The clock struck midnight, its echo bouncing against the cold marble walls of the university's underground hall.
Ashira stood in the center, her disguise slightly torn, her true identity peeking out like a secret begging to be revealed. Sweat slid down her temple—not just from the fight, but from the piercing gazes of the three men who had unknowingly become her greatest weakness.
Raven. Kai. Alden.
All three stood at different corners of the hall, their expressions carved from betrayal, disbelief, and something darker—obsession.
"Tell me it's not true," Raven's voice broke the silence first. His usual smirk was gone, replaced by raw confusion. "All this time… you were playing us?"
Ashira's lips curved into a bittersweet smile. "I wasn't playing you. I was surviving."
Alden stepped forward, his teacherly calm shredded into sharp fury. His hand brushed the gun holstered under his coat. "Surviving?" he echoed, his voice low and lethal. "You infiltrated my school, disguised as a boy, fooled me—and you dare say this was about survival?"
Kai laughed harshly, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Of course it was about survival, old man. Don't act like you don't recognize one of your own games." He turned to Ashira, eyes blazing. "But why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you trust me?"
Her throat tightened. She wanted to say she had trusted him—trusted all of them, in her own broken way. But how could she explain a mission where the line between duty and desire blurred so dangerously?
"I couldn't," she whispered. "If I told you, you'd all be in danger."
"Danger?" Raven snapped, his laugh bitter. "You mean the danger of falling in love with a liar?"
The words sliced through her like blades.
Before Ashira could respond, the massive steel doors slammed open. Men in black suits stormed in—guns raised, eyes cold. The mafia council's enforcers.
"Get her!" the leader barked. "The spy dies tonight."
In an instant, chaos erupted. Bullets ricocheted off the marble pillars. The chandeliers above shuddered with each blast.
Alden barked orders in Italian, moving like a shadow of death. He fired precise shots, each bullet felling a man. "Stay behind me!" he commanded Ashira.
Raven, however, had no intention of hiding. He grabbed a fallen blade and leapt into the fray, his movements graceful, deadly—his laughter returning, but darker, more unhinged. "Finally! A proper dance!"
Kai, furious and reckless, tackled two men at once, slamming one's head against the wall. His golden eyes found Ashira's between the bloodshed. "You're mine, even if you're a liar!"
Ashira's instincts roared awake. She snatched a discarded dagger and spun, slashing down an attacker creeping up behind Raven. She wasn't just surviving now. She was fighting back.
The hall transformed into a battlefield of alliances and betrayals. At one moment, they fought side by side—Alden shielding her, Raven covering her blind spots, Kai tearing down anyone who dared approach her. At the next, their eyes clashed with unspoken accusations, their hearts demanding answers she couldn't give.
Then, silence.
The last body hit the floor. The smell of blood and gunpowder clung to the air.
Ashira stood in the middle of the carnage, chest heaving, dagger trembling in her grip. The three men surrounded her again, closing the triangle around her like hunters cornering prey.
"Enough lies," Alden said. His glasses were cracked, blood streaking his cheek, but his voice was steel. "Tell us the truth, Ashira. Who sent you? Who are you really?"
Her heart pounded. She could tell them everything—the agency, the mission, the real reason she entered the criminal university. But once she spoke, there would be no turning back.
Raven tilted his head, his voice soft but poisonous. "Or don't. Let me guess. You're just like us—born in the dark, raised by wolves, pretending you're not."
Kai snarled. "Stop twisting it, Raven. She's mine. Spy or not, she's mine."
"And what if she chooses neither of you?" Alden cut in sharply, his eyes locking with Ashira's, softer now but heavy with possession. "What if she stays with me?"
Ashira's breath caught. Three obsessions. Three dangers. Three impossible choices.
She clenched the dagger tighter, stepping back until her spine touched the cold wall. "I never asked for this," she whispered, voice breaking. "I came here to end this war, not… not to get trapped between all of you."
Her words cracked the air like lightning.
Raven's lips curled into a dark smile. "Then maybe you don't get to choose. Maybe the only way this ends… is with blood."
The tension snapped.
All three lunged—at her, at each other, at the fragile string binding them together.
The dance of betrayals had begun.
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✨ End of Chapter 44 ✨