Chapter 25
Talia
The hallway is too quiet.
It’s the “Donor Wing” of the athletics building, all polished wood and brushed-steel plaques. It smells sterile. Like money and whatever they use to wipe fingerprints off the glass.
My heart is a frantic, trapped bird in my chest, so loud I’m sure the security camera down the hall can hear it.
I’m a ghost in a new machine, standing lookout with Clara and Adrian by the stairwell, our backs to the wall, the metal handrail digging into my spine.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
A text from Genny, who’s at the far end of the hall with Declan, just out of sight, near Alistair’s office.
Genny: We’re in position. Waiting for the distraction.
I look at Clara. She nods, her face pale but set, eyes bright with that brave, terrified determination she wears when she’s about to go into a third-period tied game.
“Okay,” she whispers. “Tell them. Now.”
My fingers are trembling so hard I can barely type. I pull up Zoe’s contact.
Me: NOW.
I hit send.
A second later, from the far end of the building, I hear Zoe’s voice. It’s not a shout. It’s a shriek.
“You absolute PIG!”
Adrian winces, but a small smirk plays over his mouth. “And… scene.”
The sound is jarring in the quiet wing. It ricochets off the glass and polished wood. A door further down the hallway vibrates in its frame.
I hear Zoe’s voice rise, hysterical, a full Broadway meltdown.
“You told your MOTHER I was a PHASE?”
Gio’s booming, indignant roar answers her. “I never said that! You’re a psycho! You keyed my car!”
“You deserved it!”
Something shatters—loud, chaotic, the explosive sound of glass or ceramic meeting tile.
My body reacts before my brain does. I flinch, shoulders jerking, breath seizing. For a split second, I’m back in a different hallway, different voices, a different kind of fight.
No.
I drag in a breath, force my fingers to unclench. This is not that. This is ours. Our chaos. Our distraction.
“Jesus,” Clara whispers, eyes wide. “She really committed.”
“They’re a public hazard,” Adrian mutters, but he’s peering down the corridor, focus sharpened. “Okay, T. This is it.”
He’s right.
A door a few yards down opens, and Alistair Reid’s severe-looking assistant pokes her head out, her mouth already pinched with annoyance.
“What is that?” she hisses.
She sees us. Her gaze flicks over my hoodie, Clara’s knit sweater, Adrian’s Briarcliff jacket. Students. Harmless.
I tug my hood up further, angling my face away from the light. If she recognizes me—if she connects “Coach Addison’s daughter” to a disruption in the Donor Wing—this whole thing falls apart before it starts. I turn my shoulder, making myself small, anonymous.
“You three!” she snaps. “What’s going on down there?”
“I think they broke up,” Clara says, voice perfectly pitched—wide-eyed, innocent gossip. “Pretty loudly.”
The assistant glares, jaw tightening. She digs for her phone, heels clicking jaggedly on the tile. “I need security in the Donor Wing. Now.”
“They’re already running toward the lobby,” Adrian offers helpfully, pointing back the way we came. “I think the girl threw a planter.”
The assistant curses under her breath and storms off toward the noise, abandoning her post to manage the damage.
She disappears around the corner.
The plan is working.
Adrian’s phone buzzes in his hand. He glances at the screen, eyes flicking back and forth as he reads.
“Genny’s in,” he says, low. “Security is swarming the lobby. The clock is running.”
Ten minutes.
I swallow, hard. Ten minutes to sneak into the office of one of the most powerful men at this school. Ten minutes to plant evidence that could blow his leverage to hell. Ten minutes for Declan to stand in the heart of his father’s empire and openly betray him.
Ten minutes for everything to change.
My muscles hum with the wrong kind of adrenaline. The old kind. The kind that says run.
No.
This isn’t hiding. This isn’t ducking my head and pretending not to see. This is stepping into the line of fire on purpose. A conscious choice.
Talia’s Agency—the fighter.
I take a breath, let it burn all the way down, then nod toward the far end of the corridor. “I should get closer,” I whisper. “If someone comes out of the stairwell behind us, you guys can stall them. But someone needs to watch the elevator.”
Clara’s hand catches my wrist, a small anchor. “Be careful.”
Adrian nods, his jaw flexing. “We’ll hold the line.”
I slip away, my sneakers silent on the carpet runner. Each step feels like walking into a storm. The air is thicker here, heavy with cologne and donor-committee money. Cheap art prints line the walls—old hockey photos, framed newspaper clippings, the Reid name on a dozen little brass plaques.
At the far end is the door to his office. Solid wood, frosted glass insert. No nameplate. His power doesn’t need a label.
