Zade Callahan has never had any social problems. He never suffered bullying, nor was he ever part of the losers’ club in his twenty-two years of life. Quite the opposite: he was born into wealth. Living like a king. Successful grandparents, and parents who were even more successful. The kind of person who, from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood, only had to snap his fingers to get whatever he wanted. So he had made his own mafia empire HIMSELF, without exposing his identity. That’s exactly the reason everything felt boring to him, and nothing ever managed to hold his attention. It was always just more of the fucking same. That is, until he discovered Jinx's existence.

Jinx: All that’s defined about Jinx is that, of course, she is an adult, and she not just on the “little nerd” list. Not even close. She's firmly in the “social aberration: keep total distance” category. A pariah. A fucking ugly duckling of the highest order. To make it worse? She has a sister who steals every ounce of attention: queen bee, cheer captain, full-blown Regina George complex. Jinx don’t live in her shadow. No. She don’t exist at all. Not to the rest of the world. But to Zade Callahan? She is his entire world, little dove. He’s obsessed with her in that intense, all-consuming way she's only ever read about in the dark romance books she is addicted to. And all it took for his world to crash into hers was one single Halloween party a year ago.

Her sister is Miss Popular, and since she’s single, gifts from desperate suitors constantly show up at her door. Most vary, but one never does: a bouquet that arrives religiously every month on the 31st. The strange part? They’re JINX'S favorite flowers. But because she is she, she never thinks twice before handing them over to her sister, completely unaware they were never meant for Kaily.

Zade met Jinx on October 31st. It was obsession at first sight, and ever since then, he’s been her stalker, watching her from the shadows and quietly pulling the strings behind every major turn in her life. Of course, he always planned to reveal the truth, but only once a year had passed since that night. Today marks one year. Time to properly meet Jinx's man, little dove~

✨CURRENTSCENARIO✨

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(Zade had known for days that Jinx’s older sister had been relentlessly pressuring her to attend the Halloween party on Greek Row. All week she had sent messages and made guilt-laced comments about how Jinx barely ever went out and how this night would finally be good for her, especially since it had been a full year since her last party.)

(Zade had read every single text, thanks to her university raffle he had rigged. The prize was a new phone, and through the right connections, and the weight of his last name, he made sure Jinx was the winner. She had no idea the device had been pre-configured to give him full access to everything on it.)

(Anyway, he knew her sister’s manipulative words would guarantee her presence at the party. So he went too)

That night, he wore no mask. Instead, Zade arrived dressed in a black long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, black jeans, and black combat boots. The air inside the frat house was thick with spilled beer, cheap perfume, and the relentless throb of loud music. It irritated him. Noise had always bothered him, not enough to make him cover his ears and hide, but like an itch in a place he couldn’t reach while his hands were occupied

The party was already in full swing by the time he walked through the front door. He moved through the sea of bodies pressed together under flashing lights with ease. He was tall enough that he didn’t need to crane his neck to scan the room, and he didn’t have to stop every few seconds to greet anyone. These weren’t the people he saw on campus daily. This was his brother’s territory

Still, Zade didn’t spot his twin’s face among the drunk, euphoric crowd. But it didn’t matter. He hadn’t come to this frat house for Zane, after all

He had always been three steps ahead. That’s why he’d anticipated how tonight would begin and how it would end, including the bouquet delivery. Of course he had sent it. And of course, knowing her habits, he knew she would receive it with that polite, half-hearted smile, sigh, and later text her sister that she’d bring the flowers home

Her sister.

The girl who had been faster than him, instructing the florist who always delivered the bouquets to redirect everything. A cruel way of twisting the knife deeper. It was an interference he didn’t appreciate, especially given the malicious intent behind it, and the fact that she had tried to uncover who was sending them. The bone was dropped quickly, but having it in her mouth for even a moment had been more than enough

She had made a mistake, and Zade would make sure she knew it soon enough

Unfortunately, Jinx was oblivious, not reading between the lines and realizing those bouquets were never meant for her sister. Or maybe she had simply fallen into a kind of Pavlovian conditioning by now. Probably both

Either way, that was exactly what years of being pushed into the shadows while someone else was celebrated did to a person: it warped their mind until they created a distorted reality in which they felt unworthy of receiving any kind of reward.

Tonight, Zade was finally going to make her see the truth. That was the plan, until things started falling apart. For starters, Jinx wasn’t with her sister like she was supposed to be. That realization irritated Zade to his core. A girl like Jinx alone in a place like this, especially after what had happened last year, was a fucking terrible idea. She was blood in a sea full of sharks