Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
CADEN
My brow furrowed as I watched Rose. Student chatter was a dull hum in the background.
Most of them thought I was an asshole for yelling at poor, harmless Rose Ambani.
I had lost my temper, and it bothered me, not because I cared about her feelings, but because her subsequent reaction was unexpected.
Most students would have either crumbled or shot back a retort. She was shy, so I expected her to fall to the ground after I punished the entire class for her mistake.
Sure, she looked scared, but it was because I had drawn attention to her. She feared the spotlight, not me. She didn’t shed a single tear or run out of the room with her tail tucked between her legs. It starkly contrasted with the humiliation that should be swirling around her.
What an unsatisfactory outcome.
Why didn’t my words shatter her? Female students generally burst into tears when I reprimanded them. The spoiled ones would say, “ Do you know who my dad is?” The braver souls hit on me to “fix” things.
Imbeciles.
Rose’s reaction was a first, and it had me at a loss for words. She didn’t cry or threaten me with her family’s status. Her quietness threw me for a loop. It was a void, neither absorbing nor reflecting any emotion I threw at it.
Perhaps she’d try to seduce me if she got me alone.
I hope not.
For the first time, I was caught off guard by someone’s reaction—or lack thereof. I secretly wanted one student to set themselves apart from the rest of the gullible idiots and prove me wrong about this university being filled with entitled snobs.
I leaned against my desk, arms crossed. Her annoying friend gave her a long look while Rose packed a book I recognized as my own.
The administrators recommended the textbook I wrote.
The intelligent thing to do with a difficult professor was to study the recommended reading list, yet no one else thought of it since it wasn’t mandatory.
As I said, they were idiots.
Just when I thought I might’ve chased away my one sensible student, Rose languidly continued cleaning the rest of the beakers.
Was she completing the tasks I assigned instead of leaving?
The rest of the class ran out like their asses were on fire. Why was she in no rush to leave after suffering public humiliation at my hands?
Her friend also stayed back for moral support against the big, bad teacher, occasionally throwing daggers at me with her eyes. But my attention was only on one person.
I returned to my workstation, watching Rose out of the corner of my eye. The laboratory’s silence pressed against my perked ears as I zeroed in on their conversation. If I concentrated solely on them, I could make out what they were whispering about.
“You shouldn’t have covered for me. You could’ve gotten into serious trouble,” her friend said softly, eyes laden with concern. “Are you okay?”
Rose took the fall for her friend. Interesting. But why?
I wondered if she would explain herself, but I had a feeling she preferred nonverbal methods of communication.
I had noticed her throughout the day, rarely contributing to the conversation with her lab partners.
Though if memory served me right, I had heard her speak before at random events we had both attended.
Rose nodded, sifting me with her eyes.
“He’s an ass. Don’t let him get to you,” her friend added.
I didn’t. That was the problem. My fingers closed around the neck of a beaker. I poured and measured, the cool glass a silent ally in my effort to appear unruffled.
Something about the ennui behind Rose’s brown eyes unsettled me, as if being yelled at in front of a classroom full of people was chump change compared to her past. She had suffered so much pain that scathing remarks were music to her ears.
Her demeanor hinted at layers to be uncovered, with secrets hidden beneath each surface, and despite my usual indifference, I was intrigued.
I didn’t like it.
I preferred to unsettle people, not be unsettled by them.
The lab was empty, save for Miles, my research assistants, and the lingering presence of the two girls quietly cleaning and putting things away. I watched Rose move between tasks. It dawned on me that her methodical scrubbing had a rhythm. She cleaned each item for a specific amount of time.
I tapped open my phone and pulled up the stopwatch.
When she picked up a glass flask and a dish brush, I started the timer.
She moved the brush with a grace that was all her own, navigating the world without a word wasted.
An automatic timer seemed to go off in her head, signaling her to put the brush down. I hit the stop button instantaneously.
One hundred and twenty seconds. Not a second more or less. It was rehearsed to perfection because she had done this hundreds of times and didn’t need the help of a stopwatch.
