The Return Of Adrian Raines

9. Crestmont's Latest Untouchable

Loud music filled the room as students of Crestmont danced and drank, the yearly party crowning that year's "King of Campus" — an award that, unofficially, always went to whoever wore their wealth the loudest. School staff monitored the event closely, careful to keep it within the polished standards Crestmont prided itself on.

Daniel had wanted to sit it out. He didn't feel welcome there, not really — not yet. But Lily had reminded him how much politics mattered in the life he'd stepped into, and that he needed to start learning the game here, in a ballroom full of teenagers, before he ever walked into a boardroom.

So he sat alone at the bar, turning a glass of rosé slowly between his fingers, watching the room without quite being part of it.

Students drifted past in twos and threes, voices dropping only slightly. "Isn't that the unclaimed dog?"

"Where did he get the money for that outfit?"

"Did he seriously just order the premium rosé?"

He wore a sleek white outfit, casual in cut but unmistakably expensive, and he let himself enjoy it — the weight of good fabric, the ease of a drink he didn't have to think twice about. It was such a small thing. He hadn't realized how much he'd wanted small things like this.

Everyone knew his history, which was why the young bartender eyed him with open doubt when he placed his order.

"You're sure you can cover that? It's a thousand dollars a glass."

Daniel held his gaze, calm. "Are you taking my order, or not?"

Across the room, Charlie sat at a private table, his girlfriend Rachel beside him, his jaw still tight with the memory of that afternoon's humiliation. Daniel talking back to him in front of the entire class was bad enough. His own father slapping him — twice — in front of everyone, was worse. That kind of shame didn't fade by dinnertime.

"Did you talk to your old man?" one of his friends asked.

Charlie's glare was answer enough. The boy went quiet and buried himself in his whiskey.

He had talked to his father — and gotten nothing but a colder warning to stay away from Daniel, or else. He wasn't about to admit that out loud.

Rachel rested her hand over his. "Just let it go," she said softly. "He's not worth what you're giving him."

Charlie shook her off and stood, crossing the room toward the bar.

Daniel saw him coming and straightened, chin lifting. Whatever Charlie wanted to throw at him, he'd already decided he could take it.

"Hey. Filthy dog."

The DJ caught the shift in the room and eased the music down, curiosity thick enough to taste.

"I'm actually curious," Charlie said, loud enough for an audience. "Who's backing you? How did you go from campus punching bag to untouchable overnight? Even my father cowers around you now. How does that happen?"

"Your father cowers around me?" Daniel raised a brow. "I hadn't noticed."

"Don't play with me." Charlie's eyes swept over him — the shoes, the belt, the watch — and something ugly flickered across his face as he tallied it all in his head. Sixty-five thousand dollars, easily, not counting the wine in his hand.

"Where'd you get money for all this? Did you steal it? We both know it would take you fifty years mopping these floors to afford just the shoes."

Laughter rippled through the gathering crowd, sharp and delighted.

"What do you actually want from me, Charlie?" Daniel asked, tired rather than afraid. "I'm just trying to have a decent evening here."

"That's the problem dork! You shouldn't even be here. Shouldn't you be scrubbing our floors right now instead of playing pretend? We all know what you really are. An unclaimed dog."

Daniel's jaw tightened at the words. He hated that name more than he let himself show. But underneath the sting, something steadier settled in — quiet, unshakable.

He wasn't unclaimed anymore. He had a father. Someone who'd spent fifteen years looking for him, who had never once stopped.

His real name — Adrian — had to stay buried a little longer. Too many people, apparently, would kill to get to a Raines heir. So he had to remain Danielq, for now, and he found he didn't mind wearing the old name a little longer, if it meant keeping the people he'd just found safe.

He said nothing. Just smiled — small, unbothered — and for the first time, it was Charlie who looked like he'd been the one insulted.

Daniel didn't want to get physical. Not because he couldn't, but because he didn't know what his father might do if he found out someone had laid hands on his son. So he let the silence sit there instead of a fist.

Charlie's face twisted, humiliation curdling into something meaner. "He's probably planning to just walk out without paying. Hold him here. Make him pay up."

The bartender, who'd been eyeing Daniel warily all night, seized the excuse. "Hey! You pay right now, or you don't leave this bar!"

Around them, the whispers kept coming, close enough that Daniel couldn't pretend not to hear.

"He's obviously doing all this to put on a show."

"He's clearly still trying to win Rachel back. Sad, honestly."

"I don't even blame him — she is stunning. But he was always too much of a nobody to keep her."

The words landed, each one finding some old bruise, but Daniel let them pass through him rather than settle. He wasn't the same person who used to shrink from voices like these.

He looked around the bar, counting — quietly, deliberately — every person who'd ordered a drink that night.

Then he turned back to the bartender, voice even, almost bored. "I'll cover my drink. And everyone else's here tonight."

The room went silent, gasps rippling outward like a stone dropped into still water.