Selene POV
The emergency lights flickered like dying candles, throwing scary shadows on everyone's faces.
I was still holding Arius Blackwood's hand in the darkness, and I could feel every eye in the room staring at us. My family. His family. Everyone who mattered in our world.
They had all seen us reach for each other when the lights went out.
"Let go," I whispered, but my fingers wouldn't follow. His hand was warm and strong, and in this terrifying moment, it was the only thing stopping me from falling apart.
The voice over the speakers spoke again, cold and mechanical: "Look at them, ladies and gentlemen. The Blackwood son and the Moonstone daughter, holding hands like lovers. How sweet. How... forbidden."
My heart stopped. Whoever was doing this had planned it perfectly. They'd waited until Arius asked me to dance, until we were standing together in front of everyone, until we looked bad even though we'd done nothing wrong.
"This is a trap," Arius said softly, so only I could hear.
"I know." My voice was barely a whisper. "But I don't understand. Who would want to hurt both our families?"
Before he could answer, the masked guys started moving closer. There were at least ten of them, all dressed in black, surrounding us like we were dangerous murderers.
"Nobody move!" one of them shouted. "This is about justice!"
Justice? What were they talking about?
I looked around desperately for my mother, for Cassius, for anyone from my family who could help. But in the dim emergency lighting, all I could see were scared faces and confused expressions.
Then I spotted my mother near the back of the room. Her face was white with shock and anger. When our eyes met, I saw something I'd never seen before - sadness so deep it made my chest hurt.
She thought I had betrayed our family by getting close to Arius.
"Selene," Arius said quickly, "whatever happens, stay behind me."
"No," I said, shocking myself with how fierce my voice sounded. "We're in this together."
The masked boss stepped forward and pointed at us. "These two think they can end the war between their families with love. How foolish. Some scars are too deep to heal. Some hatred runs too deep to forgive."
"Who are you?" Arius asked. Even surrounded by armed men, he sounded brave and angry instead of scared. "What do you want?"
"We want the truth!" the boss shouted. "We want both families to pay for what they've done!"
What they'd done? I was more confused than ever. Everyone knew about the business war between our families, but what did these strangers care about that?
"You're both guilty," another masked man said. "The Blackwoods and the Moonstones. You destroy everything you touch."
"That's not true," I said, moving forward despite Arius trying to hold me back. "Our families have problems with each other, but we've never hurt innocent people."
The boss laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "Haven't you? What about the Riverside shipping accident five years ago? What about the people who lost everything when your companies fought over that contract?"
My blood turned cold. The Riverside crash. I remembered hearing about it when I was seventeen, but my family never talked about it much. A small shipping company had gone bankrupt trying to compete with our business war. Some people had lost their jobs.
But nobody had been badly hurt. Right?
"Twenty-three families lost their homes," the leader continued. "Sixty children went hungry. Three old people died from stress-related heart attacks. All because the great Blackwoods and Moonstones were too proud to share a shipping route."
I looked at Arius and saw my own shock mirrored in his gray eyes. Neither of us had known the full truth about what our families' fighting had caused.
"That wasn't our fault," Arius said, but his voice wasn't as sure as before. "We were just kids."
"And now you're adults. Ready to inherit businesses built on other people's pain." The leader raised his hand, and all the other masked men raised their guns. "Ready to continue the cycle of destruction."
"Wait!" I shouted. "If you want justice for those families, hurting us won't help them!"
"Won't it?" The boss tilted his head. "When the Blackwood son and Moonstone daughter disappear tonight, both families will blame each other. The war will get bigger. More violent. Eventually, they'll destroy each other totally."
My stomach dropped. This wasn't just about payback for the Riverside accident. This was about using Arius and me to start a war that would end both our families.
"You're insane," Arius said.
"We're practical. With the Blackwoods and Moonstones gone, smaller businesses can finally compete fairly. The shipping industry can heal."
That's when I understood. These weren't just angry victims. They were business rivals who wanted our families eliminated so they could take over our area.
"You don't care about justice," I said, anger making my voice louder. "You just want power for yourselves."
The leader's laugh was cold as ice. "Smart girl. Too bad you figured it out too late."
He gestured to his men, and they started closing in on us. Arius moved in front of me, his whole body tight and ready to fight. But there were too many of them.
"Run when I say go," he whispered.
"I'm not leaving you."
"Selene—" "I said no!"
That's when the real lights suddenly blazed back on, bright and blinding after the blackness. Everyone blinked and covered their eyes.
In that moment of confusion, I heard my mother's words ring out clear and strong: "Nobody touches my daughter!"
Then chaos burst around us.
But through all the yelling and fighting and confusion, I heard something that made my blood freeze.
One of the masked guys was talking into a radio: "Phase one complete. The families are united against us now. Time for phase two."
Phase two? What could be worse than this?
Then I heard the answer, and my entire world crumbled: "Detonate the bombs in both family houses. "Now."