Chapter 2

My refusal was quiet, but it echoed in the sudden silence.

Andrew' s grip tightened on my arm. "What did you say?"

"I said no," I repeated, my voice steady. "I didn' t do anything, so I won' t be apologizing."

Maria let out a theatrical gasp from the stage. "See? She doesn' t even care! She has no remorse!"

She then dramatically pulled up the sleeve of her dress, revealing a series of faint, pinkish scratches on her wrist.

"This is what she drove me to," Maria wailed, holding her arm out for everyone to see. "These are from last night. I couldn' t bear the thought of facing her again."

The crowd murmured, a wave of sympathy washing over them for Maria and disgust turning toward me. A cruel, entitled trust-fund brat. That' s what they saw.

Andrew stared at the scratches, his face a mask of blind fury and infatuation. "You did this to her. You monster."

"Those scratches are a lie," I said calmly, looking past him to Maria. "If this is a serious accusation, then let' s treat it seriously. Let' s call campus security. Let' s get the lawyers from Nexus Dynamics involved. We can review security footage, check medical records. Let' s find the truth."

Panic flickered in Maria' s eyes for a heartbeat before she quickly composed herself.

"She' s trying to intimidate me!" Maria cried out to the audience. "She' s using her family' s power and money to crush me because I dared to speak out!"

The crowd' s mood soured further. They were completely on her side.

Enraged by my defiance, Andrew shoved me hard. "You think you' re so tough?"

I was. My mother, Sylvia, had insisted on years of Krav Maga training with her top security detail. It was second nature. I sidestepped his clumsy push, using his own momentum against him. He stumbled forward, losing his balance, and crashed directly into the massive, ornate ice sculpture of the university' s mascot.

The sculpture shattered, sending ice and water cascading across the polished floor. The chaos was immediate. People gasped and jumped back.

Andrew lay in a heap of melting ice, soaked and humiliated.

I turned to leave. The party was over for me.

"Gabrielle!"

A new voice cut through the noise. A woman was pushing her way through the crowd, her face a picture of maternal anguish. It was Maria' s mother, Debra Chavez.

"My poor baby!" she cried, rushing to Maria' s side. "What has this monster done to you?"

She put on a dramatic show, a struggling single mother defending her tormented daughter. But my eyes caught a detail she' d forgotten to hide: the discreet but unmistakable designer label on her dress. A dress that cost more than a year of my tuition.

Then I saw it. My father, Matthew, standing frozen near the stage. He wasn' t looking at me or the mess. He was staring at Debra Chavez, and his face was a canvas of longing, guilt, and fear. It was a look I' d never seen before, but I understood it instantly.

Andrew, scrambling to his feet and dripping wet, saw me watching them. His humiliation turned back to rage. He lunged at me again.

"I' m going to kill you!"

"Touch me again, Andrew," I warned, my voice ice-cold. "And see what happens. You know how Mother gets when someone hurts me."

The mention of Sylvia stopped him cold. The fear of my mother, even supposedly sick and absent, was more powerful than his anger. He froze, his fists clenched.

But the damage was done. In the scuffle, my head had hit the corner of a heavy banquet table. I felt a warm trickle of blood run down my temple. The room swam for a second.

Just then, the doors opened again. Mr. Duncan, the head of our family' s security and my mother' s most loyal man, strode in. His face was a stone mask, but his eyes were fixed on the blood on my face.

He walked straight to me, ignoring everyone else.

"Miss Johns," he said, his voice a calm anchor in the storm. "It is time to go home."

He gently draped his jacket over my shoulders and escorted me out, leaving the stunned partygoers to their gossip and their lies. I was bloodied and disheveled, but as I walked out, I felt a cold, hard certainty settle in my chest.

They had all just made a fatal mistake.