Chapter 5 The pawn and the price

KAI’S POV. 

“You need to learn empathy, Kai. You need to show me you can be more than this anger.”

My father’s voice never came as words anymore. It is always at the edge of my thoughts, louder when I was still.

The black card felt cool and sharp in my hand, a silent promise of control. I tossed it onto the dark, mahogany surface of the desk in my off-campus apartment, a place far too spacious and quiet for one person, which was precisely how I liked it.

I grabbed the heavy, matte black zippo lighter and lit the cigarette I’d rolled earlier. I drew a deep lungful of smoke, the familiar burn steadying the low, constant sound of impatience under my skin.

I ran a hand over the fresh tattoo line tracing my bicep. Pain was always clean. Motives, however, were messy.

The freshman, Briselle Valdez, was a complication, but a necessary one. A strategic distraction. My gaze settled on the card. She had twenty-four hours to call. She would call. She had to. Her fear was too raw, her anxiety too visible, and her commitment to covering her sister’s ass was too strong.

My primary objective was simple—Veronica Valdez.

I had been watching her for six months. Not in a creepy, hidden-in-the-bushes way, but in a systematic, "I always get what I want" way. Veronica was beautiful, arrogant, and relentlessly stubborn. She was the one woman on this pathetic campus who refused to acknowledge the obvious gravitational pull of my presence.

I’m Kai Thornefield. I don’t chase, I conquer. But Veronica had built a wall of carefully maintained indifference, and every time I approached her, she shut me down with a polite, razor-sharp dismissal.

I knew she had her head screwed on backward and was far too wrapped up in her own little bubble of senior entitlement, but I was fixated. She was a challenge, and what better way to demolish a wall than to use the weakest link in her foundation? But the truth was uglier—it wasn’t just challenge, it was hunger. The kind that made me reckless. 

I had noticed Briselle with her sister plenty of times. The little freshman in the oversized sweaters and the thick glasses…always trailing two steps behind Veronica, looking utterly out of place. She was invisible to everyone else, but I see details. I saw the look of sheer servitude in her eyes every time Veronica made a demand.

When the freshman stumbled into my "dead zone" seat in the Lit Seminar, I didn't think much of it. A momentary anomaly. Then I noted the difference between her shy panic and Veronica's brass confidence. I knew she was a stand-in.

The bathroom incident at The Blind Tiger wasn't planned, but it was providence. Seeing her jump in fear, hearing her panicked explanation—it was the moment the strategy crystallized.

Veronica wouldn’t give me the time of day, but Briselle would be my Trojan horse. She was the direct line to provoking Veronica's jealousy, forcing her attention, and making her deal with me. If I parade her anxious little sister around campus, claiming her as mine, Veronica will come running.

But my motives were never that simple. They were never just about one woman.

My father, the great Richard Thornefield, runs half the economy on the East Coast and controls my life with the other half. He’s the reason St. Eleonora’s keeps me enrolled despite the weekly disciplinary reports. His wealth and influence are the only insulation I have from true consequences. And he's been testing me.

Two months ago, my father, at the relentless urging of that snake, my stepmother, issued an ultimatum: either I attend classes, perform academically, and demonstrate "human feelings" and "social aptitude," or the bulk of the Thornefield fortune, the one meant to ensure my absolute control, goes straight to my parasitic half-brother, my stepmother's son.

When I saw Briselle, the plan to kill two birds with one stone clicked.

First, the academic part. My presence in that mandatory Lit Seminar was proof of my effort. But I needed more. I needed a clear, sustained act of human connection that my father's hired observers on campus couldn't dispute.

A girlfriend. A young, seemingly innocent girl who I could parade around as proof that I was "caring" and "stable." The fact that she was a freshman whose sister was a fellow senior in that damn class was the ultimate convenience. I would use Briselle to stabilize my public image, satisfy my father's absurd requirement, and, most importantly, make Veronica jealous.

The smoke from the cigarette curled toward the ceiling. I was about to stub it out when my phone buzzed on the desk. It was Arden.

“Speak,” I answered, keeping the cigarette clamped between my lips.

“Just checking in. Got a text from one of the bouncers at The Tiger. Said you had to handle some trash in the bathroom corridor tonight.” Arden's voice was smooth, a stark contrast to my own gravelly rumble. He was my connection to the city's less savory underbelly—a charming front man for the muscle.

“A misunderstanding,” I corrected, taking a long drag. “Cleaned it up before it became an issue.”

“A busy night for misunderstandings,” Arden mused. “I ran into one myself earlier—a pathetic lowlife harassing two girls. Had to remind him where he was.”

I felt a slight, detached amusement. Arden was always intervening, always playing the hero. It was his signature move, his way of maintaining that charming façade he used for his own operations. “You’re wasting your time on small-fry, Arden. Focus on the main objective.”

“The main objective requires patience, Kai. Sometimes you have to handle the small details to protect the bigger picture.”

He has no idea how right he is. I paused, inhaling the smoke. Arden’s heroic interventions were just meaningless distractions. My goal was far more complicated, layered with family revenge and financial survival.

“Keep your hands clean,” I advised him finally, stashing the cigarette. “I’m busy initiating a new asset. A temporary solution to a very old problem.”

“A new toy, then? You need to lighten up, Kai. You’re becoming too predictable.”

“I’m becoming exactly what I need to be. And she’s not a toy. She’s a leverage.” I hung up without waiting for his reply.

I walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out over the city lights, waiting. Time was running out, both for the freshman and for my control over my father’s empire.

My phone screen lit up again. I picked it up, expecting a call, but it was a text from a single, unknown number. I almost ignored it—then I saw the message… 

Unknown Number: I’ll do it.

The corner of my mouth twitched. Of course…the game had just begun.