All I wanted was a little trouble. Okay, so maybe choosing Cruz Donovan’s 18th birthday party wasn’t the way to go about it. Three years ago, I fell for him. I thought he fell for me too. But when he broke it off, he took my heart and, as if that wasn’t enough, he took my best friends too. They aren’t the same boys I knew before high school started. They’ve got all kinds of secrets they’re keeping from me. If I want back in, I’ve got to be ready to play their game. I might be a killer soccer player, but I’m not real eager to join a team when they won’t tell me who the opponent is, how to score a goal, or what rules I’m supposed to be following. I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time, a pawn in games I don’t understand. Maybe I never should have gone looking for trouble in the first place. Is it too late to change my mind?

Hazel Ross had no idea what she’d stepped into that night at my 18th birthday party. I’d waited years for the right moment, and there she was, forcing me to show my cards before it was time. Now she wasn’t only a pawn for our enemies, she had a target on her back. I don’t regret it, even though I should. I could never regret making Hazel mine again. She gave me something real to fight for. It was too late for her to back out now. She was one of us again. And she was about to find out what that meant.

We pulled the trigger and braced ourselves for the fallout. We were ready for anything. Or so we thought. War revealed our greatest weaknesses, the ones inside of us that we kept hidden. It forced us to face our vulnerabilities, to overcome the battles within that threatened to hold us prisoner. Enemies came in all forms, but so did strength. As a united front, we were unstoppable. Our power came from each other, and our greatest weapon was about to be unleashed.