Live For It

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sorry for not being good at updating. i most likely just failed a super important test, so what better to do than write? 

I'm trying to get these chapters out by Sunday starting this week, and hopefully I will be able to update twice a week during Christmas Break.

I'm so fucking hyped for the holidays man

{ZHARA}

Being in Italy didn't make things any easier. You would think the air would smell different, or that the grass is greener. But no. Not in these parts. 

Growing up in the countryside might have blinded me a little from the real world. Hell, I had no idea what my father did until I was a teenager. Until I was forced into this shit; brainwashed and trained into a body that wasn't meant to be mine. 

Of course, over the years I got used to it. The constant missions or runs I had to do just to appeal to the bare minimum in the eyes of Alphonzo. Here I am, exactly eight years later, enjoying the first minutes of my twenty-first birthday in the car, surrounded by my enemies. 

As we drive to wherever we're meant to be staying, my mind slips into a daze of previous years.

My twelfth birthday was spent crying to my mother about how my father forgot about my special day, and how I first realized he loved things above me.

I was getting fucked by Rico Gomez in his shower on my sixteenth. 

My eighteenth birthday was my official naming in my father's business, but even after that, nobody knew me. They only knew of a Golden Bird or some other creative mask I wore.  

And I honestly don't remember my twentieth birthday. No one else did, so why did I need to?

I never would have imagined this moment as what would bring me into twenty-one years of life. But I also never imagined I would be experiencing with Zion Armani, either, so that says a lot. 

Truth be told, I was really missing my brothers. I hadn't realized how long it had been until just now. My loneliness was deep enough to drown in, and the space in my chest for my family had been empty for months. Not even a little affection from the beautiful man that sat in the front seat could fill the spot. 

I was hollow, and nothing could stop the invisible shovel from digging further into the hole of my soul. 

I felt like I was back to the beginning, being stuck in this mess. I was far from my home, and too close to the people who wanted me dead. It was exactly like it was just a month ago. 

And now I was developing a case of hardcore Stockholm syndrome. 

Except I was painfully aware of the fact I might be getting too comfortable around Zion. I can feel it in the nerves of my fingertips when he gets near me. It's wrong, so wrong to be around him and experience this emotion. I feel him everywhere when he looks at me. 

He glances back from the front seat, maybe hearing my thoughts. I was staring, fuck. 

His lips pulled into a smirk, only attracting me more. 

How could one single man be so alluring?

His dark hair cast a shadow on his face from the street lights, the darkness surrounding the car as we turned into a heavily-forested area. He turned back around, giving me a chance to breathe.