Old Friend

**Elysia**

I stood frozen in the center of my hotel room, my eyes locked on the floor as the sheer weight of the evening finally crashed down on my shoulders. Deep breaths. *In and out.* I was supposed to be getting ready for my cousin’s engagement party, but my stomach twisted into tight, unforgiving knots.

Talia and I were more than just cousins. We were practically sisters. Growing up, we shared the same roof, the same secrets, and the same chaotic reality of being born into a family that operated far outside the bounds of the law. Our fathers ran a business together. That was the official story they fed us, anyway. It didn't take long for us to realize that "business" was just a sanitized word for the mafia. The long nights, the strange men in the house, the hushed tones behind closed doors—it all painted a picture we were too young to fully understand but smart enough to fear.

Talia’s mother passed away when we were just kids, a tragedy that left a massive void in her life. My mother stepped up without a second thought, raising Talia as if she were her own flesh and blood. For a while, despite the dark underbelly of our fathers' world, we were a happy family.

Or at least, I thought we were.

When you are a kid, you exist in a bubble. You don't notice the cracks in the foundation because you are too busy playing in the yard. My father, Vincenzo, was always a ghost in his own home. He was a busy man, tied down by the demands of his syndicate, but he still made an effort to carve out small fragments of time for me. It was never enough, but I clung to those moments. I thought it meant he cared.

Then came the night that shattered the illusion.

Talia and I were being our usual nosy selves. We heard the sharp, frantic whispers echoing from the downstairs study and decided to sneak down the staircase to eavesdrop. The shadows masked our small frames as we pressed ourselves against the cold wooden banister, holding our breath. The muffled voices escalated into a fierce, venomous argument.

And then, the sound of flesh striking flesh cracked through the air.

My mother had slapped Vincenzo. Hard. The sound echoed through the hallway, followed by a suffocating silence. Talia and I froze, our eyes wide with unfiltered shock. Panic took over. We scrambled back up the stairs, diving into our shared bed and squeezing our eyes shut, pretending to be fast asleep.

The very next morning, the fallout was swift and brutal. My mother had our bags packed before the sun even fully crested the horizon. We were leaving. I remember the hot tears streaming down my face, begging and pleading because Talia wasn’t in the car with us. My mother had fought tooth and nail to take her, but my uncle flat-out refused to let his daughter go. The pain etched into my mother's face that morning still haunts me. She had her reasons for running, reasons I still don't fully comprehend to this day, but she left her heart behind in that house.

After that day, Vincenzo became a stranger. I tried calling him. I left voicemails, crying into the receiver, telling him how much I missed him. He never returned a single call.

We moved hours away, trading the mafia stronghold for a quiet, mundane life. I still managed to see Talia whenever we could orchestrate a meetup, but as the years dragged on, those visits became scarce. Her father morphed into a nightmare. Without my mother there to act as a buffer, my uncle spiraled into the deepest depths of addiction. Alcohol and drugs fueled his paranoia and rage, turning him into a volatile monster. Whenever the toxicity took over his brain, he took it out on Talia. She bore the physical and emotional scars of his madness, and it killed me that I couldn't pull her out of that hell.

Now, I was about to walk back into the viper's nest. To say I was nervous about seeing them all for the first time in years was a massive understatement. A part of me still wondered if my father would even care that I was there.

He had moved on so easily. Shortly after we fled, Vincenzo found himself a new wife. He even got a son out of the deal. The boy wasn't his biological child—just baggage from his new wife’s previous marriage—but Vincenzo treated him like his own flesh and blood. Talia spilled the details the moment it happened, making sure I knew that my father had downgraded in every sense of the word. Hearing that he was playing the role of a doting father to some stranger while ignoring his own daughter's existence ignited a furious fire in my chest. I was ready to glare daggers at this new woman who took my mother's place.

“Don’t throw up,” I muttered to my reflection, gripping the edges of the bathroom vanity. The nausea was real, but I swallowed it down. I needed to look untouchable tonight.

I turned my attention back to my appearance, running my hands down the sides of my dress. It was a long, black silk gown that clung to every curve of my body. The thin straps rested lightly on my shoulders, diving into a deep v-plunge neckline that left very little to the imagination. The back was entirely open, the cool air of the room brushing against my bare skin. From the waist down, the fabric draped elegantly over my hips, breaking into a dramatic, thigh-high slit on the right side. I slipped my feet into a pair of black, open-toe stilettos, the delicate straps wrapping securely around my ankles.

