Chapter 2 Chapter 2

Most students were pulling up in luxury cars or stepping out of heated passenger seats, wrapped in designer wool coats that cost more than my mother and I made in a month. They laughed, sipping overpriced lattes, completely insulated from the crushing reality of what it meant to struggle.  They didn't know what it felt like to watch the clock tick down to the seconds until a utility bill shutoff, or to memorize the exact prices of groceries down to the last cent.

I kept my head down, navigating the stone pathways toward the criminology building. My bag dug painfully into my shoulder, heavy with case files and dog-eared textbooks. That was when I felt it, that sudden, prickling sensation at the back of my neck. The distinct feeling of being watched. It wasn't the casual glance of a classmate or the indifferent stare of a professor. It was heavy, calculated, and predatory.

I didn't turn around right away. I kept my pace steady, turning the corner toward the side entrance of the academic hall. But out of the corner of my eye, reflected in the dark, tinted glass of a parked luxury car, I caught movement. Luca. He was leaning against the hood of his black coupe, parked illegally in a faculty-only zone where campus security wouldn't dare ticket him. 

For a second, the distance between us felt small. The noise of the busy courtyard melted away, leaving just the silent, electric tension humming between our gazes. I forced myself to break eye contact, lifting my chin with a sharp snap, and pushed open the heavy doors of the building. My heart was pounding so hard against my ribs, hot and furious. He's just looking, I told myself, my boots clicking sharply against the marble floor. He's just another rich kid who likes to stare at the scholarship charity case.

To the rest of Veritas Elite University, I didn't exist. I was just part of the background, like the gothic stone gargoyles or the ivy crawling up the side of the lecture halls. People stepped around me without seeing me, dropped their empty coffee cups near my desk assuming someone else would clean it up, and spoke freely as if I were a piece of furniture.

I weaponized that invisibility. It was my greatest shield and my sharpest weapon. In literature lecture that morning, I took my usual seat in the very last row, tucked deep into the shadows beneath the balcony. From up here, I could see the entire amphitheater. I could track who was paying attention, who was sleeping, and most importantly where Luca Valenti chose to sit.

He always took a seat in the middle row, flanked by his usual crowd of sycophants and wealthy heirs. But today, his posture was different. He was tense and restless.

While Professor Harrison droned on about the history of literature and the greats, I opened my battered notebook. Beneath my legitimate lecture notes on literature, my pen drifted into my true obsession.  I didn't need to look down at the paper to draw him. I had memorized the sharp angle of his jaw, the untamed wave of his dark hair, and the way his throat moved when he swallowed.

He thinks I am invisible, a dark, amused smirk tugged at the corner of my lips as my pencil scratched softly against the paper. He thinks I am just another poor scholarship student who spends her days staring at her desk. Let him think it. The less he suspected, the closer he would let me get.

My eyes flicked back up to his row just as a girl from the sophomore class, Chloe Cain, a rich-girl socialite with a penchant for cornering guys she wanted, slid into the empty seat directly beside Luca.  She leaned in close, her hand brushing against his arm, flashing a practiced, flirty smile that had probably worked on a hundred other guys on campus.

My grip on my pen tightened so hard the plastic nearly cracked. Chloe didn't know what I knew. She didn't know that Luca hated being touched without warning. She didn't see the fleeting flash of cold, murderous disgust cross his face before he masked it with his usual smooth indifference. I watched them, my heart beating like a slow war drum against my ribs, waiting to see what he would do. If he smiled back, if he entertained her for even ten seconds, my plan for Chloe would have to be accelerated. I already had a file on her. I knew about the forged recommendation letters she used to get into Veritas, and I knew which professor she was sleeping with for grade bumps.

I didn't have to wait long. Luca didn't even turn his head to look at her. He shifted his shoulder just enough to physically block her space, his voice low and sharp enough to carry across the three rows.

"Move," he said. Just one word. Flat, dead, and devoid of human warmth.

Chloe's face flushed red, humiliated in front half the lecture hall, and snatched her bag up, scrambling out of the row before he could humiliate her further.

Across the room. He kept his gaze locked on the chalkboard, his expression cold and unbothered. But as I closed my notebook, sliding the drawing of his face back beneath a stack of criminal law cases, a shiver crawled down my spine. He had pushed her away because his space, his entire world was reserved for something else and I needed to find out what it is.

As I packed my things and slipped out of the back exit before the bell even rang, I smiled into the cold  air. Let him keep pretending I was invisible. We were playing a game of shadows, and I had every intention of dragging him into the dark with me.

The sun was already dipping below the skyline by the time my classes ended. The sun was throwing long, shadows across the sprawling grounds of Academy. Most students were heading back to their dorms or grabbing overpriced drinks at the campus lounge, laughing and carrying on like life was just one big movie.  But I didn't have time for that bullshit,  I had a shift starting at the diner in forty minutes, which meant I had to hustle my ass down to the bus stop.

Only, today my feet didn't take me straight to the gates.

My feet had a mind of their own lately, and right now, they were dragging me toward the west wing faculty parking lot. The place where the rich kids parked their imported cars and skipped out on afternoon labs. I ducked behind a row of thick, overgrown hedges that bordered the stone wall, pulling my jacket tight around my shoulders. It was freezing, but the cold kept me sharp. My bag hung heavy against my hip, digging into my ribs, but I barely noticed. I was too busy scanning the rows of gleaming metal through the leaves.

There it was. The matte black sports car and right beside it, there he was, Luca.