Ethan:

  Graduation day didn’t feel like an ending.

  It felt like camouflage.

  Caps and gowns, camera flashes, proud parents pretending this wasn’t just a ritual before the wolves were unleashed. I wore the same black robe as everyone else, but my hands were already stained with the kind of promises you don’t make in daylight.

  Celeste sat three rows ahead of me. Legs crossed, posture perfect, lipstick dark and defiant. Her eyes met mine once during the valedictorian speech — just once.

  That was enough.

  We didn’t clap. We didn’t cheer. We endured it, like gods pretending to be human for an hour.

  When they called her name, the applause was nervous. Controlled. Everyone clapped, but no one really smiled.

  Because Celeste Lysandre wasn’t popular.

  She was feared.

  And when they called mine?

  They whispered.

  Because I wasn’t just her shadow anymore.

  I was her equal.

  Celeste:

  We didn’t stay for photos. We didn’t throw our caps.

  We left through the side exit of the gym, cutting through the alley behind the school, the same one where I once pressed Ethan against the bricks and told him I wanted him to bleed for me.

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  Now?

  He was the one pulling me.

  Straight into his car, still in our robes, our diplomas tossed in the back like forgotten debts.

  “Dinner?” he asked.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re taking me on a date in this?” I gestured to the polyester gown.

  He grinned. “You’ll like it.”

  He was right.

  Ethan:

  I brought her to the Lysandre estate.

  Not the dining room. Not the formal parlor.

  The rooftop garden.

  Where the city looked small beneath us.

  Dinner was already waiting — arranged by me, not the staff. Candles. Wine. No cameras. No guards.

  Just her.

  And me.

  I pulled a ring from my pocket as she cut into the steak, mid-sentence about how boring the ceremony had been.

  No speech. No kneeling.

  Just a box.

  A look.

  A challenge.

  Celeste:

  I stared at it.

  Then at him.

  Then at the skyline — where the moon hung low like a voyeur.

  “You’re serious,” I said.

  He didn’t flinch.

  “I killed for you,” he said simply. “I bled for you. You’re in every line I’ve ever written, every bruise I carry, every goddamn plan I’ve made.”

  I sipped the wine. Unbothered. Curious.

  “And you want to seal that with paperwork?”

  He leaned in. Close enough for me to feel the heat of him.

  “No,” he whispered. “I want to seal it with war. With loyalty. With blood.”

  Then he smiled — my kind of smile.

  “And paperwork.”

  Ethan:

  She didn’t say yes.

  Not right away.

  She just leaned back, looked at the stars, and said, “You’re mine either way.”

  Then she slid the ring onto her finger and toasted me with her wine glass.

  “To mutual destruction,” she said.

  “To marriage,” I replied.

  Same thing.

  We were married that night.

  No guests.

  No white dress.

  Just an officiant bought in cash, a rooftop soaked in moonlight, and two monsters in love with their ruin.

  Celeste:

  I didn’t cry.

  Neither did he.

  We signed the papers.

  We kissed like a gunshot.

  We went back downstairs, fucked against the marble hallway wall, and fell asleep in each other’s arms — still wearing the rings, still tasting the red wine and recklessness on each other’s tongues.

  The next morning?

  My father raised his glass at breakfast and said, “Finally.”

  And Ethan said, “You’re next.”

  Vincent laughed.

  But not too hard.

  Because he saw it now.

  This wasn’t just a love story.

  It was a takeover.