In the next moment, she sits up suddenly. “Hey, look, our brothers are trending in the media again.”
I lean over to glance at her phone. “Nothing new. People have gone crazy over them. They’re literally every other girl’s dream prince.” I don’t bother hiding the bitterness in my voice.
She chuckles. “Isn’t it good that they’re so famous like this?”
“Girls keeping their posters on their bedroom walls doesn’t seem good to me.”
There are thousands of images online of girls fangirling over them. Whenever I search his name, a new flood of fans takes over my screen. A shocking number have even tattooed his name, or worse, his face on their skin. Wen always finds their obsession amusing.
I don’t have any problem with girls running around Leo, but I can’t stand it when they orbit around my adopted brother.
Mama told me the day we brought him into our family that I was never to mention his adoption, and that I had to treat him as my real brother so he wouldn’t feel like an outsider.
And I did exactly that… for years.
Until the truth, him being adopted, started giving me a sense of relief.
Relief… and permission.
Because I can’t live with the shame of wanting to do things with my brother unless I remind myself—again and again—that he isn’t my blood. That there’s nothing shameful in the fantasies that now pour forth in my books, where the male main character is him, and the female main character is me, just disguised under another skin.
“Holy shit.” Wen’s voice breaks into my thoughts.
“What happened now?”
She shoves her phone in front of me.
It’s an article about the concert she played a few days ago.
There are pictures of her on stage at the piano, then stepping into her car afterward. It’s a model built by Leo’s automobile company, custom-made and so unique that anyone with half a brain can tell it costs entire GDPs to afford.
The headline reads: ‘Cinderella Got Her Prince Charming.’
“Why the hell do these people think I’m poor?”
No one out there even knows our fathers have daughters, everyone believes they only have sons. We’re famous under our pen names and stage names. That anonymity is the only reason we can still walk the streets without being hunted. Because once the world learns of our existence, freedom will be over. Our fathers and brothers stand at the very top of the food chain. They are not just powerful, they are the power of entire country. And power like that breeds enemies.
“Maybe it’s because of your stage name, which is literally Ella,” I laugh.
She throws her phone onto the bed with a huff. “But it’s not Ella from Cinderella.”
My laughter only grows louder, my head tipping back.
“Don’t laugh so hard. Did you forget about the article that said, ‘Finally, you and your family can afford a good living since you’re now a bestselling author’?”
My laugh cuts off mid-breath, and hers begins instead. “That’s also because of your pen name, which is literally Ash Penny.”
I flare my nose in mock offence, glaring at her. “Not funny.”
Zloban (23 years old)
Leo explains the proposal once again to the President of Canada, but the bald old man continues to brush him off with the same half-hearted seriousness as before. His dismissive tone is seeping under both our skins, testing the edges of our patience.
Leo turns his eyes toward me, the question unspoken but clear. Should we kill him? I give the slightest shake of my head. No. Not yet. We need the man alive.
“Mr. Caleo, I hope you’ve understood the point,” Leo speaks in his deceptively light tone.
The President nods. “It’s difficult to make such a decision. I can’t simply go with the words of two boys, can I?”
