Chapter Twenty-Nine
MILA
Ihad my sketchbook halfway out of my locker, graphite from the page smudging my fingers, when the PA beeped and the vice principal’s voice went tinny over the halls. “Mila Callahan to the office.”
The hallway went quiet in patches, noise skidding around me without touching.
I slid the sketchbook back, closed the locker softly so the metal wouldn’t clang, and started walking.
Students parted in little eddies, eyes flicking away when I looked up.
My heartbeat thudded in my chest, steady at first, then harder with each turn.
Outside, the sun shone bright. Inside, the administrative corridor held an old chill, the kind that had nothing to do with weather.
The receptionist’s expression told me nothing.
She pointed me through. The vice principal’s door clicked shut behind me.
I was in a small room with three chairs and a table too narrow for comfort.
The vice principal sat at the head of the table.
To her right was the chair of the disciplinary committee.
Both faces wore neutrality that didn’t quite hold.
“We’ve received disturbing information.” The vice principal folded her hands, gaze steady. “Screenshots. Messages appearing to come from you—sent to a media account that covers elite corporate families.”
My stomach dropped. “That’s not possible.” The words came out thin. “I didn’t—”
The head of the committee slid a packet across the table. Printouts of emails and blocks of text, timestamps highlighted. I scanned quickly—King Enterprises gala donors, notes on sponsor tiers, bullet points that tracked closer to fact than rumor ever should.
The room tipped under me for a second then righted. It smacked of Elise’s handiwork.
“I didn’t do this.” My voice found its weight. “It’s a setup.”
They didn’t blink. “You understand the severity of this, Ms. Callahan?” The vice principal’s tone stayed mild. The words did all the work. “We will need to inform your guardian and begin a formal review. Given the allegations and the harassment this year, expulsion is on the table.”
My palms sweated against my jeans. “I didn’t send those.”
The two of them exchanged a glance that said they had already had this conversation without me. The head of the committee tapped the stack once. “We will be investigating. Until then, you’ll stay off gala duties and out of school media rooms.”
The floor tilted. My ears hummed with a ring that wouldn’t quit. “Am I—” My mouth dried. “Am I suspended?”
“Not at this time.” A pause heavy with yet. “But your scholarship may be at risk. We’ll notify you when we’ve completed our initial review.”
I stood because my body knew the steps. Open door. Close door. Walk. The corridor back to the hall blurred. What I remembered were faces. Stares swarmed together, as small and relentless as gnats.
Someone’s phone lifted, eyes gleaming over the top of it. The sensation of being filmed crawled over my skin. I dipped into the nearest side corridor and pressed my spine to the cool cinderblock, breath shallow.
“Mila.”
His voice cut through the noise, and my head snapped up. Luke strode toward me, his hair still damp from the midday lift in the weight room, backpack slung over one shoulder. He didn’t slow. His hand caught my wrist and turned me. His body blocked the view from the main hall.
“Come with me.”
I didn’t argue. He steered me into an empty classroom hardly anyone used, tucked at the far end of the wing where the light hit wrong and left it dim.
He tugged the blinds until they gave, and the glare broke into stripes across the floor.
Outside, footsteps pattered. Somewhere, a laugh trilled too loud and then vanished.
“You’re not going down for this.” He didn’t crowd. He anchored. The room steadied around his voice.
“How did you find out already?” My throat worked. “It’s Elise. She—”
“I know.” He unzipped his backpack and pulled a blue folder, corners bent as if he’d jammed it in fast. He set it on the desk and flipped it open. “These are the originals. From her phone.”
My brain stalled at that. “What? How did you get those?”
“Look.” He slid the first page to me. Rushed, tilted pictures of Elise’s phone, caught while someone had access to it. Her chat app open. A thread with the media account. Her handle, not mine. Original timestamps, before she doctored them.
The next pages showed more: sender tags she’d edited, a text message she’d sent to herself under Callahan, then deleted, then forwarded. Beneath that, an export log with her own notes scribbled in the margin: Fix date stamps. Change handle field to MC.
Air came back in a rush. My hands shook anyway. “How did you get this?”
He let out a hard breath. “One of hers finally broke ranks.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It was Tori.” He tapped a page where her name showed in a printed text thread. A single message, sent to Theo late at night: I’m done helping her. No context. No explanation.
