2. MADDY

2

MADDY

ZION ISLAND / PRESENT DAY

While back in the day, the biggest celebrations were birthdays, graduations, and national holidays, right now we are celebrating Zion Island surviving yet another confrontation. Archer and Kat's kidnapping by the local thugs was no joke. It's the rich versus the poor, the elite versus the local thugs, the luxury Ayana Resort versus the local town, Port Mrei, and the slums, Ashlands.

The Bangkok restaurant is booming with music and laughter. The Ayana resort, which houses over a hundred of the richest offspring in the world, is covered in lights like a Christmas tree. It's the opening of the Thai food restaurant that Archer bought for Kat. They are celebrating their freedom and love.

I certainly envy them. They don't have to hide who they are from others.

Unlike me.

When you steal an identity and are afraid to be discovered, you become someone else. Maddy-me is a far cry from Milena-me, but I'm not sure I miss my old self all that much.

I grab some food from the open buffet, then say hi to the people I know. Guff, Owen, Zach, Ya-Ya, Ty. And of course, Kai and Callie. Also, some of the Ayana residents. The once hostile camps are slowly reconciling—the Outcasts from the Eastside and the Elites from Ayana.

Good. It's time for peace.

No matter how many friends I acquire, I still feel alone. Maddy-me has friends, while Milena-me is in hiding. It's weird, this forced psychological personality split. No one knows what I used to be like.

The few days of that spring break two years ago were the most fun I'd had in years. Patrick turned out to be a sweetheart, and spending hours at the pool, on someone's yacht, dancing and drinking until sunrise without having to report to my bodyguards and Dad felt like a dream.

Until the night our phones exploded with missile attack alerts. Over a hundred nukes went off all across the world, destroying everything we knew. That night, the electricity went out. So did cell service. Local thugs from town attacked. Patrick was killed. So were several others. A hundred of us spent two days fighting off the attack, then tried to contact home, only to find out that the world had gone into lockdown.

And I realized that maybe I had a chance at a different life.

So, when the Elites couldn't reconcile their differences, twenty of us left for the Eastside.

Two years of camping out on the beach and trying to figure out this new life in the wild.

Two years of hiding.

Two years of not seeing my dad and hoping he thought I was dead.

Two years of people mourning for those who died during the nuclear attacks while I felt disgusted with myself because I was thankful for this chance, a chance to escape my father and his omni-reachable power. Despite how much I missed him.

Two years of mourning Maddy, the actual Maddy, who was missing, her entire family killed during the bombings. Flinching at the mention of my real name on the lips of Archer and Marlow during their talks about "Tsariuk business." I was playing dead, yet I was still a business.

The fateful night when the Westside, led by Archer Crone, attacked us and shot Bo was the night I had to come to the Westside to take care of him. I knew things would change.

And then came three months at Ayana, hearing my father's name everywhere and realizing he was looking for me. On Zion, of all places.

Months of avoiding big parties and working twenty-four-seven at the medical center to stay under the radar.

Torturous weeks after finding out that Kat was sent by her Navy Seal father, hired by my dad, to Zion to locate Milena Tsariuk. Me.

Sleepless nights and drinking on my own, waiting for the helicopters or planes with my father's insignia to come pick me up. Realizing I probably didn't run far enough.

Shock at learning that every mafia syndicate in the world was looking for me, either to please my father or to blackmail him, many of them sending spies to Port Mrei.

Waiting to be confronted.

Tired of being afraid.

Knowing that soon, Archer, Kat, or Marlow would eventually figure it all out.

And reveling in the sound of my mother tongue when Marlow and Kat joked around in Russian. I couldn't help but grin, trying to hide it and wishing I could speak up.

This celebration at the Thai restaurant is a reminder that even the wealthiest in this world are not safe. Let alone fugitives like me.

But I take a moment to celebrate, too.

Kat and Marlow come over with plates of Thai food and keep speaking Russian.

"Sorry, Maddy," Marlow apologizes, thinking he's rude for talking Russian with Kat.

"No worries," I say. "I have to leave for work, anyway." I signed up for the night shift again.

In hindsight, I should've known that the surprise would come from someone I least expected and barely knew.

Mathew "Raven" Levi… The dark "handler" of Ayana's arms contracts, medical supplies, and security personnel. The second most important man in Zion, after Archer Crone.

Our first one-on-one weeks ago at the medical center felt like a clash but also a breath of fresh air. A person who felt like he saw right through me? Intriguing. A dangerous one? Maybe. That night, I let him know I wasn't willing to cave in despite his reputation. I knew he'd get interested in me.

Oh, he felt like home, like the men I grew up with, the ones I ran from yet the ones I always gravitated to. Powerful. Quiet on the surface. Danger seeping out of his every pore. One who knew what he was capable of even if he never showed it.

