[Adelaide Knowles]
The ball was in whose court?
I never liked Shane. Not the first time I saw her, not the last. She was as calculating as any Castillo. Manipulative, bold, and addicted to chaos. She didn’t just start fires; she watched them burn with pride. She knew how to twist a story and how to make it fly.
Did I care that she started a rumor about Christian and me? Of course I did. Her rumor was dangerous. It wasn’t just gossip. It could ruin him. And if Christian went down, everything I’d risked with him went down too.
I cared about him. Beyond our deal, beyond the façade we’d built together. He was—is an asshole, probably the biggest jerk I’ve ever known, but still, what Shane did mattered to me.
I wanted her gone. Her, and the sickly-sweet Gigi Stones who walked like the worl
