Victory Storm
Broken Rules
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Table of contents
Broken Rules
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Broken Rules
Victory Storm
Text copyright © 2020 Victory Storm
http://www.victorystorm.com
Translator (ita --> eng): Maria Burnett
Cover: Victory Storm's graphic design - Stock: https://stock.adobe.com
This is a work fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced or disseminated by any means, photocopies, microfilm or otherwise, without the author's permission.
BROKEN RULES
LOVE STORM SERIE
Easton could not believe it. Did his father really think he could host his new girlfriend's daughter without any consequences? And to make matters worse, did dear Alice really think she could dance into his life without following him and his rules?
When Alice had accepted that new life alongside her mother and new family to attend college, she knew it wasn't going to be easy, but she did not realize the full extent of it. A kiss had sealed that already difficult experience into a real hell. It was unfortunate she had never been afraid of getting burned and, before settling in, she was already ready to declare war and destroy the one who enjoyed humiliating and subduing her.
If it is true that in love and in war everything is fair, this fight will spare no blows.
STANDALONE NOVEL
1
ALICE
I felt guilty.
Leaving my father and Book alone in Seattle weighed on my chest like a boulder.
I felt like a traitor, like I had been bought, an opportunist, one who had preferred her university career to her family.
Not even my father's words had managed to make me feel better.
«Alice, what they are offering you is what you have wanted for a lifetime and you deserve it. Don't even think for a moment about not going because of me for a moment. If you do, then I'll be the one to feel guilty for holding you back, jeopardizing your whole future. "
I knew he was right, but I couldn't be positive.
He and I had been one since my mother had agreed to move to Eugene, Oregon, to get the promotion she wanted so much.
I refused to follow her because I was too attached to my father, our dog, my friends, and my high school, but things had changed by now.
I had graduated, my friends had left to attend various universities around the country, my father worked all day and Book had started hanging out around the neighbors' house since they had adopted a dog.
The money for my studies had dissolved due to the problems with the house falling apart and my mother had too many expenses to help us, even though both my father and I were too proud to ask her for financial support.
I had grown with the burden of responsibility since had been transferred left me with my father.
I had taken care of all those things that she had taken care of before and I always felt like a pillar for my father.
Now I didn't know what to do. I kept wondering if I had made the right choice to abandon him to his destiny and leave for Oregon to attend university and to stay temporarily with my mother and her new partner, Mitchell Carson. He was also the brother of the rector of the university, which I was able to attend thanks to his recommendation and his financial help.
Apparently, my mother had fallen in love with a very rich man. So rich that he didn't bat an eye at the idea of paying for my studies even if he didn't know me, and so in love with her that he would do anything to fulfill his girlfriend's dream of having her daughter back.
I had always wanted to go to college to study journalism, but the price was high if I thought about my father and the fact that I had left him to go with the one who had abandoned us to take pictures around the world as a photojournalist for a magazine.
The only thing that convinced me to get on the bus and take that six-hour journey was to make my father proud and make the most of that totally unique opportunity.
I laughed bitterly when I got off the bus and my mother sent me a message telling me that she had been detained for a photo shoot and could not come and get me.
I would have been amazed otherwise ... You will never change, will you? It has always been too difficult for you to make room for your daughter.
Without losing heart, I took a taxi to the address she had sent me. Someone else would have to open the door and offer me a seat.
When the car stopped in front of a large villa surrounded by greenery, I was amazed by so much wealth.
To my surprise the iron gate was open, the tree-lined avenue was full of parked cars, and shouts and loud music came from the house.
Dazed and exhausted from the trip, I got off the taxi and headed for the villa.
I hesitantly approached that cubic, earth-colored structure, which mingled with the surrounding natural environment. It was a futuristic villa, divided into staggered cubes that held various rooms. At the base were two large cubes, one of which had one side entirely of glass, while upstairs there were at least six smaller rooms, also divided into cubes to create a fascinating game of recesses and projections. They too had large windows overlooking the surrounding lawns.
I immediately noticed a constant coming and going of kids, having fun, and running everywhere. Some were busy drinking beer; others were in swimsuits drying themselves ...
Even though we were already in September, the weather was still extremely hot, and I too was dressed in only a pair of leggings and a light top.
