She disappears into her house.
I walk back to my car, shove my hands into my jacket pockets, and glance at Jade’s dark windows one last time.
She’s not here.
She’s far away.
Someone’s protecting her.
But this isn’t over.
Not for me.
Not for her.
Not for any of the people who hurt her.
I slide into the driver’s seat and whisper into the empty car?—
“This isn’t over,Gitanilla.”
Not even close.”
Chapter 6
JADE
They starelike they’ve never seen a girl in black before.
Like I’m supposed to show up crying, still dripping lemonade and humiliation.
But no.
I walk through those stone-arched gates in a tailored blazer, combat boots, and hair so spiked out it makes my cheekbones look sharp enough to cut glass. Like the new me.
Shani trails behind me, just as fierce. She’s not a designer purse. She’s a statement—my hellhound in disguise. And when people see her, they move. Fast.
Let them.
Let them wonder what I’m going to do.
Let them remember the girl they laughed at, drenched in sticky slime under the chandeliers of that decadent Vanderbilt mansion. Because she’s dead and the new Jade resurrected all in less than five days. I buried the old me along with the naïve part of myself that believed in fairy tales and boys with crowns.
It’s Thursday. I told Aunt Susan no remote work… that some business is just better off handled in person.
Leo.
I don’t say his name. Not even in my head. He’s not a boy. He’s a storm I survived.
And now?
I’m the hurricane.
“Damn,Gitanilla,” he murmurs near the lockers.
I don’t turn around. I just smirk. Good. Let him feel the shift in the air.
This isn’t about bouncing back. It’s about burning the throne he thought was untouchable. It’s about making him feel everything I felt—slowly, thoroughly, painfully.
