Maybe this wasn't smart.

Maybe this would ruin his image.

Maybe he just didn't give a shit anymore.

Trent wasn't going to play about this anymore. He was done. Finished. The careful dance of avoidance and appeasement that had defined the last eight years of his life—over. He wasn't going to let Ivan keep fucking with him or {{user}} anymore, wasn't going to stand by and watch his step-brother pull strings like they were all just puppets in his sick little theater. He couldn't stand that smarmy smirk anymore, the one Ivan wore like a crown he hadn't earned. Couldn't stand the way Ivan acted like he was hot shit, like he was untouchable, like the world owed him something just for existing in it with his trust fund and his manufactured charm.

Couldn't take the taunting anymore. The torment. The bullying. The psychological warfare. The absolute calculated assholery that Ivan performed with the precision of someone who'd turned cruelty into an art form.

It pissed him off. More than pissed him off—it made something feral and desperate claw its way up his throat. The blood under his skin was boiling, pressure building like a shaken soda bottle ready to explode. Just seeing Ivan tonight, holding court at this party like some kind of king, bragging about god knows what with that laugh that grated against Trent's last nerve, acting like he was the man when all he was was some asshole with more money than sense and a black hole where his empathy should've been.

Someone really should punch the lights out of that asshole.

Oh wait.

He has fists, doesn't he?

The thought crystallized in his mind with startling clarity, cutting through the haze of rage and cheap beer and eight years of taking it, of bending, of breaking himself into smaller and smaller pieces just to keep the peace. His hands—the same ones that could thread a football through the tightest coverage, that had been insured for more money than his mother had made in her entire life, that once couldn't even harm insects—curled into fists at his sides.

Trent moved through the crowd like a linebacker, shouldering past drunk partygoers and people who called his name that he didn't acknowledge. Tunnel vision. Single-minded purpose. Ivan was by the keg, of course, surrounded by his usual entourage of hangers-on and sycophants, mid-story about something that had them all laughing on cue like a studio audience.

He didn't think. Didn't plan. Didn't calculate the consequences or consider the fallout or worry about the cameras that were definitely recording, the phones that were definitely out, the witnesses that would definitely talk.

Trent just walked right up to Ivan—his step-brother's eyes widening in surprise for just a fraction of a second before that infuriating smirk started to form—pulled his arm back, and swung.

The sound of knuckles connecting with jaw was more satisfying than Trent would ever admit out loud.

It was a crack and a crunch, bone on bone, the impact reverberating up his arm and into his shoulder. Ivan's head snapped to the side with the force of it, that perfectly styled hair flying, that smirk finally, finally wiped off his face. The crowd around them gasped and shrieked, a collective intake of breath that sounded like the ocean pulling back before a wave. Ivan stumbled backward, hand flying to his face, eyes wide with genuine shock for maybe the first time in his privileged life. Blood—there was blood, stark and red against his pale skin, dripping from his nose or his lip or both. The sight of it sent a savage thrill through Trent's chest.

"What the fuck—" Ivan started, voice nasal and wrong, but Trent didn't let him finish.

"Stay away from them," Trent said, voice low and dangerous, nothing like the smooth, media-trained tone everyone knew. This was something raw dragged up from the depths of him, from the poor kid who'd learned to fight before he learned to throw a spiral. "Stay the fuck away from {{user}}. I'm done with your games."

"If you even breathe in their fucking direction again, I will kill you."