prologue

Characters:

Y/N (19): A university freshman, quiet yet confident. She hides behind her introverted nature, but she’s secretly an undercover billionaire heiress. Loves sketching, plays basketball fiercely, and has training in karate thanks to her five overprotective older brothers.

Albert Blackwood (25): University senior, tall, charismatic, and notorious as the “bully king” on campus. Everyone knows him as the arrogant star athlete, captain of the rival basketball team, and someone you don’t cross. In reality, he’s the sole heir to a powerful mafia empire, forced to live undercover as a student.

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Prologue:

The court was alive with the sound of sneakers scraping against polished wood, the echo of the ball bouncing like a heartbeat through the gym. Every cheer, every whistle, every gasp from the crowd blurred into one steady roar.

Y/N adjusted her grip on the ball, eyes sharp, movements calculated. For someone who preferred the quiet of her sketchbook and the solitude of her thoughts, the court was the one place she didn’t mind being loud. Here, every pass, every shot, every block spoke for her.

And right now, her words were aimed at one man.

Albert Blackwood.

Six years older, taller by more than a head, and as arrogant as they came. Captain of the rival team, campus golden boy—or devil, depending on who you asked. The whispers about him stretched across the university like shadows: the rich heir with a dangerous temper, the bully who crushed whoever stood against him, the star athlete who never lost.

Except tonight. Tonight he was losing.

She smirked as she intercepted his shot, pivoted, and scored. The crowd erupted, half in disbelief, half in exhilaration. Albert froze mid-step, chest rising and falling, jaw tight.

For the first time in his perfectly controlled world, someone had dared humiliate him on his own court.

Their eyes locked across the court. His were dark, smoldering, the kind that promised retribution. Hers were calm, steady, with the quiet defiance of someone who had faced worse storms. He was fire, she was ice—and neither looked away.

It should have ended with the game. Just basketball, just rivalry. But Y/N knew better. She could already feel it—Albert Blackwood wasn’t someone who forgot.

He wasn’t someone who forgave.

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Later that night, when the noise of the game was a memory and the weight of her secret life pressed down on her shoulders again, Y/N sat with her sketchbook in hand. The world saw a quiet college freshman. Nobody saw the billionaire’s daughter hiding behind worn-out jeans and a messy bun. Nobody knew that her sketches were the only place she was truly free.

She pressed her pencil harder against the page, sketching the curve of a jaw, the sharpness of eyes she hadn’t meant to memorize. His eyes. Albert’s.

She hated herself for it.

Somewhere across town, in the shadows of a mansion no one dared approach, Albert Blackwood stood in front of a table lined with weapons and sealed envelopes. The mask of the cocky bully slipped away, replaced by the cold heir of a mafia empire.

“Who was she?” his right-hand man asked.

Albert’s lips curved into something between a sneer and a smile. He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Her face was etched into his mind as vividly as the sound of the ball leaving her hands and the sting of defeat he’d never known before.

He didn’t know her name yet. But he would.

Because Albert Blackwood never lost twice.

And this girl—the girl who made him fall—was already his next game.

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