LOGINLilly stood outside the door and told herself she was not nervous.She knocked.Elliot opened it — looked at her, registered that she was pretty, and produced the particular smirk of someone filing information away for later use.“Hi. I’m Lilly. Zane’s tutor. I came to see him.”“Come in, come in.” He stepped aside with the easy hospitality of someone who considers all visitors equally welcome regardless of context. “Stay here — I’ll have him downstairs in a minute.”She stepped inside and looked around.Trophies everywhere. On shelves, on surfaces, lined up with the casual abundance of people who win things so regularly they’ve stopped finding places to put them. Hockey gear. Photographs. The comfortable disorder of a house shared by people who spend most of their time elsewhere.“Hi.”She turned.A girl stood a few feet away — slightly boyish in her style, sharp-eyed, looking at Lilly with the direct assessing gaze of someone who makes it their business to know things.Is this Jade?
Saturday?” Lilly asked.“Practice,” Zane said, settling himself on the counter with the easy comfort of someone who considers every surface a valid seat.“Today?”“Evening practice.”“Thursday?”“Practice.”“Friday?”“Music classes.” He looked at her. “See — we’re both busy. This is going to be harder to arrange than I thought.”Lilly came around the counter and stood in front of him. “So when exactly—”“Sunday,” he said. “My place.”She looked at him. “Your place? What if your girlfriend walks in?”“Girlfriend.” He said the word the way one might say a word in a foreign language they don’t speak. “That is genuinely not in my vocabulary. I don’t do that.” He paused. “And yes, it has to be my place — because the person we need to convince lives nearby and she needs to see it with her own eyes.”“Who?”“My best friend’s younger sister. Jade.” He said the name with the particular weight of someone explaining a complicated force of nature. “She runs information on this campus better than
Zane’s POV“Open.”Blade pushed the door before he’d finished the word, which was exactly what Blade always did.“What do you want, man?”“Am I not allowed in my best friend’s room?” Blade dropped against the door frame. “Your father came by earlier. Didn’t find you. Said pick up his calls.”Zane’s jaw tightened. “If it’s about my father, you can leave. Right now.”“Man, you can’t keep running from—”“Blade.” His voice was quiet and completely final. “We have been through this more times than I can count. I am tired of having it. Please.”Blade held up both hands. “Fine. I give up.” He paused at the door. “Your girlfriend is downstairs by the way.”“You know I don’t date.”“Okay — your situationship. Rue.”Something in Zane’s expression shifted. “Rue? It’s been a minute.” He got up. “Tell her I’m coming down.”Blade left. Zane followed.Downstairs, Rue crossed the room the moment she saw him, arms going straight around his neck, warm and familiar.“I missed you,” she said.“Oh really.
She was late.Not catastrophically late — just enough to push open the music room door to find everyone already seated and playing, their instruments filling the room with the particular organised chaos of a warm-up session already in progress. Several heads turned. Lilly smiled apologetically at no one in particular, made her way to her seat, pulled out her saxophone, and joined in as smoothly as she could manage.The teacher did not look impressed.When the session ended and students began filing out, his voice cut through the noise.“Lilly. Stay behind please.”She stayed, saxophone across her lap, wearing the expression of someone who already knows what kind of conversation this is going to be.“If it’s about being late, sir—” she began.“It’s partly about being late.”“I have a solution for that, actually. I found a shortcut across campus today. It won’t happen again — or if it does, significantly less often. I promise.”He looked at her with the patient expression of a man who h
It happened in the space of approximately three seconds.The bathroom door swung open, Lilly’s headphones slipped from her head and clattered to the tile floor, her laundry scattered in every direction, and she found herself face to face with or rather, face to considerably more than face with a very naked, very unbothered Zane.He looked at her.She looked at him.He scoffed, turned back to the shower, and continued washing his hair with the supreme indifference of someone who has never once in his life been inconvenienced by anything.Lilly grabbed everything off the floor in approximately one motion headphones, laundry, the last of her dignity and fled.“Oh my God,” she breathed, pushing through the bathroom door and into the corridor, walking fast and staring straight ahead. “Oh my God, oh my God—”She made it back to the dorm in record time, still muttering furiously under her breath.Why do they never pump water to the dorms? Why was he there at two in the morning? It’s liter
Outside in the garden, Marcus reached for another piece of meat off the grill and said, almost as an afterthought: “Oh — and apparently the footage they found shows someone in a mask and specific gloves. That’s all they have.” Mrs. Ashford waved her hand. “Marcus, please. Don’t ruin a perfectly good meal with that. Let them find whoever they need to find. That’s their job.” Marcus shrugged and let it go. The barbecue continued. In the bedroom, Zara looked at the two men standing in the middle of her floor and let the silence sit for a moment before she spoke. “Your mother,” she said to Mark, “thought she was being clever. Paying someone to poison my food.” She tilted her head slightly. “But the girl she chose told me everything. Every word of it.” She paused. “So I returned the favour. A simple gas leak. I made sure you and your father were out of the house first — made sure you were safe. Your mother was alone because that was her own choice that evening.” She looked at Mark
The next day, the Ashford mansion was alive with motion and aroma. Maids bustled up and down the grand hallways, the clatter of pots and pans mingling with the scent of roasting meats and freshly baked bread. “Good morning,” Marcus greeted his mother as he entered the dining area, still rubbing s
That night, Lilly slept in the maids’ quarters.The small room smelled of detergent and ironed clothes. The bed was narrow, the blanket thin. The two maids, still new in Dante’s house, looked at her with quiet pity.They didn’t know who she was.They didn’t understand why such a small
Days passed.Since she had started living in the Ashford mansion, mornings had slowly found a rhythm. That morning, soft sunlight filtered through the curtains as Zara stood behind Lilly, gently combing through her hair. The little girl sat still, humming quietly, her school uniform already on.She
Adrian sat alone at the café, his fingers tapping restlessly against the porcelain cup in front of him. He hated waiting. More than that, he hated Dante and he didn’t even know when that hatred had grown this deep. Yet here he was, answering his call.The door finally opened, and Dante walked in, u







