Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
LEO
Homecoming was a week away.
So was our first basketball game of the season.
And I was playing the only game I had left—pretending everything was fine.
Smile sharp. Shirt tucked. Charm on standby.
Vivian Ashcroft strolled beside me like she belonged.
To be fair, she probably did. Her bloodline was traceable to some offshoot of the Crown.
She spoke three languages, ordered custom school uniforms before the ink dried on her transfer papers, and sipped tea like it held state secrets.
Royalty-adjacent, polished, and camera-ready.
And utterly not Jade.
People were already talking.
“He leveled up.”
“He’s back to form.”
“Vivian and Leo? Elite.”
But they didn’t see the way my jaw locked every time we turned a corner and I caught a glimpse of her.
Jade.
Still walking these halls with fire in her spine and dignity in her eyes, even though I’d left her to the wolves. Still showing up like the scholarship girl wasn’t supposed to survive a public breakup with the school’s crown prince.
And somehow, surviving anyway.
We passed each other in the hall more times than I could count.
Each brush of her shoulder sent something through me I couldn’t name. Not anymore.
Her eyes never lingered. Her expression stayed neutral. No emotion. No accusation.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t fall apart.
She moved on.
With Tristan fucking Gold walking her to class and carrying her books like some dark-haired bodyguard-slash-prince-charming. Everyone thought he was joking at first. That it was a stunt to rile me up.
But Jade let him.
She let him walk beside her. Let him be her shield. Let him exist in the space I used to fill.
And it was killing me.
Vivian made a passing comment about how “kind” Jade was “for someone with so little to offer.” I nearly snapped a fork in half under the lunch table.
She thought it was about class.
She didn’t know Jade was made of steel.
They thought she was quiet because she was small.
But silence was her weapon.
And right now, she was wielding it like a queen.
I hated how I’d made her do that.
Friday night—last week—I drove up to the cliffs. Our cliffs. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe just to feel closer to something real again.
When I turned the bend in the road and saw her aunt’s Jeep already there, my heart cracked open like a damn egg.
Jade stood by the edge of the overlook, arms folded, wind tugging at her sweatshirt. She looked like she belonged to the sea, to the stars, to no one.
I parked two spaces down.
We saw each other. Neither of us moved.
I should have walked over.
Should have told her everything.
How my parents threatened her future, her scholarships. How I thought leaving her would protect her.
But my mouth filled with stone. My lungs forgot how to breathe.
She didn’t wait for me.
After a minute, she climbed back into the car and drove away, taillights glowing like the final burn of a bridge I’d lit myself.
And Tristan?
He was doing what I couldn’t.
Standing beside her. Taking the heat. Wearing the rumors like a second skin. The fact that Jade let him... meant he was doing it right.
It should’ve been me.
But the cost of loving her had already been spelled out.
Notre Dame. My record. My family’s empire.
And her entire future, hanging by threads I’d only now begun trying to mend behind the scenes with Xavier and our private investigation.
The difference was, Tristan had nothing to lose.
But I’d already lost everything that mattered.
So yeah, I gave Vivian her tour. I smiled and played the part. I let the hashtags crown her the new queen. But deep down, I knew the truth.
Jade might not have a royal bloodline.
But she was the only girl I’d ever bowed to.
And I would burn every lie this school had ever whispered—just to see her smile again.
The tux fit like armor. Custom cut, hand-stitched, imported wool. Perfect lapel. Polished cufflinks. All of it meant to make me look like I belonged at the top of the food chain.
But I’d never felt more like a fraud.
The mansion was already prepped for Homecoming—an old Vanderbilt estate with carved archways, dripping chandeliers, a courtyard draped in florals like a Bridgerton fever dream.
My mother had been on the planning committee since June.
I think she saw it as a crowning moment.
One last public performance before college stole her golden boy.
Too bad the son she’s been parading around isn’t really me anymore.
Xavier dropped a thumb drive onto the coffee table.
“Here’s everything,” he said. “Videos, screenshots, sealed docs from the Ohio district. Names of the boys who ran that fake OnlyFans ring. IP matches. Payout trails. Even got some of their parents’ emails when they tried to hush it up.”
I blinked. “That was fast.”
He nodded once. “I called in every favor. Nobody messes with our girl.”
Our girl. Yeah.
Except she wasn’t mine anymore.
I looked down at my hands. They were clenched in my lap.
“What about Royal Oaks?” I asked.
Tristan leaned back in the leather club chair, arms stretched. “Got receipts on two of the girls who messed with her car. Their texts, Snap DMs bragging about it. We even traced a burner account that posted the fish photos to a dorm IP address.”
Xavier opened his laptop and turned it toward us.
“I have everything scheduled. Nine a.m. tomorrow. Auto-dump to Reddit, Instagram burner accounts, an anonymous submission to the local news tipline. The narrative’s tight.
A fake porn ring. Deepfake AI. High school cover-up. Rich kids with immunity.”
Tristan grinned. “Once it goes live, there’ll be so much smoke, even the Board of Ed in Ohio will choke on it.”
I tried to picture it. Headlines. Panic. Admins scrambling. Parents calling lawyers. Jade finally being cleared in the court of public opinion. Her name finally free.
“You sure this won’t come back to her?” I asked quietly.
Xavier shook his head. “We scrubbed her name. All the posts refer to her as a minor from a sealed district. No photos. No identifiers. Just the facts. The abusers take the spotlight. Not her.”
Relief punched me in the ribs so hard I had to exhale.
Then Tristan, of course, ruined the silence with a smirk.
“Now, we doing this drop at nine so I have time to get laid before the storm hits?”
I glared. “You better not be talking about Jade.”
He held up both hands. “Relax, man. I’m just saying—she’s cool. Funny. Doesn’t flinch when girls call her names in the hall. And she looked hot trying on that green satin dress she bought in Boston.”
My jaw clenched.
He noticed.
“I’m not touching her,” he said quickly. “Dude code. I’m not that guy.”
“You better not be,” I muttered.
Tristan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You still love her?”
I didn’t answer.
He already knew.
“She thinks you don’t. That you used her.”
“I know.”
Xavier’s eyes flicked between us. “So fix it.”
“I will,” I said, voice like gravel. “But not until this storm hits. Not until I can stand in front of her and say, ‘We ended it.’”
They both nodded.
This wasn’t about high school games anymore.
This was war.
And tomorrow, the world was going to see the truth.