I leaned in closer to the mirror to inspect my makeup. My green eyes popped beneath a sharp, brown smokey shadow, the winged liner giving my gaze a fierce, cat-like edge. My heavy brown hair cascaded down my bare back in thick, voluminous waves. I pinned the right side back with a sparkling rhinestone leaf clip, keeping the strands away from my face.

I looked good. I looked like someone who didn't care about the past.

“Let’s go,” I breathed out, grabbing my clutch.

Talia had arranged for a driver to pick me up from the hotel and take me to the mansion. My childhood home. Just thinking about the sprawling estate made my pulse thrum against my throat.

I grabbed the small gift box from the bed and made my way out of the room. The elevator ride down to the lobby felt like a descent into the underworld. My hands fidgeted relentlessly with the velvet box. It wasn’t a lavish gift, just two champagne glasses. One had a mustache printed on the glass with the words *Mr. Right*, and the other featured red lips with the phrase *Mrs. Always Right*. It was a gag gift, perfectly tailored to Talia’s arrogant, cocky personality. She always thought she was right, even when the facts proved otherwise.

“Get it together, Elysia. What’s the worst that can happen? It’s just family,” I whispered to the empty elevator car, trying to steady my racing heart.

The elevator dinged. The metal doors slid open, revealing the grand, expansive lobby of the hotel. I took one final, deep breath, clutching the small box to my chest like a shield, and stepped out onto the polished marble floor.

I kept my eyes scanning the room for a man in a chauffeur's uniform holding a sign, but my footsteps faltered. Right in the middle of the lobby stood a tall, broad-shouldered man in a sharp, tailored grey suit that hugged his athletic frame with lethal perfection.

My breath hitched in my throat.

“Tristan?!” I blurted out, the shock freezing me in place.

The man turned around. A slow, devastating smile spread across his face as his gaze locked onto mine.

“Elysia. Long time, no see,” he purred, flashing a set of perfectly straight, white teeth.

My mind went blank. It had been years since I last saw him. Tristan was my very first childhood crush, and seeing him standing in front of me now, a full-grown man, hit me like a freight train. God, I instantly remembered why I was so obsessed with him. He had the most piercing, oceanic blue eyes I had ever encountered. His jawline was sharp enough to cut glass, his face clean-shaven and rugged all at once. His dirty blonde hair was styled with that effortless, messy perfection that made him look effortlessly dangerous and ridiculously sexy.

When we were kids, I used to pretend we were dating. He, of course, had no clue about my secret, one-sided romance.

I stood there like an idiot, my lips parted slightly as I tried to process the reality of him standing in my hotel lobby.

“Damn, Elysia, just take a picture if you’re going to stare at me like that,” he chuckled, the deep, raspy vibration of his voice sending a sudden rush of heat straight to my cheeks.

*Damn it.* He still had the exact same effect on me.

“Don’t flatter yourself too much, Tristan,” I shot back, forcing a laugh and praying the dim lobby lighting hid my blush. “I was just surprised to see you here.”

“Yeah, well, I kind of overheard Talia saying that you were coming into town,” he explained, tucking his hands casually into the pockets of his slacks. The fabric pulled slightly across his muscular thighs. “She mentioned she was sending someone over to pick you up. I couldn’t believe that *the* Elysia was actually making an appearance, so I told her I would come and fetch ya myself.”

His smile shifted from friendly to something far more predatory. Slowly, deliberately, his striking blue eyes broke eye contact. He dragged his gaze down the plunging neckline of my silk dress, lingering on the exposed skin of my chest, tracing the curve of my waist, and following the long slit down to my stilettos.

When his eyes finally traveled back up to meet mine, they had darkened by several shades. A lazy, wicked smirk played on his lips.

“Can’t say I regret the decision,” he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, thick with raw tension. “You look stunning as ever, Elysia.”

My heart kicked into a frantic, erratic rhythm against my ribs. The way he was looking at me felt heavy, intentional, and intoxicatingly intense. The air between us cracked with a sudden, undeniable heat.

“And you look handsome as ever, Tristan,” I replied, matching his confident energy with a bold smile.

He pulled his hands from his pockets and began closing the distance between us, that sexy grin never leaving his face. The anxiety that had been plaguing me all night vanished, instantly replaced by a thrilling, nerve-wracking anticipation.

Oh boy, this was going to be a long night.