He had to be kidding.

  Vance just rolled his eyes, utterly dismissing his anger.

  “Stop pretending. I have seen plenty of boys your age with daddy issues who decide to go wild in the West. Buying fake identities, forging addresses—you name it. I have seen it all, and it’s pathetic. But do you know, Askai, what happens to those idiots? If they do not end up in a trench, they are checked-in in institutes with a drug-addled brain. At least, you had the wits to continue your studies, whatever your issues with your father be. But stop these reckless visits to the West. I would not have you cross that Glass Wall.”

  Askai almost scoffed, the rage swelling like a tidal wave. For a moment, he had foolishly thought Vance was worried about him—Askai, a boy with no origin, no second name, someone who truly made it out of the West. But he couldn't have been more wrong. Vance wasn't worried about him; he was worried about a precious, vulnerable fledgling of the East, a symbol of their class, who was susceptible to the corruption of the West.

  Askai was that corruption. In his last years, before he left the streets, his hatred for the East had festered to a point where he would not have shied away from ridding the earth of a few of them. His boys had peddled drugs to the corners of the East, to places the East itself was not aware existed.

  Why should he care about them? He owed them nothing. He owed no one nothing.

  Not the ones that were still alive, anyway…

  Fate had dealt him filth and he had thrown it back in its face, clawing out his own existence inch by bloody inch.

  He had never had a cradle. Never had a mother’s lullaby, or a father’s arms, or the safety of being wanted. He had been found in a trash bag behind a collapsed fence, barely days old, left for the street dogs who prowled West Nolan’s alleys with more hunger than mercy.

  The sight wasn't uncommon in the brutal streets of West Nolan, where desperation was currency and prostitutes would often rid themselves of the scum they couldn’t care less about in trash cans in some forgotten corner. If the babe was found by a kind soul before he was feasted upon by the mongrels he was left with, he could lay his claim upon life.

  Askai did. A six-year-old beggar had picked him up from the trash and then used him to beg at the street lights. He had no hard feelings toward the girl, only a fierce, abiding gratitude. She had at least fed him, cared for him, and shared with him whatever meager earnings they made at the end of the day. Askai was too small to remember the specifics, but the old man, Carlos, that sold crackers at the corner stop, would tell him often to remember her. Carlos must have grown fond of the girl—Marlie. He was the one who named her, giving her a dignity she otherwise lacked.

  As destiny would have it, Askai could not blossom under her care for long. One humid night, they were sitting on the dusty footpath after a good day’s haul. Askai had been only four then, and Jordan had just started hanging out with them. After all, they shared the same sleeping space—the strip of concrete they were sitting on. The temporary shack cobbled together from plywood and plastic behind them could be crawled into when it rained, which was often.

  Marlie had sent them away to buy some soft bread to eat. It was supposed to be a quick run. They had only left her alone for minutes. But when they came back, everything had changed.

  They jumped back, two tiny bodies scattering, as a speeding car swept past them and swerved dangerously to the left, running all over their precious home, destroying the thin blankets and the few possessions they owned. Three kids and two barely adults were mauled to death that night, the victims of a joyride by some bored, rich driver.

  Marlie, with her dark hair and kind smile, was one of them. She was lucky, she met a quick death. She bled out silently in front of them, unlike others who had waited until morning, screaming their guttural pleas for help, waiting to breathe their last. No help ever came to the unwanted mongrels who roamed the streets. They were like dogs who just knew how to speak, nothing more.

  They had held her hands throughout the terrifying night, watching the slow process of death, and when the morning finally came, they took her away. In their devastating naivety, they had asked Carlos for her headstone, hoping to bring her flowers. They had seen people do that in the cemetery—Marlie sometimes even sold small bouquets outside the gates. When Carlos arrived the following afternoon, his eyes glassy and wet, he had told them they were not old enough to visit. Even in their tiny, street-smart brains, they found it strange.

  Carlos only wanted them to grow enough to realize that she was not resting in some sacred grave but had been disposed of, unceremoniously, in some dumpyard or landfill, a piece of unwanted refuse. Carlos didn’t have to wait long. Their childhood—already a brutal, flimsy thing—died a speedy death after Marlie was gone.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  ?Askai now stopped looking at kids who held their parent’s hand at the crossing while going to school. He wasn’t one of them and never would be. He didn’t want to be. That day, he drew a deep, uncrossable line between their world—the careless, entitled world of the drivers and the parents—and his. He swore he would never let them destroy his world again. He would survive, and he would build a wall so high that their indifference, their casual violence, could never reach him or those he loved.

  He was never going to apologize for that.

  He suddenly stood up from the bed, the movement abrupt and tense, leaving Vance staring after him, momentarily taken aback by the sudden shift in atmosphere.

