JAY JAY POV
"I'm not leaving, you idiot," I breathed against his lips, my own eyes stinging. "Just tell me. Tell me everything."
Keifer pulled back just an inch, his forehead resting against mine. He took a deep, shaky breath
"It started with the plan," he began, his voice dropping into that deep, gravelly register. "The reason Section E even let you into the room. We were going to use you, Jay-Jay. We were going to use you to break Aries."
The floor beneath my feet didn't just feel shaky—it felt like it had completely vanished, leaving me free-falling into a dark, cold void.
Use me? To break Aries?
The silver chain around my neck, the one holding the engagement ring, suddenly felt like a noose. Every memory of the last few months—the smiles, the protection, the way the boys had treated me flashed before my eyes, tarnished by a single word.
The Plan.
"What?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. I took a sharp step back, my hands trembling as I physically distanced myself from him. The heat radiating off him, which usually felt like home, now felt like a warning sign.
"Jay-Jay, wait—"
"No!" I snapped "Don't 'wait' me, Keifer! You're telling me that everything that happened between us … it was all just a move? I was a pawn in your stupid war with Aries?"
I tried to turn away, my heart doing a frantic, painful sprint against my ribs, but I didn't even get two steps before a pair of strong arms wrapped around my waist and yanked me back.
He didn't just pull me; he anchored me to him, his grip so tight it was like he was trying to meld our bodies together so I couldn't escape.
"I'm sorry... God, Jay, I'm so sorry," Keifer rasped against the back of my neck.
I struggled, trying to pry his fingers off me, but he wouldn't budge. He spun me around in his arms, forcing me to face him. When I looked up, the air left my lungs in a sharp, painful gasp.
Keifer—the immovable, arrogant, terrifying King of Section E—had tears pooling in his eyes. They didn't fall, but they made his gaze look shattered, like a glass window that had been hit by a rock.
"Don't leave," he pleaded, his voice breaking as he leaned down and pressed a desperate kiss to my forehead. Tiny, electric shocks shot through me, but they were drowned out by the noise in my head. "Please. I was an idiot. We were all idiots. We hated Aries so much we didn't care who we stepped on to get to him."
"Keifer, what the hell are you talking about?" I demanded, my hands bunching into the fabric of his shirt. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to kiss him. "Explain it. Now. Why was I the key to 'breaking' Aries?"
Keifer took a shaky breath, his forehead resting against mine. I could feel the dampness of a stray tear on my skin.
"Because of who you are, Jay-Jay," he whispered, his voice dropping into that dark, gravelly register.
I looked at the man in front of me—the man I'd shared my bed with, the man I'd agreed to marry—and for a split second, I didn't recognize him.
I didn't see my fiancé. I saw the King of Section E. The strategist. The one who moved people like chess pieces.
"What is the connection between me and Aries?" I demanded. My voice was trembling, but I didn't care. I reached out and grabbed his collar, bunching the expensive fabric in my fists and yanking him closer until our noses were almost touching. "Tell me, Keifer! Am I really just a pawn for you? Is this whole 'Mutya' thing just a role you cast me in to win a war?"
Keifer didn't move. He didn't fight my grip. He just stood there, looking down at me with those teary, shattered eyes.
"Tell me!" I screamed "Am I just a toy for you to play with when you're bored? Was the engagement just another way to make sure Aries could never have me back? Was any of it real?!"
Before I could launch into another round of insults, Keifer leaned down. He didn't use words; he used the only weapon he had left. He crashed his mouth against mine, desperate and hungry, trying to drown out my questions with a kiss that tasted like salt and regret.
But for the first time... it didn't work.
I pushed him. Hard.
My palms hit his chest, and I shoved him back with enough force to make him stumble. My heart was thumping a frantic, painful rhythm against my ribs. "Don't! Don't you dare try to kiss your way out of this, Watson! I am not one of your Section E followers who just bows down because you say so!"
Keifer let out a broken, choked-off sound—something between a sob and a growl. He didn't stay back. He lunged forward, his arms wrapping around me like iron bands, pinning my arms to my sides as he buried his face in the crook of my neck.
"You're not a toy," he rasped, his voice muffled against my skin. "You're the only thing keeping me sane. I'm sorry... I'm so goddamn sorry, Jay-Jay. I started it as a plan, yes. I thought I could use you. But I didn't know... I didn't know you'd be the one to break me."
I struggled against him at first, hitting his back with my fists, but the strength was leaving my body.
My knees buckled. If Keifer wasn't holding me so tightly, I would have collapsed onto the floor.
A sob escaped my throat, then another. I stopped fighting and just let my head fall against his shoulder, my tears finally spilling over and soaking into his shirt.