I could sense it like a captive who managed to escape can sense a trap. And yet, I couldn't take my eyes off him.

Not then. Not on Archer's birthday. Not when Archer and Kat were kidnapped, and I spent hours with Raven and the IT crew.

Not now.

Across the crowded restaurant hall, I see him .

Every time we're in the same room, his eyes are on me. My skin prickles. My heartbeat spikes. I feel him. It's unsettling yet so different and peculiar that I crave more of it, trying to figure out that feeling.

My heart does a warning thud, hard against my chest, my stomach tightening. Here it is again—a tingle of curiosity, growing stronger by the second as I hold his gaze across the room.

He's watching. Why does it excite me?

Our gazes don't stay locked for long, but nothing has ever unnerved me so much. My poker face is great, but my body wants to break out in shivers.

Someone blocks my view of him, but the feeling stays.

"I'm gonna go," I say to Kat and Marlow.

I say my goodbyes and walk out into the warm Ayana night, the sound of the buzzing crowd fading as I walk down the dark road toward the medical center.

And I feel him again. It's not paranoia, rather some unexplainable fated bond to a stranger.

Excitement tingles in my nerves. At being caught. At being chased. Cornered. Pinned against the wall. I've been tame, quiet Maddy for so long I forgot how to be Milena, wild and daring, careless and deviant.

"Maddy…" His voice behind me is soft but commanding.

I halt and turn. My heartbeat spikes. I was waiting for this, wanted this.

"How are you?" he asks, stepping out of the shadows and slowly approaching me.

Closer, closer yet, too close.

My body tenses up with his every step. He's testing me. His chest is almost against mine as he steps into me.

I don't budge.

Wanna play this game, Raven?

He takes a tiny step back, giving me room.

"I'm good, Raven. How are you?" I say as calmly as I can. Let's play.

"I'm great," he says.

My common sense tells me to stay away from him, but I like this dare.

Welcome back, Milena.

"What makes this evening great?" I ask.

The dangerous sparkle in his eyes is somehow humorous.

"I watched you in the restaurant, Maddy."

I know. "You did."

Is that a flicker of a smile on his lips?

The night is quiet. The sounds of the party at the restaurant are barely audible. I like being alone with him, on a dark street, in the middle of the resort. He's dressed in all black, as usual, blending with the dark night. The brightest part of him are his eyes, the color of steel, reflecting every little light.

"Wondered what you were laughing about with Katura and Marlow," he says.

"Just a joke."

He reaches toward my face, and I hold my breath but don't move, keeping my eyes locked with his.

His finger traces the length of a loose strand of my hair, the gesture so simple, yet it feels outrageously open.

Raven has a notorious reputation in Ayana. The "handler," the negotiator, the man who oversees pretty much anything that comes in and out of Zion Island. He handles the treaty between the world's almighty who reside here, including the Gen-Alpha corporation, and Port Mrei's mayor and crew, the island's mafia.

In hindsight, I should've known that the person who'd challenge me would be yet another all-powerful man.

Raven cocks his head as he studies me. "Kat and Marlow were speaking in Russian."

Here it is—the moment way overdue.

His finger inches down the side of my face, my neck. My hair stands on end, my body burning. Danger and want are a cocktail the taste of which I've long forgotten.

It takes all my willpower to keep my breathing even.

His eyes drop to his finger that gently glides to my shoulder, stopping at the strap of my dress.

Don't stop.

We are in the middle of the street, and the thought is ridiculous. When he slowly raises his eyes to meet mine again, the nervousness pulsing through my body is back.

Finally, he lets a smile out to play. His voice is almost a whisper, gentle yet etched with danger, like a sharp blade wrapped in a sleeve.

"Do you want to tell me how you know Russian?" he asks, then adds, " Maddy ," with an unmistakable punctuation. "Or should I call you Milena Tsariuk?"

It's surreal to hear someone call me by my real name. There's a triumph in his eyes, but I don't break the eye contact.

"What do you want, Raven?" I ask.

His gaze is hypnotizing. His closeness is invasive. When he strokes my cheek with the back of his fingers, I should pull away. But I don't. His touch makes my body hum.

"You," he says simply. "Unless you want your little secret to be known."

Hurried footsteps are coming our way, and his hand falls off me.

"Maddy!" Guff slows his pace as he approaches us and gives Raven a hostile glance before turning to me. "You all right?"

Raven doesn't look at him, though, his eyes on me, and he takes a slow step back. "I will see you soon, Maddy ."

He starts walking away, disappearing into the darkness as Guff raises his eyebrows. "What was that about? Saw him follow you out of the restaurant, thought it looked suspicious. You okay?"

"Yeah," I whisper, wondering why this interaction with Raven is making me feel like I just got a shot of adrenalin.

Game over , I want to say to myself.

But I know the game has only just begun.