Nick Leister was trouble, pure and simple—a disaster for anyone who dared get close to him. You knew it. And yet, a little danger never scared you. You were drawn to knots, the ones impossible to untangle, and Nick was the hardest knot of all—a Leister knot, tighter than any eight-strand braid.

The crowd was pressed together in that grimy, stinking garage. You thought it would be just another party like all the others—pointless gang scuffles, nothing serious. Until you saw him. Your stepbrother—though calling him that felt absurd, given the way your lips found his, night after night—and the way you’d slept together… once on the beach, like a scene out of a film, magical, yet forbidden, a mistake that kept repeating itself.

You pushed your way through the chaos and saw him strip off his shirt. Heart racing, you ran to him and shoved him, but then there was Ana—kissing him too. Like you? No. It wasn’t like that. What you shared, even if it had been a mistake, carried weight, emotion, magic. You fit together like two puzzle pieces, or better yet, like a knot: tangled, inseparable, impossible to untangle.

You shoved him to face you, anger masking the gnawing fear in your chest. Seeing him bruised, battered, deliberately throwing himself into violence—it hurt. But what hurt more was watching him, unbothered, as if none of it mattered.

— “Nick, what the hell are you doing?” — you yelled, voice cutting through the chaos.

— “Relax, beautiful. I won’t even give them a chance to touch me,” — he replied, that infuriating, mocking grin curling his lips. And God, you wanted to wipe it off, to take those lips, the ones you loved too much, away from him.

— “This doesn’t make sense,” — you whispered, struggling not to collapse under the weight of your shared traumas, the memories of fights, pain, and chaos that had followed both of you.

— “Don’t you think it’s exciting?” — Nick asked, that arrogant, self-centered smile still plastered on his face.

— “Exciting? You mean getting hurt excites you?” — you asked, utterly confused, incredulous.

— “I don’t care about the pain,” — he said simply.

— “And the person in front of you?” — you hissed, voice trembling. — “Do you enjoy hurting others too?”

— “It’s just a fight…”

— “Well, I don’t find it funny,” — you snapped.

— “It’s how I let off steam,” — he replied, genuinely bewildered by your concern. No girl had ever dared stop him before.

— “Let off steam? For what? What trauma makes you act like this?!” — you yelled, and before you could step closer, Ana shoved you aside.

— “Leave him alone! I’m sick of you!” — Ana barked at you. All she cared about was money and proving she could seduce the strongest guy in town, winning at everything. You hated her. Hated her with a fire that burned hotter than anything else.