3. Justin
JUSTIN
I don’t answer it right away. I finish reading the last line of the report on my screen, commit the phrasing to memory, then pick up.
“Goliath.”
“We have a situation,” the dean rushes to tell me.
You always do.
He talks too fast. He tells me all about an Alumni event at Legacy House on campus grounds. We don’t usually do parties, so I’m not sure why he’s calling, but I listen patiently, waiting for the punch line.
He tells me there was a male in his early thirties who collapsed in the kitchen. The paramedics were called and there were no obvious signs of trauma. The incident was believed to be a case of a heart attack, but the dean’s not so sure.
He pauses, like this needs gravity. I almost roll my eyes. Almost. We warned them—no more parties, no more excess, no more stupid privilege. But men like that never listen. They think money makes them indestructible.
It’s the same old story: grown boys poisoning themselves and acting shocked when their bodies finally say no. Too much of everything, not enough consequence.
“But there was… foaming at the mouth.”
The words cause me to immediately straighten in my chair.
Heart attacks are clean. Predictable. Easy enough to explain and diagnose. Whereas, foaming is messy. It leaves behind questions begging to be answered.
“What’s the toxicology status?” I ask.
“Pending. But”—another pause, longer this time—“we can’t afford speculation.”
Of course you can’t.
If only the fucking deans could get their fucking fingers out of their dumb asses, I wouldn’t have to constantly clean up their messes. I had more important things to do than clean up frat party messes.
He doesn’t say the word poison. He dances around it.
Poison indicates premeditation, a predator.
This is only an attempted murder. And that would put a great big cross against the university’s reputation.
And the university had already had its share of scandals over the past eighteen months.
There’d be more scrutinous media exposure. The fallout would be massive.
“Why do you need me on this?” I ask. There’s only so much I can do, and although damage control is Goliath’s jam, there’s not really a way I can erase an attempted murder that happened in front of potentially hundreds of witnesses.
“Because,” the dean tells me, taking in a deep breath “the man is William Scott-Evans.”
My brain has a momentary glitch before I shake my head, even knowing that the dean can’t see me.
“William Scott-Evans,” I repeat, as though asking for confirmation. “The senator’s son?”
“One in the same. He’s an esteemed lawyer himself. So as you can see, this is a monumental fuck up.”
Goliath doesn’t exist in a way that anyone can point to without sounding insane. But when universities need problems to disappear, when scandals need to be softened, rerouted, buried—everyone has us on speed dial.
Officially, we’re crisis consultants. Unofficially, we’re the ones who make sure the right story survives.
I tell the dean I’ll be on campus as soon as I can. I rather relish the idea of making him wait.
When the call ends, I sit back and stare at the ceiling.
Titan should be handling this.
He would’ve liked it. This is one of those clean incidents that poses more questions than it answers. And Titan loved a good old puzzle.
But Titan Ward stepped down from head of Goliath two years ago. He didn’t make a speech. Didn’t call a meeting. He just… left.
Lily Snow needed him more than Goliath did. The world, the lost and broken, needed him more than we did. That was the official version, anyway.
My sister Bethany likes to remind me that those two had a true love story with a redemption arc. The King walking away from the throne for the woman he loved. And giving closure to families whose children had gone missing many years ago.
What people don’t say is that when Titan left, he took the center of gravity with him.
Goliath didn’t fracture loudly. There was no civil war. No blood was shed. It was just a quiet shift, like a building settling after an earthquake and everyone pretending the cracks were cosmetic.
And then they put the crown on me.
Titan did it, technically. But the moment it settled, heavy and cold, I understood the truth with a sick, quiet clarity—this had always been my father’s plan.
He’d laid the groundwork decades ago, back when Goliath was still just an idea.
One of its original founders, he never truly left.
He lingered instead, a shadow at the edges, keeping his seat on the board while pretending distance was the same as disinterest. He didn’t involve himself in the day-to-day.
He didn’t need to. He only dropped in when it mattered—when I mattered—offering opinions no one asked for and guidance I hadn’t earned yet.
He liked to call them pearls of wisdom.
I called them pressure. Conditioning. A slow tightening of the noose.
Every comment, every correction, every look that lingered a second too long—it was all preparation. He hadn’t raised a son. He’d groomed a successor. And now, standing there with the weight of Goliath settling onto my shoulders, I realized this wasn’t a promotion.
It was an inheritance.
Titan had carried Goliath like a religion. I carry it like a ledger. And somehow, he was still a better man than I’ll ever be.
But I’m King now. Which means the curious poisoning of an alumni member lands squarely in my lap—unwanted, intimate, and deeply uncomfortable
Just before six, the preliminary report lands in my inbox.
Male. Thirty-two. No prior history of heart trouble. Elevated heart rate. Loss of motor control. Pulmonary distress. Frothing consistent with acute toxicity, but no known substances detected on the rapid panel.
This was not a recreational incident, nor was it accidental. This was definitely intentional. I read it twice. Then a third time, slower. Whoever did this knew what they were doing. This was calculated. They deliberately targeted this man. But why?
By the time I arrive on campus, the place feels like it’s holding its breath.
There’s security everywhere, and it’s tight.
There are students whispering in clusters, their phones out, stories mutating by the minute.
I look around at the scattered crowds, wondering why this incident specifically had garnered such immense interest.
I’m ushered into a conference room to meet with the dean, who’s already there. So is the university’s legal team. And a man I don’t recognize who doesn’t speak and takes too many notes.
They want reassurance. I give them none.
“What you have here,” I tell them, “is a targeted incident.”
The dean stiffens. “Targeted how?”
“Someone specifically targeted Evans. That’s important to note.”
“That’s supposed to make us feel better?”
“No,” I say. “It’s supposed to reassure you that this probably won’t happen again.”
“But how do we shut this down?” The dean argues, moving forward in his seat. Anxiety could very well be his middle name.
“You don’t. Something awful happened here last night; you have dozens - if not hundreds - of witnesses. You can’t afford to sweep this under the rug.”
“We could reframe this as an unfortunate accident,” one of the lawyers says. I ignore him and turn to the dean.
“Why did you ask me here?” I ask him, confused. If he’s going to let his legal team guide him, then there’s nothing for me to do here.
“I need this situation under control,” he blathers.
“You wouldn’t have been this concerned if this had happened to a female student,” I remark. I know this for a fact. Dean Stockton’s horror to this far outweighs other unsavory incidents he’s dealt with in recent times.
“The Scott-Evans Foundation is a massive donor of the university,” he informs me.
Aha. There it is. It’s always about the money.
“And that makes a difference, how? He’s somehow more important, more connected than others so he gets better treatment? Leave no stone unturned and all that shit?”
The dean recoils at my tone. The thing he doesn’t understand is that Goliath stands against injustices to all, and in most cases, it’s the very same elitist snobs he’s championing now that are the justice thieves.
“I suggest you let the police do their job,” I advise him.
“Let them do the press releases. Chances are, whoever’s responsible is connected to Scott-Evans through a channel other than the university.
They’ll find the perpetrator and attention will be diverted from the university.
So there’s nothing for you to worry about. ”
“I’d still feel a lot better if you conducted your own investigation. I need to know that I don’t have a maniacal student on the loose on my campus. You could do things much quicker than the police.”
“We fix things before they become a problem,” I remind him. “What I see here is so much more than a problem.”
I ask for a log of the event, names of all who attended, and footage if there is any. The dean’s face falls. I watch as his gaze flicks to his feet.
“There was no security protocol in place. It was an open house event.”
And this problem just got a lot harder.