12

Vickerry’s POV

"I am going to utterly ruin you, Samirah."

I dragged the tip of a metal push-pin directly across the glossy surface of the photograph, leaving a deep, white scratch right over her beautiful face. I slammed the pin home, anchoring the picture to the corkboard in the center of my bedroom.

It was seven in the morning. I hadn't slept a bloody wink. My ribs were still tightly bound, my lip was throbbing.

I still felt the lingering, humiliating sting of my lose of erection with Ruby last night, and it was driving my inner wolf completely mad.

I took my anger out on the poor girl, I couldn’t stomach the embarrassment.

I took a step back, lit a cigarette, and blew a puff stream of smoke directly at Samirah’s pinned image. She was looking straight into the camera, her dreamy eyes calm, sophisticated, and inviting, almost like she was staring back at me.

Fuck she was driving me nuts yet held me spell bound.

"You think you’ve won because my dad deployed the elite guard?" I muttered, a vicious chuckle rising in my throat. "You think that pathetic little apology in Vance’s office makes you untouchable? I am going to get you, Samirah. At any bloody cost. I’ll have you on your knees begging me to stop before this semester is over."

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I glanced at the screen and saw a calendar alert.

Reminder: General Havoc’s weekly inspection.

The image of my father’s disgusted face flashed in my mind. “One more mark against your name... and I will personally ensure you are stripped of your title, locked in a barracks, and broken.”

I ground the cigarette butt out against my desk, my jaw clenching.

I couldn't afford to be reckless.

If I disturbed her again or used brute force, Vance would expel me, and my father would follow through on his promise.

I’d be bundled off to a military boot camp in the northern wilderness before sundown.

"No," I whispered, a slow, unrepentant smirk spreading across my lips. "If I can't break you with force, I'll break you with a thousand tiny cuts."

An hour later, I walked into the Arts and Sciences faculty building.

I even had a notebook I barely used tucked under my arm.

As I passed a group of second-years in the corridor, they immediately stopped whispering and scrambled out of my way, terrified of another violent outburst.

Instead of snarling at them, I offered a polite, completely hollow nod. "Morning."

They stared at me like I had grown a second head. Perfect. I needed the word to spread around school faster and one of the ways to achieve that was doing the unthinkable.

Typical Me would not spare a second year student a glance, the shock on their face proved my point that "reformed student" persona was officially live.

I bypassed the main lecture theatres and headed straight for the administrative back offices. I didn't knock before I stepped into the cramped, paper-cluttered cubicle belonging to the department's chief technical clerk.

A scrawny Beta named Toby looked up from his dual monitors. The moment his eyes landed on me, his scent spiked with panic. He scrambled backward, nearly knocking over his lukewarm mug of tea.

"A-Al-Alpha Vickerry," Toby stammered, his hands shaking as he gripped the edge of his desk. "Please... I told you last term, I can’t alter the exam registration logs anymore. The audit committee is tracking—"

"Relax, Toby," I interrupted. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, locking out the noise of the hallway. "I’m a changed man. Didn't you hear? I've seen the error of my ways."

Toby swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward the locked door. "Right. Of course. Then... what are you doing here?"

I leaned over his desk, resting my palms on the polished wood. I kept my voice low, ensuring the micro-mics in the corridor wouldn't catch a single syllable. "You owe me a massive favour, don't you? Lest we forget who paid off your brother’s gambling debts to the Admoon underground bookies last winter."

Toby’s face went completely pale. "Vick, please. If I get caught interfering with faculty data, I’ll lose my pension. I have a family."

"And your brother has ten fingers that I personally saved from being snapped in half," I countered, my eyes narrowing into a glare. "I don't want you to touch the grading logs, Toby. I want something much simpler. Something completely untraceable."

Toby let out a ragged breath, his shoulders slumping in defeat. "What is it?"

"Professor Samirah Alvarez," I said, the name rolling off my tongue like a sweet poison. "She has a morning presentation in Lecture Theatre Three in exactly fifteen minutes. An introductory seminar on cognitive behavioral patterns. Her electronic lecture slides are currently sitting on the shared faculty server, waiting for her to log in."

Toby frowned, his fingers hovering over his mechanical keyboard. "Yes. I see the file directory right here. What do you want me to do with it?"

"Delete them," I commanded flatly.

Toby gasped, his head snapping up. "Delete them? Right before a live seminar? Vick, she’s a new professor, she’ll completely panic! The department head is supposed to be sitting in on that evaluation!"

"Exactly," I chuckled, a wave of satisfaction washing over my chest. "I want her to log onto that projector in front of a hundred students and find absolutely nothing but a blank screen. I want to see that perfect, sophisticated composure shatter. I want to watch her sweat."

"But... but if I delete it permanently, the backup logs will show an admin login," Toby argued, desperately looking for an escape route.

"Then don't delete it permanently," I snapped, leaning closer until he could smell the faint scent of tobacco on my breath. "Corrupt the file extension. Make it look like a spontaneous server error. Wipe the presentation slides from her local user profile so she can't access them for the next two hours. Do it now, Toby. Or I call the bookies."

Toby’s hands trembled violently as he turned back to his monitors. His fingers flew across the keys, the frantic clack-clack-clack echoing in the tight cubicle. I watched over his shoulder as he navigated to Samirah's faculty folder. He highlighted the core presentation file, clicked a few administrative commands, and completely scrambled the code.

A small, red error message flashed on his screen: File format unsupported. Access denied.

"It's done," Toby whispered, breaking into a nervous sweat as he looked up at me. "It will look like a routine system crash. She won't be able to open a single slide until the IT team manually restores it this afternoon."

"Brilliant," I purred, patting his shoulder with enough force to make his teeth chatter. "You see, Toby? Compliance isn't that hard. Our debt is officially cleared."

I unlocked the door and stepped back out into the bustling hallway. The initial knot of humiliation in my stomach had completely vanished, what I felt now was more of an intoxicating rush of adrenaline.

I checked my watch. It was a few minutes until her lecture started.

I adjusted my blazer, and began strolling down the corridor toward Lecture Theatre Three. I couldn't wait to take my seat in the very back row, fold my arms, and quietly anticipate the beautiful, Professor Samirah stammer and stutter in embarrassment