✦ ✦ ✦
IT WAS THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER.
And Freya Arsov was lounging loftily on one of the plush armchairs at the trendy Beverly Hills coffee shop. Mayella had brought her here to conclude their final summer day in California, a duo of caffeine-rich drinks between them on the artsy tabletop.
After spending the entire summer nursing tans and enjoying the Californian lifestyle that Mayella Vance had grown up in, she and her long-time friend, Freya Arsov, were not ready to go back to England where their elite boarding school, Arrowsmith Insitute for Excellency, was located.
Though, no one was ever really ready to trade their summer lives of parties, jets and designer dresses for Arrowsmith's brick walls and school uniform and the ever-absent English sun that shied away from their campus.
Mayella observed her friend's pensive expression that bordered on glorious boredom as she conversed through her Dior encased iPhone with her mother. Freya held the phone precariously between French-manicured fingers, almost as though she wanted the phone to drop and the conversation with her mother, Lady Victoria Calvert, to end. Which would not be too surprising, given the state of Freya and her mother's relationship.
"Yes, mother," drawled Freya languorously, with an extensive eye roll, her black eyelashes fluttering with the action.
Although the dainty platinum blonde girl sat opposite Mayella, with a table between them, Mayella could make out the irritated comments from Victoria Calvert-Arsov through the phone as she scolded her daughter for heaven knew what.
As she sipped from her iced caramel latte, Mayella could come up with roughly twenty or so things Victoria could rant to Freya about. More, if she thought long enough.
Freya Arsov was no angel.
Her mother was an English aristocrat, Lady Victoria Calvert, who now served as one of the greatest lawyers out there. If her mother's money wasn't enough, Freya's father was a Russian billionaire, the inheritor of a blooming international business called Arsov Industries.
Their daughter, Mayella's best friend, was determined to annoy them to death, Maye was sure.
Perhaps she sought to get her hands on all that wealth a little earlier and felt some good old fashioned parricide by sarcasm would do the trick.
At her mother's words, sounding completely and utterly done to Maye's ears with, Freya only grinned triumphantly, as though whatever her mother intoned was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her, as though she'd wanted to upset her mother to the brink of insanity and had succeeded. Freya grinned a wicked grin throughout the entire stretching barrage, remaining silent and listening.
Maye knew better than to think that meant Freya was being a well-behaved daughter. There was too much mischief in her eyes. Too much trouble in the tilt of her lipgloss-coated lips.
Mayella was right, of course.
When Victoria seemed to be slowing down her rant because heaven knew, if she quarrelled with Freya for everything she did wrong, the poor woman would never get to stop, Freya launched into a sudden bout of rapid-fire Russian that was lost on Maye's understanding, all the while still grinning that shit-eating grin.
Mayella rolled her eyes and looked away as eyes in the cafe pulled to them suddenly.
What a showoff.
Freya had been doing that to her mother for as long as Maye knew her, which was long, and it never failed to annoy Victoria Calvert. And Mayella, who could only balk the first few times Freya had exploded into Russian speech in the earlier years of their friendship.
Five-year-old her had sat beside the frowning pale-haired girl in primary school on their first day and had been startled when the small girl turned to her and glared at her with immense hatred, despite them having just met, and said something sharp and fast in Russian while wrinkling her nose.
In later years, Freya revealed that she'd cursed Mayella rather colourfully that day.
Why?
Because she'd felt like it, Freya had explained to Maye, a shrug to her shoulders.
In later years, Mayella managed to be less surprised by Freya's outbursts of Russian speech, her father's native language, which she spoke as well as English. The whole purpose of the outbursts was to annoy and confuse whoever she spoke to, after all.
If Freya had really wanted to wound someone, Mayella knew, she'd deliver the blow in angry English prose so that they'd understand each and every insult and feel its burn through their skin.
One thing Freya was good at, aside from annoying her mother in Russian, was insulting people so that they felt it down to their very soul.
"Freya, I have no time for this nonsense," Victoria Calvert's responding sigh rang loud enough through the phone that Mayella heard it. And, her ranting restarted.
But Freya was already pulling the phone away from her ear, concluding the call with a far too fast spoken, "All is perfectly understood mother. Love you. Bye." She hung up mid-rant.
Mayella watched as Freya somehow gracefully set down her cell phone beside her untouched mug of black coffee, shooting dazzling smiles at all the people in the cafe whose attention she had drawn during her phone call with her rather violent speech in a foreign language.
