And my heart was still beating too fast.
And all I could think was?—
What the hell did I just let myself get pulled into?
Phase Two: The Woman Who Was Chosen…
CHAPTER 15
Zacian “Zay” Wells-Leveau
“Born Into It, Ready or Not”
Ares and I had been locked in long before money got loud and names started meaning something different. Before Forbes. Before his French ties. Before the weight of families that didn’t look like us but wanted to own us. He was my best friend because he never flinched around me. Never tried to out-alpha me. Never treated me like muscle or a liability. We grew up knowing exactly who we were and what came with it.
When Malik was killed in the streets, I watched Ares grieve in class. His shooting was all over the news, but the only nigga that asked if he was okay was me. We had been tight ever since then. Told him he had a brother for life.
Now we were grown with real problems.
I was an heir whether I liked it or not.
A Black mafia family with roots nobody talked about out loud.
The Laveau name meant power in rooms you’d never see on Google.
We posed as Wells. Clean. Corporate. Forgettable.
Even Ares didn’t know my birth last name.
I’d been trained since I was a kid not to speak about the family name to anybody. Was my father’s right hand before I even understood what that meant. I knew how to move bodies and money before I learned how to process feelings. That was intentional.
What I didn’t know until that morning was that my sister had become a problem so big it could start a war.
My mother called me early. Her voice tight. My father didn’t say much. He never did when shit mattered.
“Yuna needs to come home,” my mom said.
I already knew that part.
“She needs to get clean,” my dad added. “And she needs to remember the life she was born into.”
Then my mom said the words that made my stomach drop.
“She’s marrying into the Delacroix family. To Ares.”
I laughed at first. Straight disbelief.
“She’s not marrying my best friend,” I said. “That’s not happening.”
My father finally looked at me then. Eyes cold. Not angry. Decided.
“It isn’t up for debate,” he said. “Get her home. Get her clean. Prepare her for marriage in nine months, or we will have a war on our hands.”
I stood there staring at them like I didn’t know them.
I wanted to argue. Wanted to say they’d lost their damn minds. Wanted to remind them Yuna wasn’t a bargaining chip.
But then I stopped.
