Alyona

I hadn’t been back to Ashton’s house since the kiss. I didn’t need to. I’d been too busy pretending it never happened, avoiding eye contact on campus, and deflecting my family’s endless praise of him like it wasn’t slowly driving me insane.

What made it worse?

The guards.

Dad made sure I never went anywhere without at least two of them tailing me—his “non-negotiables,” as he liked to call them. Ex-mafia don or not, the man ran our home like a fortress. I wasn’t ...