Riven Hale learned early that fear was louder than respect.
It followed him down the halls of Blackridge Academy, thick and tangible, the way bodies shifted out of his path without being told. Lockers slammed too fast. Laughter died mid-breath. Teachers pretended not to see the bruises on other students' arms, the blood once wiped hastily from a nose.
Riven didn't care.
Fear kept people predictable.
At seventeen minutes past four every afternoon, he stopped caring about everything else.
The final bell rang sharp and ugly. Riven shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn jacket and walked out of the building like he owned it, ignoring Jax calling his name from behind him.
"Riv—wait."
He didn't.
Outside the iron gates, traffic crawled. Parents' cars lined the curb, engines idling, radios murmuring soft things Riven had never grown up with. He lit a cigarette with shaking fingers, eyes already fixed across the street.
4:17 p.m.
The black car was there.
It always was.
Long. Immaculate. Windows tinted so dark they reflected the city instead of revealing it. It parked where it wasn't supposed to, hazard lights blinking once before going dead, like a breath held and released.
Lucien Crowe never got out.
He didn't need to.
Riven exhaled smoke slowly, watching the driver's door remain closed. He knew who sat in the back seat. He knew the angle of Lucien's jaw, the cut of his suits, the way he never touched his phone in public. Riven knew the rhythm of the man's existence better than he knew his own.
Thirty-one. Self-made billionaire. Crowe Syndicate. Blood in his wake, even if no one could ever prove it.
Lucien Crowe was power given a human shape.
And Riven was addicted.
"You're going to burn a hole through the glass one of these days," Jax said, appearing beside him.
Riven didn't look away. "Go home."
Jax scoffed. "It's freezing."
"Then freeze somewhere else."
Jax hesitated. "You sure you're good?"
Riven turned then, slow and sharp. "Do I look like I need you?"
Jax raised his hands, backing off. "Right. Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow."
Riven watched him leave. Watched everyone leave.
Then he crossed the street.
The car door opened before he reached it.
Lucien Crowe sat inside like he belonged nowhere else. Dark suit. White shirt. No tie today. His expression was neutral in the way that suggested effort—like emotion had been trained out of him through repetition and violence.
His eyes flicked up.
They were colder than Riven remembered.
"Get in," Lucien said.
Not a question.
Riven's pulse stuttered. He slid into the seat, the door closing behind him with a soft, final sound that echoed too loudly in his head.
The car smelled like leather and something metallic beneath it. Blood, maybe. Or just Riven's imagination.
Lucien studied him with quiet precision.
"You're late," Lucien said.
Riven smiled. "You waited."
A muscle in Lucien's jaw tightened. "I won't again."
The driver pulled away.
Silence settled between them, thick and deliberate. Riven bounced his knee, fingers tapping against his thigh, electricity crawling under his skin. He could feel Lucien's attention even when the man wasn't looking at him—like gravity.
"Your mother's work schedule changed," Lucien said finally. "She'll be late tonight."
Riven laughed, short and humorless. "You keep better track of her life than she does."
"I keep track of liabilities."
"Is that what I am?" Riven asked lightly.
Lucien's gaze snapped to him.
"Don't."
Riven leaned back, spreading his knees, careless. "You brought me here. You don't get to tell me what to ask."
Lucien exhaled through his nose, slow. Controlled. "You're playing a dangerous game."
Riven's smile sharpened. "I like danger."
"That's obvious," Lucien said, eyes flicking to the faint bruise blooming along Riven's cheekbone. "You're eighteen. Still in school. You fight like you have something to prove."
"I fight because it works."
Lucien looked away again. "This ends today."
Riven froze.
The city lights blurred past the window. His heart kicked hard against his ribs, sudden and violent.
"Ends how?" he asked.
Lucien's voice was even. "You stop coming here. You stop watching my car. You stop involving yourself in things you don't understand."
Riven laughed, loud and cracked. "You think I don't understand you?"
Lucien turned fully toward him now.
"You understand nothing," Lucien said quietly. "You see proximity and mistake it for intimacy. You mistake obsession for devotion."
Riven's hands curled into fists. "You don't get to tell me what I feel."
"I do," Lucien said. "Because I've seen this before. And it never ends well."
The car slowed. Red light.
Riven leaned forward, breath shallow. "I love you."
The words landed between them like broken glass.
Lucien didn't react at first.
Then—slowly—he reached out and took Riven's chin between his fingers.
Not gentle.
Not cruel.
Clinical.
Riven's breath caught anyway.
Lucien studied his face with unsettling calm. "You're confused."
Riven swallowed. "No."
"You're young," Lucien continued. "Angry. Addicted to intensity. What you feel isn't love."
Riven's voice shook. "Say you don't want me."
Lucien released him.
"I don't want you," he said without hesitation.
The words cut deeper than Riven expected. Clean. Precise.
"You're a liability," Lucien went on. "And if you keep orbiting me, you'll get hurt. Or killed. I don't touch children playing at obsession."
Children.
Riven's vision blurred.
The car stopped.
Lucien opened the door. "Get out."
Riven didn't move.
"You think this makes you noble?" Riven asked, laughing weakly. "Pushing me away like you're saving me?"
Lucien's eyes hardened. "I'm not saving you. I'm sparing you."
Riven stepped out of the car, hands shaking. He leaned down, eyes level with Lucien's.
"I'd burn the world for you," he said softly.
Lucien met his gaze, unflinching.
"And I'd let you," he replied. "Then I'd walk away."
The door closed.
The car pulled off.
Riven stood there long after it disappeared, chest aching, hands trembling—not with heartbreak, but with something darker.
Because rejection didn't kill love.
It sharpened it.
And as Riven finally turned toward home, teeth sinking into his lower lip until he tasted blood, one truth settled deep and permanent in his bones:
Lucien Crowe would come back.
And when he did—
Riven would make sure he never left again.