Stew more.
I’m stretched across a chaise lounge, cigar in one hand, tumbler in the other. My shirt collar is open. My hair is a mess from running five miles earlier. I probably look like a Greek tragedy propped against six thousand dollars of upholstery.
That’s when the door creaks open.
Mindy Chen steps inside.
All three of us shift at once.
Interesting.
She shuts the door behind her, fingers trembling slightly. Then she squares her shoulders.
“I like Jade,” she says, voice soft but steady. “We had chem lab together. She was always… nice to me.”
I straighten.
This is already different.
She takes a breath.
“I know I’m not top of the food chain here,” she continues. “I’m the bottom of the pyramid. If I’m even on the pyramid. My parents have money, sure, but I’m from Hong Kong. I don’t have the American bloodlines. The old steel money. The railroad money. The oil money. The nonsense these parents worship.”
She glances between us.
She’s nervous.
Really nervous.
“But I know what’s up.”
X leans forward.
Tristan sits up straighter.
I freeze with the cigar halfway to my lips.
Mindy swallows, then steps closer.
“If I tell you,” she says carefully, “you have to let me sit with you at lunch. You have to… protect me.”
Her voice cracks just a little.
“Because those girls? They leave me alone now. They let me be the dorky, crazy-rich Asian girl in the background. But if I give them up? They’ll come after me next.”
X narrows his eyes. “Why are you helping us then? What do you want?”
Her shoulders lift.
She doesn’t blush.
She doesn’t look embarrassed.
She tells the truth.
“What every girl wants,” she says. “Social status.”
I blink.
