FOREVER OR NEVER

"I hated Aurelian Sinclair long before I realized that hatred was simply the safest name I could give him."

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VESPERA POV:

My father just got buried.

The whole area surrounded by people who pretended to care.

The whispers died before I could turn around.

I didn't need to.

I knew that presence. The kind that made a room feel smaller, the air heavier, and every person around him suddenly remember their place.

Aurelian Sinclair.

Of course, he would come.

The man who had made my family's life a living nightmare had the audacity to stand at my father's funeral.

I turned.

He stood a few feet away, dressed in a black suit that looked painfully expensive. His dark hair was neatly styled, his expression unreadable. A silver watch glinted beneath his cuff.

He looked like he belonged at a funeral.

He looked like he had come to bury more than just my father.

"Leave," I said.

His eyes met mine. "Vespera."

"Don't." My voice sharpened. "You don't get to say my name."

His jaw tightened.

"I came to pay my respects."

A bitter laugh escaped me. "Respects? You couldn't wait to see him dead."

"Careful."

"Or what?" I stepped closer. "You'll threaten a grieving woman at her father's grave? Is that how the Sinclair family does business?"

His gaze darkened.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then he leaned slightly closer, his voice low enough for only me to hear.

"Your father wasn't the man you thought he was."

My heart stumbled.

I hated him for saying it.

I hated him for standing there, so composed, while my world lay in ruins.

"Get away from me."

He studied my face, searching for something I refused to give him.

Fear.

Grief.

Weakness.

He would find none.

"One day," I whispered, "I'll make you regret ever crossing my family."

Aurelian's expression didn't change.

"Get in line, Vespera."

He turned to leave.

And just before he disappeared among the mourners, he glanced back.

"Your father left you more than a name."

I froze.

"What does that mean?"

But he was already walking away.

And for the first time that day, I wondered if my father's death was only the beginning.

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The two families have been rivals for decades now.

Since generations before I was born, the Vales and the Sinclairs have been fighting over power, territory, and a legacy neither side was willing to surrender.

In our world, a surname was more than an identity. It was a promise of loyalty, a warning to our enemies, and sometimes, a death sentence.

My father taught me that the Sinclairs were monsters.

Aurelian's father had taught him the same about us.

Neither family remembered how the hatred began. The stories had changed over the years, passed down like sacred truths, until no one questioned them anymore.

A betrayal. A stolen empire. A blood debt that could never be repaid.

And so the war continued.

Every generation inherited the same enemies, the same grudges, the same unspoken rules.

We were raised to despise each other before we even knew what the other looked like.

I grew up hearing Aurelian Sinclair's name spoken with disgust.

He grew up hearing mine with contempt.

And when we finally met, we did exactly what our families had taught us to do.

We hated each other.

Perhaps that was the cruelest part.

We never had the chance to know who we might have been without the weight of our surnames.

Because in a world where hatred was inherited, love was the one thing neither of us had been taught how to survive.

"They will not get away with this " my mothers voice pierced my heart.

I lost my father but she lost her everything.

Her partner

Her love

Her husband.

The man she had loved long before she became a wife.

The man whose absence had turned our home into a place of unbearable silence.

I watched my mother stare at the grave, her fingers trembling around the white roses she had brought. She hadn't cried in front of anyone. Not once.

But I knew her.

I knew the way her lips pressed together when she was trying not to break. I knew how her eyes searched the crowd, as if some foolish part of her still expected my father to walk through it.

And I knew that when everyone left, she would finally allow herself to fall apart.

"Mother," I whispered.

She didn't answer.

"They will pay for this," she murmured.

Her voice was unfamiliar. There was no warmth in it. No softness. Only a quiet, terrifying certainty.

I looked at her.

"Who?"

She turned toward me.

"The people who took him from us."

I wanted to tell her that revenge wouldn't bring him back.

That no amount of hatred could fill the empty chair at our dinner table.

That I was afraid.

But the words remained trapped behind my teeth.

Because my mother wasn't the only one who had lost someone.

I had lost my father.

And with him, I had lost the last piece of the life I thought I understood.

My mother's fingers tightened around mine.

"Vespera," she whispered, "promise me something."

I looked at her.

"Anything."

"Whatever happens next, never trust a Sinclair."

Her eyes filled rage inside me despite my fear.

"I won't let you down mother" I helped her get up "Let's go home now "

"No I can't leave my logan alone, I just cant" she continues to shake her head making my heart even more.

"No, I can't leave my Logan alone. I just can't," she continued to shake her head, making my heart ache even more.

I pulled her into my arms.

"Mother, please."

But she only clung to me, her tears finally falling against my shoulder.

For a moment, I let myself cry with her.

Then I looked toward the grave.

Goodbye, Father.

I didn't know how long we stood there before the cemetery began to empty. The rain had stopped, leaving the earth damp and the air unbearably cold.

My mother eventually stepped back.

"Let's go home," she whispered.

I nodded, taking her hand.

But before we could reach the car, a man in a black suit approached us.

"Miss Vale?"

I turned.

"Who are you?"

He handed me a small, sealed envelope.

"Your father asked me to give you this. If anything ever happened to him."

My breath caught.

"When?"

"Three days ago."

I stared at the envelope.

Three days.

My father had known.

He had known something was coming.

With trembling fingers, I opened it.

Inside was a photograph.

My father.

Aurelian's father.

And a third man I had never seen before.

On the back, written in my father's unmistakable handwriting, were six words.

Trust no one. Not even your blood.

My mother's face drained of color.

Before I could ask her why, my phone vibrated.

An unknown number.

One message.

YOUR FATHER WASN'T THE FIRST VALE WE BURIED.

I looked up.

Across the cemetery, Aurelian Sinclair was standing beside his car.

Watching me.

And smiling.

Not like a man who had won.

Like a man who knew something I didn't.

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