“She just passed it to him—and Theo slid it straight to me.” Luke flipped to the next printout. “The text came with photos—straight from Tori. Enough to prove Elise doctored the thread.” He looked up. “Sloppy. But enough to blow a hole in her story.”
My knees went loose, so I braced them against the chair’s seat. “So the school—”
“Has enough to slow-roll. They won’t pull the trigger on you while this is in review.” He watched my face as if gauging where to put the next word. “And I can take this up the chain if they stall.”
He could. He would. The realization hit with heat and cold. The King name opened more doors than just those in their wing of the hospital. They could buy attention to whatever issue, or desired outcomes, they wanted.
Relief hit hard enough that I had to sit. The chair wobbled once and then held.
He dropped to a knee in front of me, folder still open, proof fanned out between us. “You okay?”
“No.” A fractured laugh slipped out and caught on a breath that wasn’t steady yet. “But you being here helps.”
His mouth curved, not all the way to a smile. He leaned in, forehead brushing mine, breath warm. He didn’t have to say anything. The contact said enough.
Footsteps passed in the hall. Somebody rattled a locker door. A muted cheer rose from the far end of campus—game-day pep in the quad. The school kept moving while my world reassembled in slow clicks.
He pulled back just enough to look me in the eye. “We go public and expose Elise on our terms.”
“What does that even look like?”
“Proof first. Then pressure.” He straightened, pulled out his phone, and swiped. “Theo handed it to me. I’ve already locked copies with people Principal Miller can’t ignore. He knows she forged this. If they try to pin it on you again, it blows back on them.”
“And Elise?”
“She’s got a stage to play on—expects to be queen.” His eyes cooled, that metallic shift I’d only ever seen when his family name got pulled in. “Let her walk in thinking she still owns the room.”
“The fundraising committee?”
“Assembly run-through in the gym. Donors’ preview after.” He slid the folder back into his bag, movements precise. “You’ll be there. She will too. And so will I.”
A knot I hadn’t known I was holding loosened at that last piece. “Avery?”
“Home. Jax is taking her then going back for practice. He wanted to stay with her after all she’d been through yesterday and last night, but she told him no. Not to miss practice.”
My chest pinched at the soft steel in that. “Chase?”
“He’ll show. We warned him. He’s holding it together.”
None of this erased the feeling of being dragged under in the office, my chance at college blowing up in my face. But it gave me something to hold on to before I drowned. I stood. My legs held. “Okay.”
Luke’s gaze scanned my face once more, a sweep that hit every tell. He lifted a hand and brushed his thumb along my cheek, brief, then dropped it. “Armor up.”
I squared my shoulders, stood straight, and slipped my game face on all the way from the classroom to the gym.
The gym had been dressed to impress for the run-through of gala event information sharing.
Banners hung crisp against the far wall.
The new scoreboard glowed. A scaffold of lights sprouted along the edges for the assembly—soft amber bulbs meant to mimic the gala’s mood lighting when the real donors’ event hit off-campus.
It was to raise awareness, and the faculty thought this was the best place to do it, even though the gala event would be held elsewhere.
Students milled in their assigned roles for the mock event—ushers with badges, check-in kids clutching clipboards, decor committee fussing over centerpieces no one would remember. Principal Miller tapped the mic on the portable stage while the gala adviser sorted note cards.
Elise walked in just late enough to be noticed but not to be called out. White dress too polished for a gym. Hair perfect. Diamonds catching the lights. No binder in her hand. She didn’t need one. Her eyes found me and brightened as though she’d been waiting for the moment.
I held her stare the way you regard a yard with an untethered dog—calm, still, ready to move if it lunged.
The guys filed in together, Chase a step behind, Theo peeling off from a group near the bleachers to slot in at Jax’s side. Tori slid onto the lower bleachers and didn’t look at anyone. She stared at her phone. Her thumb didn’t move.
Principal Miller clapped twice for attention.
Feedback squealed then settled. The run-through started—a staged version of opening night mixed with a pep talk for the student body, meant to raise awareness for the fundraiser and recruit volunteers for future ones.
Welcome remarks, sponsors shout-outs, and a parade of committee leads taking turns at the mic.
Each thanked donors and highlighted “opportunities” the gala provided—every line carefully phrased for a résumé.