For a long minute, I stand there, back straight, chin up. I imagine the eyes on the other side of the glass, waiting to see what I do next. I let them wait.
After all, this is my game now.
Chapter 2: Bam
It’ssevenfiftya.m.and I’m waiting on a bench in the quad, shadowed and silent. My body is relaxed—shoulders slouched, legs sprawled, but my eyes are open and cold. I watch them as they file out of the dorms and cluster in their predictable cliques.
None of them matter. Not today.
Today, there’s only one name pulsing through the crowd, rising like a bad smell. Even the ones who pretend not to care are talking about her, the Don’s Princess, the mafia blue blood. It’s in the way they huddle close, hands cupped, voices low.
“Bonaccorso. She’s here.”
“Is it true she—?”
“Her family—”
Most of these fuckers have never seen real power. Not the kind that doesn’t blink, doesn’t play at rules. Not the kind that would put a bullet in your skull and send your family the invoice for cleaning the carpet. The kind that gets invited here not because she’s smart or worthy, but because what the Kings want, they get.
Eight a.m. sharp, like clockwork, the gate guards go from dead-eyed to upright. The first sighting ripples through the quad: a town car, matte black, pulling up slow and deliberate. The driver is stone, the passenger window never cracks. When the doors open, it’s the bodyguard that steps out first—a bulldog in a $3,000 suit, scanning the perimeter, hand grazing the gun at his waist.
Then she emerges.
For a second, I think she looks normal. Five foot eight, maybe, thin but not weak. Long black hair, parted dead center, not a strand out of place. Skin pale, gold-brown eyes that flash like snake’s in the sun. Her clothes are expensive, but not showy. The coat is belted at the waist, the boots shine. She carries nothing. No bag, no phone, no nervous tic. Just two bodyguards flanking her, matching her step for step as she cuts straight up the walk.
She doesn’t look left or right. She doesn’t need to.
The guard trailing her keeps looking at her the way a lover might and it sends a ripple of anger down my spine.
The other students part for her like a rip in water. No one gets too close. A couple of them murmur, “untouchable,” but it’s not a compliment. The word’s edged with fear.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, watching. My jaw ticks. I flex my right hand, feeling the old fractures in the knuckles catch and slide. The urge to stand, to square up and see if she’s worth all this talk, is sharp as hunger. But I wait.
The way she moves is what interests me. There’s no hesitation in her walk. No checking her shadow, no double-glance at the threat grid. She’s used to being the apex. She expects everyone to move for her. Even the guards, big as they are, hang back just a half step, like they know she’d gut them for getting in the way.
A faculty rep meets her at the foot of the stairs. She barely acknowledges him, just a tilt of her chin, a flick of her wrist, then moves on. He hurries to keep up, bobbing and nodding, sweating under the gaze of all those watching eyes.
They take her through the main doors, the heavy ones with the iron bars and the Westpoint crest. As soon as they’re out of sight, the crowd exhales. Nervous laughs. Someone calls her a bitch. Another says “would smash” and gets a laugh, but it’s shaky. They’re scared, and I can taste it.
I settle back on the bench, eyes still on the doors. Dahlia Bonaccorso. The Board’s new toy. The Vicious Kings’ bargainingchip. No one wants to say the word mafia, not out loud, but everyone’s thinking it.
I’ve seen her type before. Rich, pretty, unkillable. The kind of girl who thinks the world is soft and bendable and that nothing bad can happen to her because daddy bought out all the bad already. Most times, they crumble easy. You just have to hit the right angle. Find the crack and pry it open.
But this one’s different. I feel it in the way my pulse spikes, the way my teeth grind behind closed lips.
She doesn’t look breakable.
My hand curls tight at my side, the scars on my knuckles white against the skin. I imagine her on her knees, not in fear, but in fury. I want to see what’s behind that perfect mask, see if the Don’s daughter bleeds like anyone else.
I sit there a long time after the crowd disperses. The cold creeps up my back, but I don’t move. In my head, I’m already running the scenarios—how to catch her alone, how to bait her into a fight, how to break her down without triggering a blood feud that gets my head sent home in a box.
The Night Hunt is weeks away. But my hunt starts now.
I get up, stretch, and walk the perimeter of the quad. Every muscle in my body’s wired for a fight, but there’s no target. So I walk, burning off the excess in my calves and shoulders, thinking about her.
She’s the first person here I want to destroy for fun.
And that makes me smile.
