[PROLOGUE] The Most Troublesome Woman in My Life

Destiny, karma, the red string of whatever. All of it sounded like cope. Something people told themselves when life handed them a raw deal. "Oh, it was meant to be." No. It wasn't meant to be anything. Things just happened, and you dealt with them.

That's what I believed, anyway.

Standing at the altar, watching the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen walk toward me in a white dress, I was starting to reconsider.

Maybe fate exists.

And maybe it has a sick sense of humor.

The church was packed. Old money names I'd learned to recognize over the years filled the pews. Senators. CEOs. Fashion icons.

I recognized exactly none of their faces.

My attention was elsewhere.

She moved like a dream given form. That wine-red hair, the signature Valentine crimson that had haunted my life cascaded beneath the veil. Every step she took felt like a countdown. Every breath I drew felt borrowed.

This is real.

This is actually happening.

The organ music swelled. The guests rose. And she kept walking.

Closer.

Closer.

Those purple eyes found mine through the veil.

And she smiled.

Troublesome woman.

You've been nothing but trouble since the day I met you.

===

It started with a train.

It always started with a train.

September. Senior year. The first day of school, if we're being specific about this whole "fateful meeting" nonsense.

I remember being tired. That wasn't unusual. I was always tired. When your morning alarm goes off at 4:30 AM and you don't see your bed again until midnight, "tired" becomes less of a state and more of a permanent address.

The Amtrak from Philly to Penn Station was running six minutes behind schedule. Six minutes doesn't sound like much. It was everything. Six minutes meant missing my subway connection. Missing my subway connection meant walking. Walking meant arriving at Hartwell Academy with approximately zero time to spare.

If I run from the 79th Street exit, cutting through the park, I can shave two minutes off the usual route. That gives me ninety seconds to find my locker, sixty seconds to pretend I know where my first class is, and exactly zero seconds to breathe.

Acceptable margins.

The doors opened. I moved.

Penn Station in the morning was a special kind of chaos. Tourists stopping in the middle of walkways. Businessmen treating the subway stairs like a NASCAR track. That one guy who was definitely having a full conversation with himself by the MetroCard machines.

I weaved through all of it without slowing down.

Left. Right. Duck under the family of five. Sidestep the rolling suitcase. Ignore the coffee spill. Don't make eye contact with the guy handing out flyers.

Autopilot. My body had memorized this dance over three years.

The subway ride was uneventful. I managed to snag a seat, which was basically winning the lottery. Closed my eyes for eight precious minutes.

By the time I emerged on the Upper West Side, the September sun was doing that thing where it pretended to be pleasant while secretly cooking you alive. I could see the edge of Central Park from here. The trees were still green, not yet touched by autumn.

Beautiful.

I didn't have time to appreciate it.

The gates of Hartwell Academy appeared ahead. Wrought iron. Gold griffin crest. The kind of architecture that screamed "our students' parents could buy your entire bloodline."

I walked through those gates every day. Three years now. I still didn't feel like I belonged.

Maybe I never would.

That's fine. I'm not here to belong. I'm here to graduate.

The courtyard was already crowded with students. First day energy. Hugs between friends who'd been apart for summer. Underclassmen trying to look older. Upperclassmen trying to look bored.

I headed straight for the main building. No detours. No socializing. Just point A to point B.

That was the plan.

Plans, I would learn, had a tendency to combust when the Valentine sisters were involved.

The collision happened at the corner of the east hallway.

I was moving fast. She was moving faster.

We hit each other with the kind of force that suggests the universe was paying attention.

My coffee went everywhere. Her bag exploded. Papers scattered across the floor like startled birds.

Excellent start to senior year, Isaiah.

"Watch where you're going!"

I looked up.

And my brain stopped working.

Red hair. Wine-dark and vivid. Purple eyes that were currently trying to bore holes through my skull. A face that belonged on a magazine cover, twisted into an expression of pure annoyance.

Okay. Angry beautiful girl. Coffee on her blazer. Papers everywhere. I am almost certainly at fault for existing in her general vicinity.

"You ruined my shirt!"

I looked at her blazer. There was maybe a tablespoon of coffee on it. A light brown splash against the columbia blue.

"That's... unfortunate."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Unfortunate? UNFORTUNATE? This is a—" She stopped. Looked at me. Really looked at me, like she was seeing me for the first time. "Wait. Who are you? I've never seen you before."