She stocked the items on the shelf afterward. When one of them was out of sync with the rest, she pushed it back with a slight tap of her finger so it would fall in line perfectly.
Phenomenal. Shy, little Ambani had obsessive-compulsive disorder.
As they finished, Rose reached up to close the cabinet latch. As she did, her ivory blouse lifted to expose her stomach.
I froze, my gaze landing on her skin. Her abdomen was littered with an intricate web of scars. They were deep and faded—at least a decade old—stretching in jagged lines across her skin. The healed but visible knife marks suggested stabbings, not once or twice, but too many to count.
Impossible.
I froze, not believing my eyes. Rose hadn’t just astonished me today, she had pulled the rug out from underneath me.
I had never heard of an attack on Rose Ambani, let alone such an aggressive one. Her family was high-profile and must have gone to great lengths to hide it from the public.
The gruesome images that would churn a normal person’s stomach had me mesmerized.
It was then that I understood why Rose had stumped me.
No wonder she didn’t cry. Humiliating her in front of a classroom full of students paled in comparison to her past. There was nothing I could do to her that was as bad as what had already happened to her.
R ose’s name echoed in my mind long after I dismissed my team, and Raoul, my chauffeur, drove me home.
Damon teased me relentlessly and called me a diva for having a driver, but I preferred the convenience.
I could review notes in the back seat while being driven around and save precious time instead of looking for parking in New York City.
Raoul stayed with the car and saved me time.
Time was the most precious thing in the world because every minute wasted could be spent in my lab.
The chill of the evening air bit at my skin as I trudged up the walkway to my apartment on the fifteenth floor.
Even as I unlocked the door and stepped into the silence of my living space, Rose’s uninvited image lingered on my mind.
Her stoic face when I rebuked her, staying behind to finish her task, and, of course, the unforgettable scars.
They haunted me.
The radiators hissed in welcome but couldn’t warm the cold curiosity that had settled in my chest. Shedding the layers of my day, I turned on the shower. The water cascaded down, steam rising, but it didn’t wash away the fixation.
When I stepped out of the shower, I found the meal my chef had left stove-side.
He had been instructed to cook my meals right before my arrival and immediately leave.
This way, the food would still be warm, and I wouldn’t be bothered by the nuisance of others.
I hated company, especially in the privacy of my home.
I scrolled through my phone as I half-heartedly consumed my dinner.
A text from Damon reminded me of some obligatory fundraiser.
I silenced the device when his name appeared on the screen.
The thought of engaging in idle chatter tonight grated on my last nerve.
Everything else seemed trivial compared to unraveling the mystery that was Rose Ambani.
I tapped open the contact for Alex. Once upon a time, he used to be a private investigator with a reputation for digging up dirt on the rich and powerful.
It was a valuable skill to have in your arsenal, so we offered him the job as the head of security for our family.
While Damon used his services regularly, I preferred to keep a low profile.
It was understandable that he was surprised to hear from me.
“Hey.” Alex sounded half asleep.
I glanced at my watch—nine p.m.
“How’re you doing?” he drawled.
I hated small talk and got straight to the point. “I need you to look into someone.”
He didn’t bother keeping up with the pleasantries, either. “What’s going on?” he sounded awake, alert. It wasn’t lost on him that I had contacted him late at night, and I had summoned his special skills for the first time.
“Can you get me a police report filed for Rose Ambani from about ten years ago?”
“Erm—”
“The records were concealed, so dig deep.”
“You’re getting involved in the family drama, too?” he asked, with a touch of disbelief in his voice. He assumed I was digging up dirt to barter with the Ambanis despite having stayed away from that absurd feud.
“Can you look into it or not?”
He sighed deeply into the phone. “Consider it done.”
“I need you to find out who did it.”
I told him everything I knew about the attack, which wasn’t much. I gave him the scopes, shapes, and sizes of the scars, admitted to myself they had made me furious. Livid, in fact. I couldn’t stop thinking about them and needed to make someone pay for them; I just didn’t know who.