“Yeah,” I say, swallowing hard, “I’ll send it now.”
He’s quiet for a second, then: “I’m proud of you, Damien. I know this isn’t easy, but you’re doing the right thing, you hear me? I’m calling our lawyers the second I hang up.”
The words hit somewhere deep. I blink hard, suddenly feeling younger than I have in a while. “Thanks, Dad. I—just. Thanks.”
“Anytime, son. I know you didn’t want me to interfere last time, but let me handle it this time. You just keep your head down and keep doing what you’re doing.”
He’s about to hang up, but I stop him. “Dad… do you think he’d actually go after Noah if he thought he was losing control?”
My dad sighs. “Lionel Adams cares about Lionel Adams, but he won’t burn down his own reputation if he can help it. Don’t underestimate him, Damien, and keep your head on straight. Lionel’s desperate, and desperate men do stupid things.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I realize that.”
We hang up, and for a few seconds, I just stare at the phone, thumb hovering over the email icon. Then I attach the audio file, double-check that it’s encrypted, and send it off. For a minute, I sit there, feeling a strange sort of power settling in my bones. He can’t hurt us the way he used to—not unless I let him.
Four years ago, I was scared. Four years ago, I would’ve run and let him win. Now, I’m not scared, I’m angry. And I’m done letting that bastard pull the strings.
Before heading back to the Sin Bin, I scroll through my contact list, thumb hovering over Killian’s name before I can get to Noah’s. I remember what Ryan said the night I told him the truth:“You’ve got people—fucking Killian is the most powerful person on this goddamn campus. If that asshole tried to pullany of that shit now, I promise you, he wouldn’t get away with it.”
I laughed it off then. But I’m not laughing now.
Ryan wasn’t wrong. If there’s anyone who knows how to handle a problem like this—the kind that doesn’t play by the rules, the kind that can end careers with a phone call—it’s Killian King.
His dad’s a senator, his mother runs half the philanthropic boards in the state, and he’s the kind of person who makes things happen, quietly and efficiently. He’s also loyal as fuck to anyone he considers his. I’m not always sure how I fit into that, but if anyone can help me figure out what the hell to do next, it’s him.
Noah
Thedrivebacktomy apartment is silent except for the click of the blinker and the nervous thrum of my pulse filling my ears. My father sits beside me, hands resting on the wheel. He’s a wall of pressed slacks and cologne, with sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose despite the clouded sky.
His mouth is set in a line so tight it could slice through steel. I keep my eyes fixed forward—even when the road turns familiar, even when I recognize the corner store and the stop sign with the sticker peeling off the back—because looking at him feels like inviting the blade to my throat.
“Get out,” he says when we stop in front of my building, tone measured, volume low, and I obey before my brain catches up.
My hands are trembling when I unclasp my seatbelt. My chest feels packed with cotton. I step out onto the curb, and the cold air hits my face. He kills the engine and follows me up without asking if I want him there, without asking anything at all.Because he never asks, he decides, and my body has been trained for years to follow no matter what.
Inside, the apartment is as I left it—neat and quiet. It’s supposed to be my sanctuary, but he ruins it just by being here. He brings all the cold, stifling pressure of our house with him, fills up the space with it until there’s nowhere for me to breathe.
He stands in the living room and surveys it all with a clinical detachment, as if he’s inspecting a crime scene.
“You know,” he begins, voice quiet, almost conversational, which is worse, because it means he’s controlled. “I’m embarrassed, Noah. Mortified. I did everything right. I gave you every opportunity, sent you to the best schools, and put you in the best trainers’ hands. I made sure you always looked like you belonged, even with your…issues.I tolerated it because you were useful. Because you could still perform.”
I swallow hard, my heart breaking slowly.Issues.As if my existence is a stain he’s spent years scrubbing at, like every oddity or difference I carry is a thing that happened to him, not to me.
He walks around my living room, hands behind his back, cataloguing my life, pausing to straighten a photo on the shelf—one of me when I was five years old, with my mom before she left for Milan the first time. Both of us laughing, our hair wet from the rain. His mouth curls at the sight, and he puts it face down.
“I even let you have your little blue-haired rebellion. And what do you do, huh? How do you repay me? You let Damien fucking Moore corrupt you,” he says, spitting Damien’s name as if it were poison.
I shrink back instantly, the instinct older than memory. “Dad, please. I—”
“Do not interrupt me.” His voice snaps, finally losing its polished edge. “You’ve already embarrassed me enough today.”
I flinch despite myself, shoulders curling inward on instinct. I hate that my body betrays me this way. Hate that no matter how old I get, some part of me still reacts like I’m thirteen and trapped in the echoing hallway of a pool complex.
“This is not you, Noah,” he goes on. “You had focus. You had discipline. You knew your place.”
I bite down on the inside of my cheek, tasting blood. “I was miserable.”
“You were successful, and now?” he continues without acknowledging what I just said. “Now, you want to throw all of that away for a cheap thrill. For a phase.”
