“He started it,” Marco mutters.
“You gonna cry next?” Santino smirks. “Need a hug?”
“I’ll hack your bank account and donate it to cat shelters,” Marco fires back.
Santino leans back, looking smug. “At least cats fight, I don't mind.” He knows Marco can do it in less than five minutes if he wants.
“What you need to hack into is the shipment Father asked you to look into,” Milo tells him, and Marco shrugs his shoulders, as if there are more important things he needs to do. “You know he will call, even worse come here for an answer.”
“Yeah, I’m halfway through it, I messaged Father this morning.” He looks up at us all, and smiles. “Who wants the answers to the algebra test tomorrow?”
“How the fuck did you hack into the school computers?” I lean forward, taking his phone off him, and see the test paper on his phone.
“That’s the difference. You’re the muscle, I'm the brains, he's the killer.” Marco takes his phone back, and emails the paper to Milo, Rosa and me.
“The first to stop the pull-ups has to fuck one of the teachers.” Milo stands up ready to win.
“We all know who’s going to win.” Marco looks over at me, and I smile. “Or is your dick still itching for someone else?” he asks, and I stand up, take my shirt off, because there is no way I can do pull ups with this being tight around me.
“Let’s go,” I dare him, adding when Rosa stands up, “I don’t fucking think so, sit your ass down.” Because there is no way in hell she’s taking part in this. I glance over at Marco, almost begging him to make his fucking move on her. I have no idea what’s stopping him.
“Your dad will kill the three of us if you get into a scandal with a teacher,” Marco tells her, and he isn’t lying. We all still remember the warning he gave us.
Nothing is to happen to his baby girl, no one is to touch heragain, and while we are here, no one fucking will.
“Fine.” She sits back down and starts tapping on her phone, most likely to her little brother.
Marco looks at me and smiles. “You win, I want proof you do it, I don’t trust you can.” He looks over at Milo, who agrees.
“Come on then, let's do this.” I never back down from a competition, will I fuck a teacher, who knows, but they don’t need to know that.
Right now, all I want to do is prove to both of them that, no matter what, when it comes to challenges like this, I will always win. Hacking the fastest, I don’t have a chance, and throwing a knife to hit the right spot, thirty-seventy chance of it happening, while Milo, has never missed. But this, this is my game, and I win all my games.
I was summoned.
Not asked. Not invited. Summoned.
The parchment came folded in black wax, pressed with a seal no one speaks of, but everyone knows. I found it resting on my pillow when I returned from training, with just the mark.
The Ring.
Ordo Tenebris.
Blackstone’s oldest tradition. The silent war where names are carved into legacy or erased.
For the next four years, it tells the school who won, the one who wears the ring is the most powerful.
I should’ve expected it. Eldest Messina. Blood on my hands. A reputation that walks louder than I do. Still, something about the seal made my pulse shift.
Was it fear, or excitement? I have no idea, but you never say no.
I enter the corridor behind the altar stairs, one of the oldest stone paths in Blackstone.
Leo meets me at the stone arch.
“You understand why you’re here?” he asks in a tone so dead, it takes me a second to reply, because his tone has never been like that before.
“Tradition,” I reply.
