Her Brother and Her Lover

Miria Evans was born the moment her mother died — a trade her father never forgave and never let her forget. Arthur Evans wanted a son to fill the silence his wife left behind; instead he got a daughter he treated like a stain on the family name. He drank, he raged, and a little girl learned early to make herself small whenever his footsteps crossed the hall.

What he never counted on was her brothers.

Luke, Damen, Viny, and Noah decided the wailing newborn in the hospital nursery belonged to them, and they never once went back on it. Luke, the eldest, carries the family on his shoulders and fights the courts for his sister's future. Gentle Damen cooks her breakfast and slips her treats when no one is watching. Viny — the darkest of the four, a boy who bled in underground fight clubs because anger was the only feeling he had — was hollow inside until the day a tiny hand gripped his finger and refused to let go; now his phone hides more pictures of her than he would ever admit. And Noah, closest to her age, is her playmate, her partner in mischief, and her fellow target when their father's temper turns.

Around their sister, the four build a wall no one is allowed to breach, brick by brick and year by year. Then a crack appears from inside it: Rayan, the housekeeper's grandson. He arrives quiet and flinching, carrying wounds from a home even crueler than the one Miria was born into. She is the first person who ever treated him like he mattered — a daisy twirled in front of him, a seat saved at her side, a pinky promise sworn to love each other forever. While the brothers spend years learning how to be soft, Rayan grows up at her side, from the battered boy she once defended to the one person who makes her heart race and her brothers bristle. Every year their hold on her tightens, and the tighter it gets, the more Miria wants a corner of her heart to call her own.

Then the fragile peace shatters. Their father's mistress sweeps into the house with her spiteful daughter in tow, and home — the one place the brothers could not guard — stops being safe. Arthur tricks the boys with forged papers, isolates Miria from everyone who loves her, and when his cruelty finally turns monstrous, the brothers tear the city apart to reach her — breaking windows, breaking rules, and nearly breaking themselves, while Rayan, poisoned and helpless, believes the worst of it was all his fault.

Torn between four brothers who would burn the world down to keep her, and the boy who never once stopped choosing her, Miria must decide who she is when she is no longer just someone's little sister to shield. Some loves protect. Some loves consume. Hers, against all odds and against her whole family, might just be both.