---- Chapter 12 Hanson Ayers POV: Her eyes. That was what finally broke through the red mist of my rage. The way she looked at me. It wasn't anger. It was worse. It was revulsion. As if | were a piece of filth, something utterly beyond redemption. | saw myself through her eyes then: a pathetic, unhinged monster. The realization hit me like a splash of ice water to the face. What was | doing? | had attacked a stranger, made a public spectacle of myself, and terrified the one person whose opinion had somehow become the only one that mattered. This wasn't about a game anymore. This wasn't about conquest or pride. The jealousy that had consumed me was so potent, so absolute, that it could only mean one thing. One terrifying, impossible thing. | was in love with her. The thought sent a jolt of pure panic through my system. Me. Hanson Ayers. The guy who never stayed past breakfast. The guy who used women as a substitute for the one he couldn't have. | had fallen for the pawn in my own sick game. The next day, | waited for her outside her apartment. | hadn't ---- slept. My face was pale and haggard, my hands were trembling. The usual swagger was gone, replaced by a desperate, raw vulnerability. \"Ally,\" | said, my voice hoarse when she appeared. Vl know I'm the last person you want to see.\" She just stared at me, her face a cold, beautiful mask. | took a deep breath, the words tumbling out in a rush. Vl was a monster. A liar. A user. Everything | did was unforgivable. | know that. But something happened. Somewhere along the way, this game | was playing... it stopped being a game. | fell for you, Ally. I' m so, so in love with you.\" | searched her face for any reaction. A flicker of doubt. A hint of pity. Anything. \'Please,\" | whispered, my voice breaking. \"Give me a chance. One chance to prove it. To make it right.\" She was silent for a long moment. Then, the corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. It was the most chilling, merciless expression | had ever seen. \"Your love?\" she said, her voice quiet, but each word was a perfectly sharpened icicle. \"You and your brother, you throw that word around like it means something. Your brother's * love' for Kennedy destroyed my life. And your 'love' for me... it's just as worthless. It's pathetic. It makes me sick.\" She held my gaze for another beat, letting the words sink in, ---- letting them flay me open. \"Stay away from me, Hanson,\" she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. \"You are nothing to me. Less than nothing.\" Then she walked away, her back straight, leaving me standing on the sidewalk, utterly destroyed. Her words echoed in my head. It makes me sick. Less than nothing. That night, | drank. | drank until the world was a blurry, tilting mess, but the pain in my chest wouldn't go away. It was a living thing, a ravenous beast tearing me apart from the inside. In a fit of drunken, desperate agony, | called my brother. \"She hates me,\" | slurred into the phone, the words catching in my throat. \"She said my love makes her sick. She looks at me like I'm garbage.\" | heard him take a sharp breath on the other end of the line. \ "Hanson, you're drunk. Stop calling-\" Vl love her, Branson!\" | screamed, the confession tearing out of me in a raw, ragged sob. Vl actually, truly love her, and | ruined it! | ruined everything!\" There was a dead, heavy silence on the line. Then his voice came, low and shaking with a fury | had never heard from him before. \"Shut up,\" he hissed. \"You don't get to love her. You don't ---- deserve her. You don't know the first thing about love.\" His words, instead of hurting me, ignited a spark of bitter, hysterical laughter. \"Me?\" | spat back. \"What about you? You're the one who treated her like a chess piece! You're the one who handed her over to me like a party favor so you could keep your hands clean for Saint Kennedy! You are a thousand times worse than | am! You don't deserve her either! Neither of us do!\" | heard a sharp crack on the other end. He had hung up on me. Or smashed his phone. It didn't matter. | slid down the wall of my empty, opulent apartment, the phone slipping from my grasp. | was alone with the wreckage of my own making, haunted by the ghost of a love | had murdered before it ever had a chance to live. Title: A Princess? No! I'm the Female General! In "A Princess? No! I'm the Female General!" by CrushReel, Adela Taylor, a noble family's daughter, disguises herself as her brother to secure their Duke title by joining the army. Despite facing obstacles, she achieves remarkable success. However, upon her triumphant return, her brother betrays her, setting off a chain of events that will test her resolve and reveal hidden truths. 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