat wrapped in obligation.

“Stay focused. Don’t forget what comes after.” The text read.

I sank onto the edge of the bed, the cold from the hardwood floor seeping into my bare feet as the memories clawed their way back in.

“This is your last chance,” he’d said before I left. His tone wasn’t angry, just… final. “When college ends, you’re done running. I’ve let you pretend. Now, it’s time to come home and lead.”

Lead.

That was his word for inherit the family’s dirty empire. For taking the lives of people I couldn’t save. For becoming the monster he’d always tried to mold me into.

I exhaled sharply and stood up.

No. This was a new beginning.

And I was going to own it.

I pulled out a silky black dress, the mid riff hugging the curve of my waist and the small of my back while the hem was a bit loose and flaired and the neckline dipping just enough to flirt with danger. Paired with thigh-high boots, minimal jewelry, and lipgloss , I looked like the version of myself I’d always wanted to be, fearless. Not the mafia princess from back home. Just… Becca.

Books in one hand, keys in the other, I stepped into the garage and slid into my black Corvette, sleek, growling, mine.

By the time I got to LePaul University, students were already milling around the front entrance, some rushing, some lingering. Heads turned as I pulled in. A few guys gawked at the car. A couple of girls gave me that fake smile I’d grown used to. And then there were the stares that lingered too long on the length of my legs when I stepped out.

Let them stare.

Inside, the hallways twisted and looped like a maze. I hadn’t attended orientation—I wasn’t in campus housing and frankly, I didn’t want to deal with fake small talk and tour guides. But now I was regretting it.

“Lost?” a voice chirped beside me.

I turned and blinked at the girl grinning up at me. She had curly chestnut hair, friendly brown eyes, and a hoodie that read “LePaul university “.

“Completely,” I admitted with a half-laugh. “First class—English Lit?”

She smiled wider. “Thank God, I thought I was the only one late today. I’m Lydia. We have the same schedule. You are…”

“Becca.”I said extending a handshake .

She took mine and smiled, “ Lydia, nice to meet you Becca” she replied with enthusiasm.

“Likewise” I returned the same energy. She seems like lovely person. Hadn’t met such genuineness in a while.

We walked together, chatting lightly until we reached a large lecture room. The professor was already scribbling OTHELLO across the whiteboard.

As I slid into a seat near the back, I glanced around the room and froze when I met those eyes. I stared a little too long.

There he was.

Chris.

God help me, he looked like a sin wrapped in leather. Tall, broad shoulders under a tight black tee, tousled black hair, and a smirk like he knew every dirty thought I was trying not to have.

The professor started off with a friendly debate, trying to get our opinions on love and logic.

The debate started easy. Character motivations. Themes. But then he spoke.

“Desdemona was naïve. She was in love with the idea of Othello, not the man himself.”

I rolled my eyes. “Or maybe she just loved him, period. Love doesn’t always need logic.”he was pretty but common I couldn’t pass out on a debate on love and logic. The idea that I was eventually going to find love in a happier small town and build a peaceful loving family one day was what I was fighting for, not Othello or Desdemona… ME!

Chris turned, eyes locking on mine, for a moment he glared at me almost like I wasn’t meant to challenge him but then his stare became softer when he caught the eyes of the spokeswoman, me, then he smirked…

“And that’s exactly how people die.” He said mockingly.

The class laughed, but I didn’t back down. “Or how they live. Desdemona was the only one in the story who actually stayed true to her heart. That’s not naïve,it’s brave.”

Chris leaned forward slightly. “Brave? Or stupid?”

The air crackled between us. His lips twitched. He knew what he was doing.

I hated how much I liked it.

I stared at him, longer than I should’ve, before the professor’s voice snapped me back to Earth.

“Miss Moreau, insightful, but let’s remember we’re analyzing, not defending Shakespeare’s characters like they’re our exes.”

The class chuckled again. Chris was still looking at me like he’d just claimed victory.

Asshole.

I needed a break.

The girl’s bathroom was empty,thank God. I pushed open the door and…

“Oh, for the love of…”

There, tangled in the corner stall, was a tall guy with messy brown hair, his hands up some girl’s dress, their mouths fused like magnets.

They barely noticed me. The girl let out a small squeak. The guy just looked up, annoyed.

I crossed my arms. “Oh my God. Horny much? Get a room,this isn’t high school.”

I didn’t wait for a reply.

As I walked out, I heard the girl muttering something about boundaries. I just rolled my eyes. Seriously? Bathroom makeout sessions? What are we, fifteen?

I was dialing my dad when Lydia appeared again, a wide grin plastered across her face.

“You are something else,” she said.

I glanced at her. “What?”

“That argument with Chris? I’ve never seen anyone talk back to him like that.”

“I wasn’t trying to make a point, it’s not that deep.”

“Well, you did.” She wiggled her brows. “And did you see the way he looked at you? Like you’d just stolen his soul. Hot, by the way.”

I laughed, brushing it off, but…

Yeah. I thought about him, too.

The fire in his voice. The way his eyes locked on mine like a challenge. The way my stomach twisted when he smirked like he already knew he had me figured out.

I wasn’t here for love. Or drama.

But some things didn’t ask for permission.

And Chris?

He felt like one of them.