Throughout their entire twelve years of friendship, Mayella had to get used to the fact that Freya generally attracted attention. Especially in Mayella's hometown of Beverly Hills where she'd convinced her friend to spend their summer, Freya attracted the attention of many.
With her platinum hair, porcelain skin and distinct English accent, Freya was most definitely out of place in the sunny state of California. She was out of place everywhere, honestly.
Something about her never failed to capture the eye and Mayella didn't think it really had anything to do with her looks so much as her general behaviour.
She dazzled so brightly you couldn't help but stare, even if that spark of hers might just be lightning and you'd end up struck. Sometimes, Maye thought people wanted to be struck by Freya Arsov. And sometimes, she was sure Freya wanted to strike just as badly.
"What'd you say to her?" asked Maye in amusement, referring to the random burst of Russian.
Freya's mother hadn't wanted her to come to California for the summer, to Mayella's understanding. Freya hadn't said it in so many words but it was clear by the amount of times Victoria had called during their stay. Once a week she'd called, far more frequently than she called while they were in school.
A wicked glint appeared in Freya's eyes. "I just told her that she should really increase Pierre's paycheck because he's got to deal with her raging bitch modes more than anyone else, my father included."
Pierre was the Arsov's family butler. If there was anyone Maye pitied, it was that poor man.
Mayella rolled her eyes. "Oh, Freya."
"Thank god she's awful at understanding Russian," Freya mused, delightedly "You'd think being married to a Russian billionaire for twenty-something years would make it easy."
Mayella's only response was a nod, deciding that she didn't want to hear Freya torment her poor mother any longer. As far as Mayella knew, her friend's parents were relatively distant from their children and while Freya played it off with withering sarcasm and witty remarks to and about her parents, Maye suspected it went deeper.
Though, she never pushed on that topic.
"Any news from Amelie?" She did push on this topic. Amelie Perrin was one of their dorm mates from boarding school. Freya and she had been thick as thieves for the years they'd known each other, significantly less in number than the years she and Mayella had known each other.
Freya had refused to even address Amelie's existence for the entire summer.
And like that, Freya's mood shifted at mention of Amelie, fading from mischievous joy to flat boredom. That boredom was one of Freya's greatest weapons, hiding whatever she really felt about a matter behind blank eyes.
"Who's that?" She asked coolly, finally warranting her coffee worthy of attention. She curled her hands casually around the mug but Maye noted the set of her jaw as she took a long sip of the vicious black drink.
Mayella could always see through Freya's masks, whether the girl knew it or not.
Amelie had dropped off the face of the earth this summer. The last they'd seen or spoken to her had been last term. She refused to answer any texts or calls and had been inactive on social media for the entirety of the two months. The only way they knew she wasn't dead or anything like that was from her aunt, owner of a popular New York gossip magazine, who said she was on vacation. That still didn't explain her disappearance from their lives.
And Freya would never admit it to Maye, even if Mayella were pushing her as she was now, but Amelie's sudden lapse in existence had hurt her.
Mirroring her friend and taking a sip of her own drink, some organic iced-coffee that was severely overpriced thanks to the trendiness of the cafe, Maye chuckled, but she was not nonchalant, she was prodding. Perhaps Maye wanted to be struck by the storm that was her oldest friend. "Come on, Freya. You can't be that mad at her. We both know you're biased toward her."
At this, Freya raised a perfectly sculpted brow.
"Oh?" Only Freya Arsov could make one-syllable sound so threatening.
Mayella sighed. She did not want to explain what she knew Freya was already aware of. But there was a challenge in that Oh and Mayella had no choice but to meet it.
Freya was prickly like that. She frequently asked questions which she knew the answer to, simply to make the other person doubt themselves. And it usually worked. Just not on Mayella, who was immune to most of Freya's tricks.
"No matter what Amelie does, you'll forgive her anyway." Maye stirred her coffee, shaking about the ice. "And you're less likely to be a stone-cold bitch to her, for whatever reason," Mayella added, with a roll of her emerald eyes.
"Are you jealous of Amelie, Maye? I thought you'd be more jealous of, you know, my actual boyfriend," chuckled Freya and there was something about the way she asked the first question that made Mayella wary. Though, she didn't comment on the stone-cold bitch thing because they both knew it could be true. Like now.
