In Love With The Dangerous Professor のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 31 - チャプター 40

Celine's POVI seated myself in the chair facing his, papers still clattering about his desk. Whether from anger or surprise, I wasn’t sure."Explain," I said quietly. "All of it."The chair creaked as Caelum reclined, his face guarded. “I purchased the university five years ago. It was a failed company, up to its eyes in debt. The board was in the process of selling to developers who would tear it down for luxury apartments.”"So, you kind of swooped in and saved that. How noble.""It wasn't about nobility. It was about necessity." He gestured to the papers. “I wanted a proper business front. Something that would justify income, shield me, let me move about in the open.”"Money laundering.""Partly, yes. But also real education, real scholarships, real research. I’ve kept it clean on the academic side. That was non negotiable."I laughed bitterly. "You bought yourself a university to launder money through and play professor. That's insane.""I never claimed to be sane."I rose and wa

Celine's POVThe campus exploded.When I returned to my dorm, reporters were already staking out the building. News vans were parked up and down the street, cameras trained on every doorway. Students gathered in clusters, phones out, filming everything."Miss Moretti! Is it true that your partner was a crime lord?”“Had you heard about his criminal behavior?”"Are you an accomplice?"I worked my way through them, head down, not responding to any question. Someone grabbed my arm. I pulled back and kept walking.Got inside to discover Maddie walking back and forth in our room, a phone glued to her ear.“She just walked in,” she replied, quickly. "I'll call you back." She hung up, whirled on me. "Oh my God, where have you been? The police were out this way searching for you. They have questions. Lots of questions."“I’m not saying anything without a lawyer.”"Good, because one just called. Said Caelum's team sent him. He's downstairs waiting."I located the lawyer in the common-room. He

Celine's POVThe helicopter started up, and my stomach fell.It was chaos down there, the prison yard. Running guards, smoke from the explosions I'd caused. Police cars converging, sirens wailing. We climbed higher, and the scene shrank, and I couldn’t stop watching.I had just helped someone break out of a federal prison.With explosives.And a bribed warden.My hands started shaking. Adrenaline crash hitting hard. I stood there hugging myself, doing my best to keep it together.He wrapped his arm tightly around my shoulders and pulled me to him. “You broke me out of a federal penitentiary."In point of fact, it was Amaya who informed me where to locate the corrupt warden. My words were higher-pitched than usual. “I just paid him more than Vivienne. And perhaps even threatened his family a bit. Is that bad?"Kent, who was steering at the break, laughed. “That is the most mafia I have ever heard you come down on something.”"I'm serious. Did I go too far? I informed him that I would s

Celine's POVThere was gunfire, the kind you might expect at the end of the world.Glass shattered in explosive bursts. Wood splintered and flew like shrapnel when bullets riddled the cabin walls. The silence of the morning became a nightmare in seconds — an earsplitting fusillade from automatic weapons, the bang of grenades, wooden planks piercing walls, bullets slamming into metal.I fell to the ground so quickly my knees connected hard enough to turn into bruises, hands jumping up toward my ears uselessly as I tried to block out the noise. But that did nothing to dampen the violence shattering out around us. My entire body was trembling in spasms, muscles constricted by sheer terror.The sound of gunfire increased, both louder and nearer. They came closing down on us, narrowing the ring. I heard men shouting in Italian, coordinating their attack."We're surrounded!" Kent shouted from where he was, the sound barely distinguishable through the mayhem. "At least twenty, maybe more. We

Celine's POVThe morgue was cold. Sterile. And deeply disturbing.I waited in the hall while Kent stepped inside with forms which I really didn’t need to hear about. False documents. Bribes. At least it would be two bodies that had belonged to people who died with no next of kin.Two men whose death would now be our rescue.Caelum was at my side, his hand hot against the small of my back. Keeping me grounded while waiting to loot bodies like the ghouls we were."Are we really doing this?" I whispered. “The way Faking our deaths with real dead bodies?”“It’s the freedom. If there are no bodies, then they’re going to keep searching. They need proof. Final, irrefutable proof.""This feels wrong. These were people. They had lives.""They did. And now their deaths have a purpose. It’s better than most people get.”I looked at him. I forget sometimes how different we were. How he could justify things that left me with a sick feeling in my stomach.Twenty minutes later, Kent emerged looking