I leaned harder against the wall. Read it again. Three times. Four.
Your father.They knew about my father. Knew that Thomas Harrington was the pressure point. Andthe scholarship kid—deliberate. Designed to reduce Liam to a label. Andafter hours too—the wordtooimplying they knew about more than just the mixer kiss. The shower? The car? The dorm?
How much did they know?
"Alex."
The sound of my name on his voice soothed me instantly. I looked up. Liam was at the end of the hallway. Gym bag over his shoulder. He'd doubled back—must have seen Eldridge pull me aside and waited.
His eyes went to my face and his expression changed immediately. He knew something was wrong. He could read it on me the way he read the water—instinctively, without needing to be told.
He walked toward me. Checked behind him—nobody in the hallway. He stopped a foot away, just a little too close for public.
"What happened?"
I turned the phone toward him and let him read the screen.
I watched his face change. The color draining. His jaw locking. The vein in his neck that showed when he was about to do something he'd regret.
"Scholarship kid," he said. The words sitting in his mouth like something rotten.
"Liam—"
"They mentioned your father." His eyes came up from the phone. Dark. Furious. "This person knows about your father. This isn't some random asshole with a camera."
"I know."
"It's Braden. It has to be—"
"We don't know that yet."
"Who else knows about your father? Who else would use that—"
Footsteps at the far end of the hallway. Tyler's voice echoing off the walls—something about breakfast, calling to someone behind him.
Liam stepped back. The distance returning and his face closing.
"Tonight," I said. Quiet. "Noah. Like we said."
His jaw was working. I could see the fight in him—every instinct telling him to move, to find Braden, to put his fist through something. But he held it.
"I'll talk to him," he said.
Tyler rounded the corner. "Yo, Moore—you coming to the dining hall or what?"
"Yeah, coming."
He walked away with Tyler without looking back. His shoulders rigid, and his fists clenched at his sides where Tyler couldn't see.
I stood in the hallway with my phone in my hand and the second text glowing on the screen.
Does your father know you're rowing with the scholarship kid after hours too?
Someone was pulling strings. And they were getting better at it.
I pocketed the phone. Walked out of the boathouse and back to Kingswell with my hands shaking. The autumn air was quickly turning to the cold, harsh bite of winter.
***