  "You are surely mistaken, Vance," Askai said, his voice flat and terse, laced with genuine annoyance. "I am no rich kid in want of your protection. How about you leave me alone and let your altruistic self find someone who really needs your help?”

  Vance stared after the mouthy brat who seemed intent on shredding his last nerve. Who was he fooling with his 'no-rich kid' nonsense? All that ingrained arrogance and snippy attitude, disconnected from reality, would either have landed him in an early grave or into the bed of some perverted degenerate in the West. Yet, here he was, roaming the polished halls of Nolan University like some little princeling. Vance had noticed the cold, challenging looks Askai gave Steve, looks that promised a swift, brutal retribution if provoked.

  Vance could understand if Askai was unwilling to accept financial help from his father, besides the tuition, but he could always ask him.

  "Why are you making it so complicated, Askai? I am offering you everything you could possibly need. Just take it." Vance’s voice was laced with profound exasperation, completely missing the mark. "What possible lure could those degenerates from the West hold for you?” he asked, completely disgusted by the young fool's apparent infatuation with the forbidden. They treated the West like some cheap, spicy thrill.

  “At least those degenerates were honest. I know what they want in return,” Askai countered, his eyes hardening. “What do you want, Vance?”

  “Don’t pretend that you don't know the answer,” Vance drawled, a dark challenge in his eyes.

  Askai knew what Vance wanted, and it was not something Askai couldn’t offer. Vance found him as alluring as half the population of the opposite sex. Askai was no naive virgin either who didn't know what he wanted. Casual sex with no strings attached—that was the most ideal, uncomplicated relationship in Askai's life, which itself could end any day without notice or consequence.

  But with powerful magnets like Vance—men whose desire could become absolute obsession—one never knew when their infatuation would become a chokehold, trapping you as a wingless bird in a golden cage. Askai had lived in the West too long; he observed a threat from even a great distance, reading the subtle shifts in power and possessiveness.

  If circumstances served as evidence, Askai had probably ended up here drugged and captured, all to soothe Vance's worry over his self-presumed "safety." How many times had he himself hunted down prostitutes who ran away from their disgruntled masters, only to be dragged back by brute force?

  But was he really willing to flee from Vance? He would be lying if he didn't admit that Vance came with a bundle of intoxicating secrets, and true to his own nature, Askai was dangerously attracted to them. Vance was sculpted like a Roman God, and Askai would have loved to find out what roving his hands over that marble-hard body would have felt like.

  But he was a forbidden fruit, a threat to his carefully guarded freedom.

  He cleared his thoughts with a visible effort and asked Vance for his bag.

  “You are going nowhere until I am satisfied that you are not returning to the West,” Vance said, his voice dropping to a decisive tone that warranted no protest. It was an order. It instantly ruffled Askai's fiercely guarded feathers.

  “You are no one to decide that,” Askai snapped back, stepping closer, his jaw tight. “I can go whenever I want, wherever I want. Last time I checked, I was a free man.”

  Vance’s lips lifted in a smug, predatory smirk. He started—"I see…”—

  Then, suddenly, the phone rang on the desk Askai was standing next to. The caller ID displayed one stark, formal word: 'Uncle'. Before the call could go unanswered, Vance swiftly walked to Askai, moving with a panther-like speed that was startling, and snatched the phone.

  The amusement instantly disappeared from his face; his muscles tightened visibly beneath his tailored shirt. Askai could feel him stiffening up next to him.

  Vance answered the phone and raised it to his ear. A deep, authoritative voice sounded from the other side, and Vance abruptly started walking away, toward the far corner of the room. The beautiful, arrogant expression left his face, replaced by a haunted, utterly cold look of deference and tension. He left the room without a word, leaving Askai standing cold in his wake, dismissed and abandoned.

  Askai had meant to leave by all means, but he had not expected to be dismissed so abruptly. He would rather die than admit that he often enjoyed their tense, charged banter, often forgetting that Vance was the pinnacle of all the arrogance and privilege he so much abhorred.

  He tried to leave the room, hoping to pick up his bag from somewhere near the shoe-rack where the East End elites often preferred the West and its contaminated belongings should stay.

  He had barely opened the door when he was greeted by a wall of muscle blocking his way. Askai abruptly stepped back, staring up at the mountain of a man—blond buzz cut, neck like an oak trunk, and scary big, unblinking eyes.

  "We have orders to not let you out. Your bag is in that green wardrobe, and breakfast would be served in fifteen minutes. Enjoy!" the man grunted, before slamming the heavy door in Askai's face with a resounding thud.

  So that was what that bastard meant when he smirked! He had let his dogs loose on him. The audacity of that man!

  Wait until he figures out how to breach this fortress.