Disoriented and unable to find anyone able to help me, I dragged my suitcase across the villa, passing through two living rooms and ending up at the back of the house which opened onto the barbecue area and swimming pool.
There I found the centerpiece of what was supposed to be a party.
The swimming pool was full of people my age and the music was even more deafening.
I looked around.
I knew my mother's partner had children, Easton, and Jake, one of whom was my age, but I didn't know who they were. I had never even seen a picture of them, and my mother had told me that they did not live permanently in their father's house.
Stunned by the mess, exhausted, and heated by the journey, I placed my suitcase against the wall and tried to enter the chaos with the intention of asking someone for help.
I had never been good at breaking the ice or to accost strangers, but I took courage.
I was about to approach a girl in a bikini who was drinking a Pepsi when I saw a boy coming out of the water towards me.
I turned and noticed his ice blue eyes fixed on me.
Hoping to have just one of my mother's partner's children in front of me, I walked away from the girl and walked over to him.
I let my gaze slide on that boy. He was at least twenty centimeters taller than me with a slender, sculpted body covered only by a pair of blue Bermuda shorts. I was fascinated by his tanned skin, so different from mine that was white as milk, but above al
l by the tattoo that ran completely up his right arm up to his shoulder. It was a reproduction of Escher's lithograph "Relativity," a succession of stairs in various directions but which, together, gave a sense of unreality and paradox. In the tattoo, however, there were no people but only dragons flying over the scene up to the shoulder where an even larger dragon was clinging, with claws so long and sharp as to penetrate the flesh, made even more realistic by bleeding wounds that were tattooed on the skin at the base of the animal's legs.
What drives a person to tattoo wounds and paradoxes on the skin?
With a slight sense of unease about the image, I concentrated on the square-jawed face, high cheekbones, straight nose, and fleshy mouth, curved in an enigmatic and arrogant smile, combined with an expression of pride that was painted on his face.
Every cell in my body screamed at me that that boy was trouble.
Only when he was one step away from me did I notice the drops of water that continued to slide down his wavy brown hair to and then trickle down his face and descend down his perfect chest flat abdomen.
There was something about that boy that awed me. Or maybe it was just the weariness from the journey.
I wasn't the type to let anyone push me around, but the fact was that I couldn't say a single word.
I waited to hear the sound of his voice, while the air between us was completely sucked in by his presence.
I saw him bend over me.
Our eyes remained chained and for a moment it seemed to me that I had no way out.
I wanted to react, but I was so tired, and, in the end, I surrendered to that closeness that made me feel vulnerable and uncomfortable.
"You must be Alice Preston," he whispered to me. I could barely hear him because of the loud music, so that I was forced to get even closer to him.
With relief, I understood that this must be one of my mother's partner's children.
I smiled and nodded, grateful to meet someone who could help me.
A moment passed, and something changed.
His right hand landed lightly on my face, while his left arm surrounded my waist, pushing me against him.
I had no reflexes ready to pull back, but only to get my hands forward, colliding with his wet and fresh chest.
I shivered at the sudden change in temperature from hot to cold.
I tried to understand what was happening, but his hand forced me to keep my face on his, as our eyes fixed and our breaths merged.
I stepped back, but my gesture intensified the hold on my body, his left hand open on my back. I felt his wet body dampen my clothes where he was touching me. The coolness gave me relief as I was hot, but the unexpected physical contact frightened me, leading me to seek space and oxygen.
"What the hell…?"
The boy was kissing me!
I tried to push him away, but it was like moving a wall, and suddenly I found myself with my back against the wall and his hand sliding towards my bottom.
Angry and unbalanced by what was happening to me I blocked his hand and he, in response, clung with his body even more to mine, while with his mouth he forced me to part my lips and respond to his kiss.
The thing that upset me most was that all the while he kept staring at me as if he wanted to check my reactions and understand how long it would take me to give up.
Despite the fatigue, I did not give in, but remained rigid under his assault.
I didn't know how long held each other in the kiss.
When he broke away from me, I found myself staggering and with shaking legs.
What kept me standing was his arm that now surrounded my shoulders, while he was facing his guests who watched us curiously and amused.
"My friends, I present to you Alice, my new sister!" shouted the euphoric boy, setting off the laughter of all those present who congratulated him for the welcome he had just given me.
