Chapter 380: The Fearless Princess

Danton’s hand twitched toward the Bugatti’s door like he might just peel out and leave everyone here to burn.

Brett’s neck flushed crimson—

rage, shame

, the sick realisation that his own blood was sprinting toward the boy who’d just humiliated him in front of the entire city.

Neither of them said a word.

They just started walking toward the limo to face it off with their sisters and talk some sense into them; like two men marching to their own public execution—except the executioner was their fear of watching their sisters with Phei who was already inside probably getting his dick worshipped by half the city while they tried to salvage whatever scraps of dignity were left after the basketball equivalent of a war crime.

A McLaren P1

screamed

around the corner—engine howling like it was personally offended by gravity—then drifted to a screeching, perfect stop wedged between the limo and the Bugatti, bumpers kissing so close you couldn’t slide a credit card between them.

A parking job that was either automotive genius or full-blown

psychotic

break.

Only one girl in Paradise checked both boxes without blinking.

Scissor doors sliced upward.

Maddie Whitmore

unfolded from the driver’s seat—legs first, endless, criminal legs poured into heels that added three pointless inches to her already obscene height. Then the rest of her: a dress that looked like it had been designed by someone who hated fabric on principle and decided the female body deserved to be framed like a felony.

Black. Sheer in strategic places.

Clinging like it was personally offended at the concept of distance. She stood, stretched her arms overhead with the lazy, predatory confidence of a woman who’d just

parallel-parked

a two-million-dollar hypercar at sixty miles an hour and considered it adequate foreplay.

Sierra Montgomery

slid out the passenger side—quieter, more contained, but the heat rolling off her could’ve melted the McLaren’s rims. Eyes sharp. Body language saying

I’m here to claim what’s mine and burn anything that gets in the way.

Danton and Brett froze mid-step.

They weren’t staring at Sierra—Sierra they’d learned to avoid looking at directly, like staring into the sun without protection.

No.

They were staring at

Maddie

. At the McLaren. At the sheer, balls-out

audacity

of a girl who’d drifted a supercar into a non-existent parking spot and was now inspecting her nails like she hadn’t just violated three traffic laws, two laws of physics, and the entire concept of humility in under four seconds.

Maddie clocked them staring.

Looked up.

Raised one perfect eyebrow—the international signal for

you have three seconds to stop embarrassing yourselves.

"Something to see...

boys?"

No filter. No softening. No Legacy-princess diplomatic lube—the polite smile, the

we’re-all-friends-here

fiction that kept the city’s power structure from spontaneously combusting.

Maddie Whitmore

was the only Princess who’d ever hated the Legacy boys

out loud

openly.

Not in group chats and neither in whispers.

To their faces.

With the gleeful,

oil-money-backed

contempt of a girl who genuinely did not give one single, solitary fuck what their last names were or how much their daddies could buy.

She raked her gaze over Danton. Then Brett.

"Losers."

One word. Flat. Delivered with the bored precision she’d use to identify a mildly interesting bug.

Ah yes. Losers. Common garden variety. Frequently found lurking outside clubs where actual winners are celebrating.

"Go inside instead of standing out here drooling over what your

tiny dicks will never touch

."

Brett’s hands balled into fists so hard his knuckles popped. Neck flushed from red to violent purple. Every tendon in his jaw looked ready to snap like over-tuned guitar strings.

Danton’s hand clamped onto his shoulder—hard. Squeezing. The silent Legacy-bro code for

if you lose your shit in public right now, we’re both finished

.

Fights healed. Reputation hemorrhages were permanent.

"Inside,"

Danton said. Quiet. Controlled. Teeth barely unclenched.

He steered Brett toward the entrance.

But not before his eyes locked on Victoria’s.

Then Delilah’s.

Then Sienna’s.

Something vicious and unspoken flashed between the Maxton twins—Danton and Delilah—in that split-second glance. The specific gut-punch pain of loving someone who was openly sprinting toward the boy you hated most in the world. Delilah held his stare. One beat. Two. Then deliberately looked away.

Danton walked inside. Brett followed—fists still clenched, neck still purple, pride leaking out of him like blood from a fresh wound.

"That’s what I thought... spineless assholes." Maddie watched them go with a sneer that could’ve peeled chrome off a bumper.

Then she turned to the Princesses.

And the transformation was

instant.

Sneer gone. Contempt vaporised. In its place: that trillion-dollar, Caribbean-blue-eyed,

I-fucking-love-every-single-one-of-you

beam she reserved exclusively for the women she considered sisters and literally no one else on the planet.

"Sisters!"

Arms wide. Voice bright. "Are we

ready

? The real dragon is already inside, and I can practically smell how wet you all are from here."

The collective blush hit like someone flipped a switch—synchronised, nuclear, every Princess except Sienna, in the cluster suddenly remembering that the boy who’d walked on air tonight was on the other side of those doors, and they’d all shown up faster than they’d ever shown up to anything in their lives.

Her

man. Her king. The

charity-case-turned-apocalypse

who made their blood sing, their thighs clench, and their centuries of Legacy composure dissolve like wet tissue.

Maddie saw the blush. Snorted. Loud. Unapologetic.

She

knew

exactly why fifteen of Paradise’s most untouchable daughters had sprinted to this after-party like bitches in heat—she’d orchestrated half of it.

But

Sienna

was already moving.

Past Maddie’s smile. Past the blushing chaos. Past all of it—stride flat, mechanical, face betraying

nothing

, heading for the entrance with the energy of a girl who had zero interest in this collective dick-matisation and wanted everyone to know she was above it.

"That robot,"

they said.

All of them.

At once.

Sixteen voices in perfect, exhausted unison—

that robot

—the weary, affectionate chorus of girls who’d spent years trying to crack Sienna Maxton’s shell and had long since given up pretending it was possible.

Sienna didn’t look back.

Sierra was already in motion. Caught

Delilah’s

hand with her left, Maddie’s with her right, and pulled them both toward the entrance like a general leading her chosen guard.

Three girls

bound

by something deeper than blood—two already claimed, one flower still intact but a sister in every way that mattered.

They moved as a single unit, untouchable.

Behind them, Nastya Romano leaned toward Victoria Maxton.

"I really didn’t expect it from Delilah,"

Nastya

murmured. "Publicly claiming she’s Phei’s woman. After everything with Danton and Harold..."

Victoria said nothing. Expression unreadable. A mask so perfect it could’ve been carved from ice.

Amber Castellano watched them—Nastya’s careful dissection, Victoria’s silence, the cluster of Princesses still processing that Delilah Maxton had chosen a side.

And it wasn’t her family’s.

So will all of you

, Amber thought.

She didn’t say it. Didn’t need to.

The truth was already written in every blush, every stolen glance toward the club doors, every

barely-suppressed

shiver when someone said his name.

Every last one of you is going to end up exactly where Delilah is. Where Sierra is. Where Maddie is.

On your knees for the dragon.

Pretending you didn’t see it coming from a mile away.

Amber grabbed Gianna’s hand left, Yuki’s right.

"Let’s go," she said. Voice low. Certain. "Before we miss the real show."

And pulled them toward the door.