Lydia didn’t go home after confronting Jake.
She couldn’t.
Instead, she wandered the outskirts of the campus garden, the slap still stinging on her palm, Jake’s final words echoing through her head:
> “Whether you hate me for it or not.”
How could someone say that and still sound so calm? So confident?
She found herself sitting alone beneath an arch of ivy, knees pulled to her chest, heart pounding with confusion, fear… and something else. Something darker.
Because part of her had seen it—that glimmer in Jake’s eyes, the obsession he didn’t try to hide. Not once.
What did it mean to be wanted like that?
Wanted so much it was dangerous?
---
Jake sat in the headmaster’s office an hour later, legs casually crossed, barely pretending to listen.
“You can’t continue this behavior, Jake,” Headmaster Yates was saying, sweat glistening on his brow. “Harming other students is—”
Jake leaned forward. “Then expel me.”
The older man faltered. “That’s not what I—”
“Then stop wasting my time.”
The headmaster gulped. “Your father wouldn’t—”
Jake’s eyes turned cold. “Don’t use his name.”
Silence.
Jake stood slowly, buttoning his jacket. “I handle my own affairs.”
As he left, the headmaster sagged in his chair like a balloon deflating.
Jake wasn’t just a student. He was a shadow, a threat woven into every brick of this school. And worse… he liked it that way.
---
Lydia returned home that evening to find her father waiting.
“I got a call,” he said as she entered.
Her stomach dropped. “From school?”
He nodded. “They said you slapped Jake Romano.”
She said nothing.
Her father ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Lydia, do you know what that means?”
“I’m not afraid of him.”
He gave her a look filled with quiet sorrow. “You should be.”
She blinked. “You’re siding with him?”
“No. I’m telling you to be smart. People who stand up to Jake Romano… they don’t always walk away.”
Lydia’s voice wavered. “I don’t want to belong to someone just because they decide I do.”
Her father looked down. “Sometimes, in their world, that’s all it takes.”
---
The next day, Jake didn’t appear at school.
But the tension didn’t leave with him.
Every hallway Lydia walked through felt heavier. Every glance lasted too long. Students whispered when she passed, their eyes darting away when she met them.
The slap had turned into a story. The story had turned into legend.
“She actually hit Jake Romano.”
“She’s crazy… or brave.”
“She’s marked now.”
That night, a black envelope arrived on her desk.
No postage. No name.
Just her name, handwritten in deep red ink.
Inside: a card with gold lettering.
Romano Estate. Friday. 8 PM.
Come dressed in black.
Don’t make me come get you. —J
Her fingers went cold.
He was summoning her like she was his property.
She stared at the card for a long time.
And then she did something she never thought she would.
She picked up her phone and called Alex.
---
“Tell me not to go,” Lydia said, voice barely a whisper.
Alex was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Don’t go.”
“But you know I will.”
“I do.”
There was a pause.
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” he said softly.
She bit her lip. “I don’t think careful works with Jake.”
“Then don’t lose yourself, Lydia. No matter what happens.”
She hung up, trembling.
Friday was two days away.
And Jake Romano had just set the game in motion.
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