Her friend was all sharp words and purely icy glares and Mayella knew how to thread to avoid them, usually.
"I'm not jealous of Amelie, Freya, I'm just saying, she hurt you, I think, and it's not to be easily forgiven just because she's your best friend," said Maye, hoping the topic was ended as she was regretting bringing it up in the first place, struggling under that frosty stare. Mayella ignored the lump in her throat as she called Amelie Freya's best friend. She changed the topic herself. "How are things with you and Jules anyway?"
Freya's face betrayed nothing to the topic change of her boyfriend, Julian Glasier, who she also hadn't really spoken about this summer. Though she didn't get as prickly as she had when Amelie was brought up.
Mayella had held a fair share of boyfriends in the past but she was positive Freya had only ever had Julian. Well, as an official boyfriend, she wasn't so sure about her friend's flings. The only person who knew about Freya's secrets like that was Freya herself and possibly Amelie Perrin. There was surely room for flings in Julian and Freya's relationship though.
The pair had been a thing since primary school but they had the sort of on and off relationship thing going that consisted mainly of them shouting at each other at the top of their lungs behind doors they thought no one could hear through. But the walls in Ebony House, their shared dorm house at the school, were thin. Then, Freya pretending whatever Julian said or did had no effect on her whatsoever for weeks. Until they finally found each other again, like they couldn't break a habit.
They weren't the golden couple of their high school hierarchy purely for this reason but the two were still a prime subject of rampant gossiping and rumours.
Julian was, like Freya, born to English aristocracy, the type of money no one ever had to really work for. He was handsome and kind and seemed absolutely in love with Freya at times.
"Last I heard, he and my brother were somewhere in the UAE," drawled Freya flippantly.
"Dubai?" questioned Maye.
"Heaven knows," said Freya, clearly bored of the topic. Oh, so they were in their off mode at the moment, guessed Maye, yet Freya had still called him her boyfriend.
Their relationship was a strange one.
Today was the last day of summer. By tomorrow, they'd all have to be back in London and thereby all reunited back at Arrowsmith and it's rolling forestry and bedroom dorms that, while being noticeably larger and better than the dorms of other boarding schools, were significantly smaller than the regular bedrooms of the wealthy students who resided in them.
Well, most of them would be back tomorrow.
Freya and their other friend, Raina al Hassan, fellow dorm mate and member of the 'Ebony House Five', as Mayella had heard her and her friends called once, always arrived the day after everyone else.
Raina did so because her huge family always had some traditional lunch before school started and insisted she attend before embarking from Riyadh to England.
As for Freya, she lived along the same winding, forested road that Arrowsmith ended upon, in a sprawling English manor tucked within the trees, so she did not partake in the rush to get there like most of the other students who lived further away. That and she just harboured a vehement hatred for the welcome ceremony, like everyone else.
It had been that way for a long time, almost since Maye first started attending Arrowsmith and that was roughly twelve years ago when she'd also first met Freya.
But something told her that her school year was going, to begin with, a flare, as not only was Julian on the receiving end of her Highness, the ice princess's, distaste but Amelie as well.
The kingdom was in shambles, with the princess pissed at her prince and her lady-in-waiting.
And just like that, Mayella Vance dreaded but also looked forward to the upcoming school year.
✦ ✦ ✦
MATTHEW AL NASSAR WAS GOING TO shoot Anakin.
After an entire week spent in Mexico, consulting with various flaunting drug dealers and rival gangs to maintain some semblance of peace within the Dark World — as his Second-in-Command, Grayson Winchester, preferred to affectionately address the illegal underground workings of international society — Matthew was simply exhausted.
The first thing he'd done after the jet had dropped him and his cadre back home into the United Kingdom was all but ditch the gang, who were still boarding off of the plane and speed off in his car that sat, waiting for him upon the tarmac.
He'd almost missed his car as much as he missed his bed. Almost.
He had driven back to the gang's warehouse headquarters in the middle of London, then proceeded to strip off his shirt and unceremoniously flop onto his beloved bed and sleep. Everything else be damned.
It had been a peaceful sleep. A much-needed rest after days of doing his gang's bidding.
He'd attended far too many extravagant parties in Mexico City, all the while watching his back so none of the foreign gang members stuck a knife in it. Matthew was tired. Understandably.
So naturally, when his well-needed sleep was interrupted, Matthew considered taking up the gun from his dresser and whacking Anakin upside the head.
