ETHAN'S POV
I SAW HER before she ever saw me.
Sixteen years old, with sunlight tangled in her dark hair, her laugh spilling across the schoolyard like it didn't belong in a world this ugly.
LIANA CARTER.
My best friend's little sister. The one girl I should have ignored. But from the second I laid eyes on her, my fate was sealed.
I wasn't just watching. I was studying.The way her hands fidgeted with her books when she was nervous.The way her lips pressed together when she was annoyed.The way she tilted her head when she smiled.
I learned her schedules.Her habits.Her secrets.
And slowly—without meaning to—she became my oxygen.
"YOU'RE MINE," I whispered once, from the shadows of her driveway, while she waved goodbye to some boy from her class.
She didn't hear me. She never did.
But that didn't matter.
Because I had already decided.Whether she wanted it or not—SHE WOULD ALWAYS BE MINE.