They were all excited about having seen one of them kiss a girl who was supposed to be his sister that way. Apparently that incestuous gesture, instead of upsetting and arousing contempt, had just raised the popularity index and the ego of ...
What's its name?
"Easton, you never miss a beat, huh?" exclaimed a blond boy, high-fiving the guy who had just kissed me and who was now back in the pool.
Easton.
Furious, I looked back at my new stepbrother of less than one minute.
The insolent and arrogant smile he gave me remained indelibly imprinted on my mind.
I would never forget his triumphant and presumptuous expression.
Part of me wanted to slap him and drown him in the pool, but I was too good at enduring and never going crazy. Besides, I was exhausted from the hours of travel and I felt alone without family and home.
Irritated and destroyed by what I had just undergone, I took my suitcase and headed towards the exit, without even looking at Easton and his friends who began to mock me for my escape.
I felt like crying, and within I felt the fear of having made a terrible mistake in accepting that proposal to go to Oregon.
I was outside the door and ready to call a taxi when I saw my mother arrive in a new car. And what a car! A Maserati, the newest model, a brutal comparison with the rubbish that my father used to go to work, when he was able to start it.
"Alice, I’m sorry I didn't come to pick you up at the bus station," she apologized immediately, hugging me tightly.
I didn't reciprocate and she immediately understood that I wasn't in the mood to forgive her.
"Have you already been in?" she asked.
"Yes. I met Easton, your stepson,” I said in an irritated voice, ready to reveal the humiliating and obscene welcome to which she had forced me, but the boy in question came and interrupted me.
"Easton, another party? Don't you remember what your father told you the last time?” My mother tried to reproach him with a tone so condescending and docile that it made me want to break something.
“ I organized it to celebrate your daughter’s arrival. I hope you enjoyed it,” he replied, sending me a provocative look that made my nerves jump.
"No, I didn't appreciate it at all!" I replied without being intimidated. "I hate parties and I hate arrogant, self-assured boys who think they are gods come to Earth, free to do anything and who have no qualms about making others uncomfortable."
"Hey, hey, guys!" My worried mother was alarmed. “Obviously, you started off on the wrong foot but remember from now on we will be a family. I want you to get along, understand? Mitchell and I hope so much that our children have a peaceful and friendly relationship. We also insisted that the rector of the university make you stay in the same mixed dormitory, so that you can always have the other as neighbor. "
"Fantastic," I hissed sourly.
“ Alice, I understand that it was not easy for you to accept this transfer, but I would like you to put your problems aside and try to get along with Easton. He was born and raised here. He knows everyone and has many friends. I'm sure he'll know how to make you feel at home," she said in his defense.
I was ready to make a scene. My mother had just arrived, she didn't know why I was angry, but she had already decided that the fault was mine and not Easton's. I would have liked to scream at her with all my contempt and resentment, but I could not forget that it was I who had agreed to live in Oregon and attend the university paid by her new boyfriend.
That was the price I had to pay for the choice I had made.
***
EASTON
How could I enjoy the satisfaction of having just humiliated and caused a crisis with what my father wanted me to consider my new acquired sister, when she continued to send me dirty looks and did not seem to want to give up in view of my privileged position?
From the first moment I saw her I had been mesmerized by her proud and detached attitude, despite the weariness I had read in her face.
That untouchable and inviolable aura that emanated from her, to the extent that I was able to so blatantly
kiss her and upset her in front of everyone, and then leave her alone, exposed to the public laughter, had made me a beast.
The party was my arena and I was the gladiator. I would never allow any girl to enter my territory without paying the consequences.
I was sure that my message had been received, but those green eyes did not communicate any submission and her auburn hair looked like flames, ready to burn anyone who approached. She would have been very seductive and provocative, had it not been for those spiteful freckles that stained her face, especially her nose and cheekbones, and for her minute appearance that made her look like a doll.
"Easton, why don't you show the room we have set up for Alice, while I look for the servants and end this party before your father arrives?" asked Helena, Alice's mother, kindly.
Generally, I would have left without even an explanation, but Helena had always been courteous to me and often defended me to my father, so I nodded and stood aside to let the new guest pass. Just like a gentleman.
Too bad that the bitch passed me so close that she passed the suitcase over my bare feet.
I bet she had done it on purpose and her smile was clear proof that she had enjoyed her stupid little revenge.
Broken Rules (Love Storm series Book 2) Page 1