Sure, Anakin Graves was one of the few members of the Du Morts Gang who were allowed into his quaint bedroom quarters which sat the top of the warehouse, but he thought that Anakin, of all people, would know how far to stretch that exception.
He managed to refrain himself from any head-whacking. Just barely.
Anakin was also one of the few members of the Du Morts Gang with any working brain cells—which Matthew didn't want to destroy by physical force—and as such acted as Matthew's Third-in-Command, second to Grayson, who had helped Matthew learn the workings of this world of gangs and guns two years ago when he'd been thrust into it.
Gray had been at Matthew's side from the beginning. Though he'd initially been worried the heavily-inked and muscular older boy was just waiting to strangle him in his bed. But Anakin had come to Matthew a year and a half ago, nothing but a street rat to anyone who looked. It didn't take Matthew long though to realise that behind Anakin's dark-circled eyes, there was a sharp, valuable intellect.
Now, he would even go so far as to call both boys his brothers.
But at this moment? At this moment, Anakin Graves was sounding incredibly similar to a punching bag to Matthew.
"What do you want, Anakin?" grumbled Matthew, eyes still shut. He didn't need to open them to know that the boy was standing over his bed, pale green eyes peering warily at his sleeping form. Well, formerly sleeping form.
The first thing Grayson had ever warned Matthew about was to always be aware of his surroundings. Anyone and anything at any time could try to murder him where he stood because of his newfound position as head of the gang. And that possibility of Matthew being murdered increased as the success of the Du Morts Gang increased.
To say he was a light sleeper because of this rainbow pocket of information was an understatement.
"Wake up." Anakin Graves was also one of the few people with the guts to boss Matthew around. After all, Matthew was technically the boss. And he literally had a loaded gun under one of his pillows, one which Anakin absolutely knew about.
It must be urgent or Anakin really wanted to be smacked. Or shot.
Sighing, he sat up in bed, resting his palms behind his head and leaning back casually while still blinking sleep out of his eyes. He regarded Anakin lazily.
Anakin was usually one who kept to himself and didn't get in anyone's way, he was one of the youngest members of Matthew's gang, a year younger than Matthew himself, but also one of the most dangerous. So if he disturbed Matthew at, he glanced at the glowing green numbers on his clock, six o'clock in the morning, he must have a pretty damn good reason.
"How may I help you?" offered Matthew dryly.
Anakin didn't smile back, then again, Matthew hadn't expected him to. People said he was difficult and standoffish. Hell, they hadn't met Grayson or Anakin. Compared to them, Matthew was a ray of sunshine. Those two could form a club where everyone just sat around, frowned and glared at things.
"You have to go home," said Anakin, once again, not elaborating.
"I am home," remarked Matthew.
"No, as in, your parent's home. Nextdoor to the Arsov's home." At this, Matthew rose a brow.
He knew things about Anakin that few knew. So generally, he was intrigued when this request popped up.
"Are you going to tell me why?" Matthew asked simply.
"Because Andre Kirova called last night after you fell asleep," said Anakin and that explained everything. "He sounded angry."
Various emotions blossomed in Matthew's chest as he sat up straighter in his bed, mouth now in a tightly drawn line.
He took a fleeting look around at his room that he'd just returned to. The half-assed oil paintings strewn in the corner and the paint-splattered coffee table stared back at him.
Matthew hadn't painted in a while, afraid that the brush would bleed blood out onto the canvas instead of paint. The various bottles filled with alcoholic liquids that made Matthew dizzy even from a sniff were suddenly very interesting, so he studied them instead of giving way to the thoughts ricocheting through his head.
He willed himself to take a breath. The mention of Kirova's name alone never failed to make Matthew both furious and terrified.
Matthew raised his gaze back to Anakin once he'd grounded himself just barely and saw something he hadn't ever seen in the boy's gaze. Panic.
Andre Kirova, the reason both of them were a part of a gang at such young ages. The man holding the cord on Matthew's life.
"Angry how?" Matthew asked with a heavy inhale.
Anakin didn't answer that question but Matthew knew he sensed his barely veiled trepidation. Instead, he went, "How soon can you get yourself enrolled into Arrowsmith Institute?"
✦ ✦ ✦
hi, thank you for reading my first chapter! I rlly hope you liked it!
any thoughts, questions, opinions would help me a lot so please comment and lmk what you think!
again, tysm for reading. good luck on this wild ride.