Todos os capítulos de FAKING IT WITH THE ALPHA CAPTAIN RIVAL : Capítulo 11 - Capítulo 20

ElenaThe guidance office smelled like burnt coffee and bad news, the way it always did, but today it felt worse thicker, somehow, like the air itself knew what was coming before I did.I hadn't slept, again. I'd spent the whole night staring at that nurse's text about the shoebox until the words stopped meaning anything, and I still hadn't called Martha back, still hadn't asked her the question sitting in my chest like a stone. I told myself I'd deal with it after school. One crisis at a time. I had no idea, walking into that office, that today was about to hand me an entirely new one.Mrs. Halloway didn't look up right away. She had a folder open on her desk my folder, my name printed across the tab in block letters and she was reading something in it with the kind of careful, deliberate slowness that meant she'd rehearsed exactly how she wanted this conversation to go.“Elena. Sit, please.”I sat.“I want to be straightforward with you,” she said, folding her hands over the folde

ElenaI spent the rest of that day replaying Priya's face, the way she'd said the front office already forwarded a copy like it was nothing, like my entire academic future being handed to a committee wasn't the same thing as a verdict already halfway written. I didn't have proof it mattered yet. I just had the same sick, sinking certainty I'd had every single time this week that something bad was about to get worse.I was right.I found Victoria by the vending machines outside the gym, and for one disorienting second I actually thought it was a coincidence that she'd just wanted a soda between classes, that the universe had simply arranged us both into the same hallway at the same time. Then I saw the way she was leaning against the machine, arms crossed, watching the door I'd just walked through like she'd been standing there specifically waiting for it to open.“Elena.” She said my name like she was tasting something faintly unpleasant. “Perfect. I was hoping I'd catch you.”“I don'

Elena“In danger,” I repeated, my voice barely above a whisper, the waiting room around me suddenly feeling too loud and too quiet at the same time. “Ryder, what are you talking about?”“I don't have long,” he said, and something in his voice made my stomach twist, rougher than I remembered it, frayed at the edges, like he hadn't slept any better than I had this past week. “I need you to listen, all of it. The wig, the party, the bond, none of that was a lie. I know that's not what it looked like at the arena, and I know it's not what it looked like at that press conference with Victoria, and I am so sorry, Elena, I need you to know how sorry I am—”“You said nothing.” The words came out before I could stop them, sharp and raw, two weeks of silence finally cracking open. “You stood there while she announced an engagement to a hundred cameras and you said nothing, Ryder. Not one word.”“I know.” His voice broke slightly on the word, and for a second I heard something underneath the an

ElenaI stared at the phone in Aiden's hand for a long moment before I found my voice.“Clear my name how?”He didn't answer right away. Instead, he stepped past me into the apartment a request I hadn't given, though I found I didn't have it in me to stop him and sat down at my kitchen table like he'd done it a hundred times before. I closed the door and joined him, arms crossed, bracing myself for whatever came next.“The contact feeding information to Victoria,” he said. “I told you my father's been quietly connected to something bigger than the two of you. I think I finally know who's actually been talking to Victoria on the other end of it. But I can't prove it. Not with anything sitting quiet in the background.” He turned the phone toward me, a grainy financial record filling the screen, numbers I didn't fully understand. “Whoever this is only moves when there's something big enough happening to justify the risk. Something public. Something with cameras.”My stomach tightened. “

ElenaI stared at the words on his screen for a long time. Stay away from her. Three words, same clipped cruelty as Victoria's three words on that anonymous account, like every powerful person in my life had learned to destroy things in the fewest syllables possible."He's known for two days," I said quietly. "Since before you even told me the plan."Aiden pocketed the phone like that might undo it. "He doesn't know why yet. Just that I've been seen with you.""That's not an answer.""I know." He rubbed a hand over his jaw. "Can we just not talk about my father tonight? I came here to build a study plan, not hand you one more thing to worry about."I let it go. Barely. "Fine. Library. Tomorrow. Third floor, the corner nobody uses.""Why the corner nobody uses?""Because if we're doing this," I said, "I want it to look accidental the first time. Not staged."He almost smiled. "You're better at this than I am.""I've had more practice pretending things are fine."The library smelled like old paper