"Isaiah Angelo. Senior. Scholarship student." I started gathering her papers. "Sorry about the shirt. I can pay for dry cleaning."

I cannot actually afford to pay for dry cleaning. But I can figure that out later.

She snatched a paper from my hand. "I don't need your charity, scholarship boy."

Ah. There it was. The tone. I'd heard it before. The way certain students said "scholarship" like it was a communicable disease.

I kept gathering papers. "Wasn't offering charity. Just trying to be decent."

"Well, don't. I don't—" She paused. Her eyes caught something on one of the papers I was holding. A class schedule. "Give me that."

I handed it over.

She stared at it. Then at me. Then back at the schedule.

"This is my schedule."

"Seems like it."

"No, you idiot. This is MY schedule. Why do you have my schedule?"

I blinked. Looked at the paper in my own hand. AP English Literature. AP Psychology. AP Calculus BC.

Wait.

I pulled out my phone. Checked my student portal. Compared the classes.

"...Huh. We have the same homeroom."

"What?"

"And the same first three periods."

"WHAT?"

She grabbed the paper. Compared it to something on her own phone. Her expression cycled through about seven different emotions, settling somewhere between disbelief and cosmic injustice.

"This is a mistake. There's been a mistake. I'm going to the registrar."

"Good luck with that."

She glared at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's the first day. The registrar's office is probably packed. You'll wait an hour minimum just to talk to someone. And they're not going to change your schedule because you don't want to share classes with..." I gestured vaguely at myself. "Whatever I am."

Her glare intensified. I was pretty sure she was trying to develop laser vision through sheer force of will.

"I hate you."

"That's fair. I did ruin your shirt."

"You did! You absolutely did!" She jabbed a finger at my chest. "And don't think I'll forget it, scholarship boy. You owe me."

With that, she gathered the rest of her papers, shot me one final death glare, and stormed off down the hallway.

I watched her go.

Wine-red hair. Purple eyes. Calls me "scholarship boy" like an insult. Clearly from money. Possibly insane.

"Troublesome," I muttered.

===

I didn't know it then.

Didn't know that the angry girl in the hallway was Cassidy Valentine. Didn't know that she had three identical sisters. Didn't know that my life was about to become exponentially more complicated by a factor of four.

I just knew I was tired, I was late, and a beautiful girl had promised to hate me forever.

Standard Monday morning, really.

But standing here now, years later, watching that same wine-red hair catch the light as she walks toward me in white...

I think about that first collision. That scattered coffee. Those papers on the floor.

If I'd been six minutes earlier, would we have met?

If the train had been on time, would I have taken a different route?

If I'd been watching where I was going, would we have just passed each other like strangers?

The priest is saying something. Traditional wedding words. I should probably be paying attention.

I can't.

All I can see is her.

She reaches the altar.

Her father isn't here to give her away. Richard Valentine died years ago. But somehow, impossibly, I feel like he's watching. Approving.

Take care of her, I imagine him saying. She's more fragile than she looks.

I know. I've always known.

The veil lifts.

And there she is.

Purple eyes. Wine-red hair. That smile that's just for me.

"Took you long enough," she whispers. Too quiet for anyone else to hear.

"Traffic was bad."

She laughs.

"You're impossible, Isaiah Angelo."

"And you're beautiful, Mrs. Angelo."

Her eyes go wide. Then soft. Then shimmering with something she'll deny later.

"That's... not fair. You can't just say things like that. I'll ruin my makeup."

"Sorry. Not sorry."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't."

"...No. I don't."

The priest clears his throat. We're probably supposed to be paying attention.

We're not.

She takes my hand. Her fingers are warm. Slightly trembling. Just like mine.

This woman. This impossible, troublesome, magnificent woman.

I fell in love with her against every ounce of common sense I possessed.

I'd do it again. A thousand times. A million.

Some things are worth the trouble.

But that's getting ahead of things.

Let me start at the beginning.

Or rather, let me start at that September morning when a train ran six minutes late, when I was too tired to watch where I was going, and when I crashed headfirst into the woman who would change everything.

This is the story of four sisters.

Four identical faces.

And the year that turned my ordinary life completely upside down.

My name is Isaiah Angelo.

I'm eighteen years old.

I work, attend an elite academy on scholarship, and I'm basically raising my little sister by myself.

I thought my life was complicated enough.

I was wrong.