The pane glows faintly with lamplight from inside.
I hover at the last corner, keeping myself tucked in the shadow of a jutting column. From here, I can see the door and the elevator bank. I can hear the distant chaos of Zoe and Gio’s fight echoing up from the front of the building, but down here, the silence is heavy. Threatening.
The minutes stretch, thick and slow.
My phone buzzes again.
Genny: Drive is in. Encryption is thicker than we thought. Brute-forcing the archive. 6 mins.
Six minutes.
I clench my jaw, check the hallway again. Clear.
The door to the office opens a fraction. A hand—large, familiar, with bruised knuckles—appears in the crack, followed by the sharp angle of a jaw.
Declan.
He checks the hallway, that same, precise sweep I’ve seen him do a hundred times from the crease. His gaze snags on my shadowed corner.
Then his eyes lock on mine.
The hit is physical. Electricity under my skin. The memory of last night in my dorm—his mouth on mine, his body braced over me like I was something precious—slams into me so hard my knees almost buckle.
He jerks his chin at me. A silent order. Come here.
My heart trips. I shouldn’t. I need to stay here, stay sharp—
He gestures again, sharper this time. Inside.
Of course. The hallway is exposed. If security comes back quietly, I’m a sitting duck.
I move.
Two strides and I’m at the door. He opens it just wide enough for me to slip through, then shuts it behind me with a soft, heavy click.
The silence inside is absolute.
The air smells like leather chairs, expensive whiskey, and something colder—metal under velvet. It smells like Alistair Reid. It smells like control.
Genny is at the massive mahogany desk, a total contradiction in her oversized hoodie and leggings. She’s jacked into the sleek desktop with a small drive, multiple windows flashing across the screen, code and folders and email subjects I can’t read fast enough.
“Don’t touch anything,” she mutters, eyes glued to the progress bar. “And stay out of the window line. If security walks past outside, I don’t want them seeing your silhouettes.”
Declan’s hand wraps around the inside of my wrist. The contact is a bolt of heat straight up my arm. He tugs me deeper into the room, into the blind spot behind the heavy door, where the shadows are deepest.
We’re trapped.
Genny’s typing is a frantic, rhythmic clatter. The progress bar on the screen crawls.
Declan presses me back against the wall, his body crowding mine.
He’s not touching me, not fully, but he’s everywhere.
His sleeves are rolled up, throat bare, tie stuffed hastily into his slacks pocket.
He looks wrong in this room—not polished enough, not tame enough.
He looks like a weapon someone forgot to unload.
He braces one hand on the wall beside my head, leaning in. His breath brushes my cheek, warm against the chilled air conditioning.
“You’re shaking,” he murmurs.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
His free hand finds my hip, fingers curling into the fabric of my hoodie. The slightest pull, and my body tips forward, my front brushing his chest. The contact is a spark in dry tinder.
“You just broke into my father’s office,” he says, voice low, threaded with a dark, fierce pride. “You’re standing in his sanctuary. You’re anything but fine.”
His thumb drags over the curve of my hipbone. My breath stutters. Every nerve ending in my body is screaming awake.
Being here, with him, feels like a desecration. We are muddying the waters of the one place his father keeps pristine.
“We’re playing with fire,” I whisper, glancing toward Genny’s hunched back. “If they come back…”
His jaw clenches. The muscle flexes under the harsh shadows. “Let them come.”
My heart kicks. “Declan.”
He huffs a rough breath, then dips his head, his nose grazing my temple. I feel his mouth barely skim over my hairline. It’s not even a kiss, just a hovering heat.
“I can’t be this close to you and not touch you,” he murmurs against my skin. “Not anymore. I’m done trying.”
The words land like a weight. Heavy. Anchoring.
My throat is dry. “We’re committing a felony.”
“Add it to the list.”
His hand slides from my hip to my waist, fingers slipping under the hem of my hoodie, finding bare skin. His palm is hot. My stomach clenches, muscles fluttering under his touch.
Heat rolls through me, thick and dizzying. The hum of Genny’s typing, the distant echo of the building, the ticking countdown in my head—everything blurs.
“You said we’d fight back,” I whisper.
“We are.” His thumb strokes along the sensitive dip of my waist, just above the band of my jeans. Slow. Methodical. Like he’s memorizing me. “But I’m allowed one selfish thing.”
His mouth finally drops to my neck. Not gentle. Not tentative. His lips find the spot just under my jaw and drag, open, heat and the scrape of teeth in a single, devastating pull.
My whole body arches into him, a helpless reaction. A small sound escapes my throat before I can swallow it.