Dean Arthur stood by his window, his fingers were digging into the expensive silk of his curtains. Below, in the fire lane, the matte-black Lamborghini was being hoisted into the air. It looked like a dead insect hanging from a hook. He watched Julian Thorne screaming at the tow truck driver, his face was a blotchy, panicked red.Then, the Dean saw him.Leo was walking away from the chaos, his hands were buried in the pockets of that same grey hoodie. He was walking with Elena Vance. They weren't running. They weren't celebrating. They were just moving through the crowd as if the world hadn't just ended for the Thorne family.The Dean’s phone began to vibrate on his desk. The caller ID showed Marcus Thorne. It had been ringing for ten minutes. Each buzz felt like a hammer hitting the Dean’s heart. He didn't pick it up. He couldn't. He looked at the spot on his desk where the Black Ledger had sat just a few days ago...the book that could send him to a federal cell for the rest of his l

The lunch hall at Northwood University was usually a place of shouting, expensive perfume, and the constant clink of cutleries. Not today. Today, the cafeteria felt like a funeral parlor where nobody liked the person in the casket.Groups of students sat huddled over their organic salads, their voices were low. Every time a phone buzzed on a tabletop, half the room jumped. They weren't looking at their grades. They were watching the live ticker of the Thorne family's downfall."I heard Marcus Thorne’s private jet was grounded by the feds an hour ago," a guy in a varsity jacket muttered, his face pale."If they can freeze a Thorne account, what do you think they can do to us?" his friend replied, staring into his coffee. "My dad called me three times this morning telling me to keep my head down. He’s terrified our firm is next on the audit list."The "Elite" weren't acting like predators anymore. They were acting like prey. The invincible wall they had built around themselves for years

The air in the Northwood library was thick with the scent of old paper and the low, constant clicking of laptop keys. Elena Vance sat at a corner table in the back of the stacks, her fingers we're tracing the delicate platinum chain around her neck. The blue diamond felt heavy against her skin, a cold weight that didn't belong in a world of textbooks and work-study shifts.After the incident in the hallway...the way Leo had effortlessly handled Sarah with a "slip" of a mop bucket...Elena had fled to the only place that felt quiet. Leo had told her to go to class, to stay in the light, but she couldn't focus. Her wrist still had the faint red marks from Sarah’s grip.She looked at her reflection in her darkened phone screen. She looked like a girl wearing a king’s ransom."It’s not yours."The voice didn't come from a librarian. It was a jagged, broken sound that made Elena’s blood turn to ice. She looked up and saw Julian Thorne standing at the end of the aisle.He looked like a ghost

Leo pulled the heavy mahogany doors of the Blackwood boardroom shut behind him. The sound was sharp, like a gavel hitting a block. Inside that room, he had just ended three careers and reclaimed a throne, but his face didn't show any victory. He looked tired. He looked like he wanted to go to sleep for a year.Sebastian was now waiting in the hallway, holding a garment bag. He didn't ask Leo if he was tired. He could see the answer in the way Leo was already undoing his silk tie."The back exit, Sebastian," Leo said. His voice was low and gravelly. "I don't want the press or the security downstairs seeing me in this. To them, I'm still the kid who empties the bins in the lobby.""The car is idling in the basement, Chairman," Sebastian replied. He handed Leo a plain black hoodie and a pair of worn-out jeans.Leo stripped off the $30,000 suit jacket right there in the private corridor. He tossed it to Sebastian as if it were a piece of trash. He pulled the hoodie over his head, hiding t

Leo didn't take the stairs. He walked out of the university basement and straight into the back of a blacked-out Cadillac that had been idling in the shadows for twenty minutes. The driver didn't say a word; he just floored it, the tires screamed as they left the campus. Leo sat in the back, his chest heaving. He ripped off the grey hoodie, tossing it onto the floorboards like a piece of trash. He looked at his hands. They weren't shaking, but his skin felt tight, his veins prominent against his knuckles.By the time the car reached the private elevator of the Blackwood Penthouse, Leo was already in his undershirt. He stood in the lift as it shot up sixty floors. He could feel the vibration of the city beneath his feet, but for the first time, he didn't feel like he owned it. He felt like the walls were closing in.The elevator doors slid open. The penthouse was silent, the only light coming from the moon and the glow of a dozen monitors. Sebastian was there, but he wasn't smiling. He