INICIAR SESIÓNChapter 80: ReassessmentPOV: BeckettThe water was colder than I expected, and shallower, which meant most of the impact went straight into my tailbone instead of cushioning anything.I came up gasping and furious and dripping in front of what felt like the entire campus population, phones still recording every single humiliating second of it. Water ran down my face and into my collar, cold enough to make my teeth ache. It tasted like pennies and rotting leaves.A dull, hot throb had already started at the base of my spine.Nobody helped me out.I climbed over the stone rim on my own, soaked through, my jeans dragging heavy against my legs. One shoe was gone somewhere in the fountain's murky depths. The other squelched with every step, loud enough that I heard it even over the laughter. My other foot, in nothing but a sodden sock, slapped wet against the pavement.The laughter followed me the whole walk back across the quad. Students I didn't know filmed me from every angle. Someone
Chapter 79: FountainPOV: OdetteThe two men moved before I finished the sentence.I hadn't even seen them arrive, hadn't noticed them peel off from wherever they'd been posted at the edge of campus since my father decided a security detail was non-negotiable, but suddenly they were simply there, one on either side of Beckett, close enough that I caught the faint scent of cold wool from their coats. His grip on my wrist vanished so fast I stumbled slightly at the sudden release, blood rushing back hot into the marks his fingers had left, a dull throb settling into my forearm."Sir, step away from Miss Sinclair."Beckett spun, startled, staring up at two men easily a head taller than him, dark suits pressed sharp despite the cold, the particular flat, unbothered expression of men who did this exact job for a living and found nothing about it interesting. I watched something shift across his face, the last of his bravado draining out fast, replaced by the specific fear of a man realizi
Chapter 78: Trash CanPOV: OdetteI looked at the phones. I looked at Beckett, still on his knees, roses spilling across the pavement like some tragic prop in a play only he thought he was still starring in.And I felt, for the first time since this whole nightmare started five weeks ago, something that wasn't rage.Amusement."You want to know something funny?" My voice came out lighter than I expected, almost conversational, which seemed to unsettle him more than shouting would have. "You brought a hundred roses to convince me you've changed."I turned slightly toward the crowd, toward the raised phones, toward the audience that had assembled itself without invitation. A gust cut across the quad just then, cold enough to sting, carrying the smell of wet stone and somebody's abandoned coffee cooling on the library steps."But you didn't buy them. Did you notice that, everyone?" The cold air caught sharp in my throat on the inhale. "He's never once bought me anything with his own mone
Chapter 77: Rewriting the StoryPOV: Odette"Clara put a spell on me." Beckett said it like the words had weight, like they'd survive being spoken aloud in a courtyard full of witnesses.His voice dropped low and grave, the same register I'd once mistaken for sincerity."I don't know how else to explain it. I wasn't myself around her. She got into my head, made me say things I never actually believed.""You believed them enough to say them twice.""I panicked." His voice cracked. The cold had turned the tip of his nose red, and something wet caught the light along his cheekbones. Sweat or tears, I couldn't tell anymore. "I was terrified of losing the contract, and she was right there. I let that fear turn into cruelty toward you."I genuinely couldn't tell if any of it was real, or if five years with this man had simply trained me to distrust every emotion he displayed on command.The wind cut low across the quad, carrying the smell of wet leaves and somebody's forgotten cigarette, an
Chapter 76: The Groveling ExPOV: OdetteThe guards turned Beckett away at the gate that same night. I heard about it from my mother, who mentioned it over breakfast the next morning with the same bored disdain she used for everything, the clink of her spoon against her teacup punctuating the sentence like it barely warranted the interruption. "Some man, I guess the poor one you are leaving with for five years, showed up at the gate last night claiming he needed to speak with you. Security handled it."I should have known that wasn't the end of it.I found out the hard way, walking across the quad toward my ethics seminar with my head down, hood up, the morning air cold enough to sting the back of my throat, trying for the first time in a week to feel like a normal student instead of a headline. Leaves crunched dry and brittle underfoot, the campus smelling faintly of cut grass and somebody's burnt coffee drifting from the café cart near the fountain. I'd almost made it to the buildin
Chapter 75: RetrievalPOV: OdetteHeadlights swept across the garden before either of us heard the engines.Nikolai's head turned first, some old Alpha instinct clocking the threat before the sound of it fully registered, and I watched his whole body shift, loose and open a second ago, now coiled tight, weight settling low into his stance the way I imagined it did right before a fight he had no intention of losing."Odette.""I hear it."The engines carried strange across the grounds, a low, steady growl bouncing off the hedges before the cars themselves came into view, and by the time they did, I already knew. Three black cars came up the private drive fast, too fast for a house that hadn't invited them, gravel spraying under tires that didn't slow for the curve, the sound of it sharp and violent against the quiet the garden had held just a minute ago. I knew those cars. I'd know them anywhere now, the exact weight and shine of them, the way they moved like the road belonged to them