"Who else knew, Keifer?" I whispered, my voice cracked and small. "Did Yuri know? Did Ci-N? Were they all just... laughing at me?"
Keifer's grip tightened until it was almost painful. He was shaking. The immovable King of Section E was actually shaking in my arms.
"No one was laughing," he murmured, his breath hot against my ear. "Because by the time the plan was supposed to start... we were all already in love with you. I was already ready to kill anyone who even looked at you wrong."
He pulled back just enough to cupped my face, his thumbs wiping away my tears even though his own eyes were still wet.
"The connection, Jay..." he started, his voice dropping into that deep, gravelly register. "Aries is your half-brother. Your real mother is Jeana. She left you and Jare when you guys were younger and you were raised in london"
"Wait... what?" I breathed out. My voice didn't even sound like mine. It sounded like a ghost's. "What did you just say?"
Keifer didn't look away. His eyes were red-rimmed, the tears finally tracking down his cheeks.
"Jeana," he whispered, the name sounding like a curse. "She's your biological mother, Jay. She... she had you and Jare in London, but she couldn't stay. She left the two of you with your father and Reycee."
I let go of his collar as if the fabric had suddenly turned into white-hot iron. I took a stumbling step back, my heels catching on the carpet. "No. That's a lie. Reycee is my mother. She's the one who held me when I was sick. She's the one who raised us in London!"
I clutched my head
"It's the truth, Jay-Jay," Keifer rasped, stepping toward me with his hands out, like he was trying to catch a falling glass.
"And you used that?" I looked at him, my vision blurring with fresh tears. "You knew my mother abandoned me. You knew Aries was my brother. And your first thought—your brilliant Section E strategy—was to use that trauma to hurt him?"
"I was a weapon to you," I hissed, my voice cracking. "I wasn't a girl you liked. I wasn't the 'Mutya.' I was just a ghost from Aries' past that you could throw in his face to make him bleed."
Keifer let out a low, broken sob, reaching out and grabbing my wrists before I could retreat further. He sank to his knees in front of me, his head bowing until his forehead pressed against my stomach.
"In the beginning... yes," he choked out, his shoulders shaking with the weight of his own guilt. "I was a monster. I wanted to destroy everything he loved because I thought he destroyed everything I had. But then you walked into that classroom... and you started hitting me... and you started caring about the boys... and I forgot the plan. I forgot the war. I just wanted to be the guy who deserved to hold your hand."
I stood there, frozen, looking down at the top of his head. The most powerful boy in HVIS was kneeling at my feet, confessing to a betrayal that felt like a knife in my heart.
"Aries is my brother," I whispered to the empty air.
My brother.
"Get up, Keifer," I said. My voice was a hollow rasp, stripped of every emotion except exhaustion.
"Jay-Jay…" he whispered, his voice cracking. He didn't move. He looked like he was waiting for me to deliver a final blow.
"GET THE FUCK UP!" I screamed.
The sound tore through the room, raw and violent. Keifer flinched, his shoulders tensing, before he slowly rose to his feet. He stood before me, his eyes red-rimmed and brimming with a grief I'd never seen from him. He looked like his entire world was collapsing behind his ribcage.
"KEIFER! OPEN THIS DAMN DOOR!"
Jare's voice exploded from the hallway, accompanied by a heavy, metallic rattle as he tried the handle.
I looked at Keifer. Really looked at him
"I'm sorry," Keifer rasped, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made my knees feel like they were made of warm jelly. "I love you. God, Jay... I love you more than I hate him. Please... don't leave me. Please."
His eyes. They weren't the eyes of a strategist anymore. They were filled with a love so desperate and terrifying that it made my heart do a frantic, painful backflip. He looked at me like I was his only oxygen, and he was drowning in the secrets he'd just confessed.
I should have hated him. I should have opened that door and let Jare drag me away from this house and this boy forever.
But as I looked at his shattered expression, I realized that for a girl who'd just lost her entire identity, I was looking at the only thing I had left.
The yelling from the hallway faded into white noise. Without a word, I stepped into his personal space, my hands gripping the front of his shirt.
I pulled him down and crashed my mouth against his.
It wasn't a soft kiss. It was a collision—bruising, desperate, and tasted like salt and adrenaline. I kissed him because I wanted him to shut up. I kissed him because I hated that he knew the truth. But mostly, I kissed him because despite the lies and the psychological warfare, I was already too far gone to exist without the King of Assholes.
Keifer let out a broken, muffled sound against my lips—half-sob, half-growl—and pulled me flush against him, his arms wrapping around me like iron bands as if he were trying to pull me into his very bones.
Everything was a mess. My life was a lie.
But in the middle of the wreckage, we were still Jay-Jay and Keifer. Infinitely.
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