Threats

Chapter 4

Aria's POV

That night I stood in front of my closet trying to figure out what the hell to wear to an interview with a billionaire Lycan Alpha.

Nothing too flashy. Nothing that screamed "I'm trying to seduce you." I needed to look professional. Capable. Like a normal eighteen-year-old who just wanted a part-time job.

I pulled out a simple white button-down shirt and dark jeans. I held them up and frowned. Maybe too boring?

"Hot date?"

I jumped. Elena was sitting on her bed painting her nails, and watching me with obvious amusement.

"What? No."

"Then why have you been staring at your closet for twenty minutes?"

Had it been twenty minutes? I looked at the clock. Shit. It had.

"I have a thing tomorrow, off campus. Just want to look decent."

"What kind of thing?"

I shrugged, hanging the shirt back up. "Just a thing. Nothing exciting."

Elena gave me a look that said she didn't believe me but wasn't going to push. "Okay, weirdo."

I tried on three different outfits before settling on the white shirt and jeans. Then I practiced what I'd say.

*Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. Ashford. I'm a hard worker and I'm really interested in...*

No. That sounded stiff.

*I'm excited about the possibility of working for...*

God, that was worse.

I gave up and flopped onto my bed. Maybe I should just wing it. I was good at thinking on my feet when I wasn't overthinking everything.

My phone lit up on the nightstand.

I reached for it without thinking. Probably Elena sending me some memes or...

Unknown number.

My stomach dropped.

I opened the text.

It was a photo of my parents' house. The small rental we've lived in since I was small. It was taken from across the street, showing the front door and windows.

Below the photo: Pretty little place. It would be a shame if something happened to it.

My blood went cold.

I sat up so fast my vision blurred. My hands were shaking as I stared at the screen.

Caden.

He was already threatening my family. It had been less than two days since the party and he was already going after them.

I thought I had a week. Maybe more, but he wasn't waiting.

Did I provoke him too much?

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I wanted to text back. Tell him to fuck off. Tell him if he touched my parents I'd kill him.

But that would just make it worse.

I closed the message and put the phone down. My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

I needed this interview to go well. I needed to get hired. I needed access to Matthias and I needed it fast because Caden wasn't going to give me time.

"You okay?"

I looked up. Elena was watching me with concern.

"Yeah," I lied. "Fine."

"You don't look fine. You look like you saw a ghost."

"Just tired."

Elena didn't push but she kept glancing at me while she finished her nails.

I tried to focus on other things. I pulled out my laptop and attempted to work on an essay due next week. But I kept reading the same paragraph over and over without absorbing any of it.

Around eleven Elena turned off her light and went out. I pretended to be asleep but couldn't actually.

The photo was burned into my brain. My parents' house. The threat.

What if Caden did something tonight? What if I woke up tomorrow and...

No. I couldn't think like that. Caden wanted to scare me. He wanted me to panic and come crawling back, accepting the mate bond to make it all stop.

I wasn't going to do that.

I was going to fight back.

My phone buzzed again.

I grabbed it off the nightstand, heart pounding.

Another unknown number but different from before.

The message was just a link. No text.

I almost didn't click it. But curiosity and dread made me tap the screen.

It loaded slowly. Some kind of social media post.

Photos of me. Except they weren't really me. Someone had photoshopped my face onto a naked body. Multiple photos. Different poses. All explicit.

The caption: Aria Lennox - campus slut. Rejected Caden Ashford because she's too busy fucking her way through the senior class.

My stomach turned.

The post had been up for three hours. It already had hundreds of likes and dozens of comments.

...knew she was a slut

...feel bad for Caden having to deal with this

...bet that guy she kissed at the bar wasn't the first

I couldn't breathe.

The door slammed open.

I nearly dropped my phone.

Elena stumbled in, face pale, holding her phone up. "Aria..."

"I know."

"You know? How long...did you see...." She was tripping over her words. "Someone posted these pictures and they're everywhere. I*******m, T*****r, the university F******k page. Everyone's sharing them."

I sat up. My whole body feeling numb.

"They're fake," I said quietly.

"I know they're fake." Elena came over and sat on the edge of my bed. "But people are believing them. They're saying awful shit about you."

I pulled up my own social media. She was right. The photos were everywhere. Reposted, shared, commented on. My name was trending on the university pages.

My phone kept buzzing with notifications. Friend requests from random guys. Messages calling me a slut. A whore. Asking how much I charged.

I turned off notifications and put the phone face-down.

"What the hell is going on? This is because of Caden, isn't it? Because you rejected him?"

I couldn't answer.

"Aria." Elena grabbed my shoulder. "Talk to me. What's happening?"

I wanted to tell her everything. About the mate bond. About dying and coming back. About Caden destroying my family. About my desperate plan to seduce his father for protection.

But I couldn't.

"He's harassing me, because I rejected him. He's trying to ruin my reputation."

"This is more than harassment. This is..." Elena gestured at her phone. "It'svicious."

She wasn't wrong.

In my first life Caden had been cruel but it had taken weeks for him to escalate this far. Now he was hitting hard and fast.

"I'm going to report this to the Dean. This is cyber bullying or revenge p**n or..."

"It won't help."

"How do you know?"

Because I'd tried that in my first life. The university administration moved slowly. By the time they investigated anything, the damage was done. And Caden's family had influence. Donations. Connections. He always walked away clean.

"Just trust me," I said. "It won't help."

Elena looked at me like I was a stranger. "Then what are you going to do?"

I thought about the interview tomorrow.

"I'm going to handle it."

"How?"

I didn't answer.

Elena stayed for a while longer, trying to get me to talk, but eventually she gave up and went back to her own bed.

I lay in the dark listening to her breathe.

My phone buzzed one more time.

I picked it up.

Another message from the first unknown number. Caden.

"This is just the beginning.

I stared at those three words until they blurred.

He was right. It was just the beginning.