Phei couldn't stop laughing.

Not the polite chuckle people fake at parties. Not even the sharp bark of someone who's just heard a good joke.

This was deep, ugly, chest-rattling laughter—the kind that starts in the diaphragm and keeps coming like it's trying to claw its way out of your ribcage. Wave after merciless wave until his abs burned, his eyes streamed, and he had to brace both hands on the edge of the desk he was perched on just to stop himself sliding off and hitting the floor in a heap.

"Oh my gods," he wheezed, wiping at his face with the heel of his hand. "This is—this is actually happening. You actually—" Another convulsion of laughter choked him off. "You actually brought muscles."

Derek stood framed in the doorway of the empty classroom like a man who'd walked into his own funeral and found the coffin already occupied.

Flanking him were three boys who looked like they'd been custom-ordered from Central Casting under the listing "Disposable High-School Enforcers – Intimidation Package, Extra Testosterone."

Big. Broad; builds that came from years of varsity tackling drills, creatine binges, and the unshakable teenage delusion that sheer mass equals invincibility.

The one on the left—white kid, neck like a fire hydrant—actually cracked his knuckles. Cracked his fucking knuckles. Like this was 1987 and he'd just stepped off the set of a Steven Seagal straight-to-VHS.

Phei laughed so hard he nearly aspirated his own spit.

"Stop fucking laughing," Derek snarled, voice low and dangerous.

"I can't—" Phei pressed the flat of his palm to his sternum, trying to force air back into lungs that refused to cooperate. "I literally cannot. Do you have any concept—any concept—how clockwork-predictable you are? I literally set a timer when I sat down here. Thought, 'Derek will show up in forty-five seconds with at minimum two meatheads in tow.' And you arrive in forty-three. With three."

He dragged in a shaky breath, grinning like a man who'd just won the lottery and the prize was watching someone else's life detonate. "You over-delivered, mate. I'm genuinely touched."

Derek's jaw flexed so hard the tendons stood out like steel cables under skin.

He stepped fully into the room. His three shadows fanned out behind him in a practiced semicircle. The door kicked shut with a heavy thud that echoed like a gavel.

"You think this is funny?"

"I think this is comedy gold." Phei stayed exactly where he was—perched on the teacher's desk, legs swinging lazily, ankles crossed, posture so relaxed it bordered on disrespectful.

Four large, hostile bodies closing the distance like wolves around a lamb that had forgotten how to bleat. "I think you're about to launch into the classic extortion script: 'You know things you shouldn't know, hand them over or we hurt you.' Then your designated grabber—"

He pointed lazily at Fire-Hydrant Neck "—is going to try to put hands on me. And then things are going to become very, very educational for everyone involved. And I'm going to savour every millisecond."

"You cocky little shit—"

"Ah-ah." Phei raised one finger, still smiling. "We haven't reached the credible-threat portion of the programme yet. First you have to monologue. Set the stakes. Establish motive. Then you threaten. Basic dramatic structure, Derek. Don't skip steps."

Derek's fists clenched until the knuckles bleached white.

It was almost too easy. Almost unfair.

Phei had run the probabilities before the first whisper about Derek's clandestine meeting with Renee Harlow hit the grapevine. The second David started dropping breadcrumbs outside that particular classroom door.

Two paths forward.

Path A: Derek goes straight to Brett and Anderson. Falls on his knees. Swears the audio is deepfake, AI-generated, edited, anything. Begs for trust. That path requires emotional intelligence, composure under fire, an unshakable bond that survives hearing your best friend agree to sell your soul to save his own.

Derek possesses none of those things.

And he knew—knew—that Brett and Anderson's first response to betrayal would not be dialogue. It would be knuckles. Then questions. Maybe. If any teeth remained.

Worse? Brett and Anderson were already sprinting through the east wing like bloodhounds with a fresh scent. They would reach Danton. They would reach Zack, Kyle. They would reach the rest of the Seven.

And then Derek would not be dealing with a journalist. He would be dealing with an institution whose idea of problem-solving involved private airstrips and beating the crap out if their traitorous bestie before he even talks.

So, Path B: leverage.

Renee had told him to fuck the devil himself if he had to. Derek—panicked, cornered, thinking with adrenal glands instead of cortex—had done exactly what cornered animals do.

He'd gone looking for the... devil.

And who at Ashford Elite knew more about the Seven than anyone breathing? Who had appeared from the charity-case gutter and, in less than a month, amassed a private arsenal of secrets that should have been entombed under concrete and NDAs?

Who had seduced two of the most untouchable girls in the school, accumulated power like interest on a blood debt, and moved through their world like he'd been reading the script while everyone else was still learning lines?

Phei!

Phei had selected this classroom forty minutes earlier. Positioned himself last two minutes in the precise corridor Derek would have to cross if he wanted to avoid the hunting parties currently tearing the east wing apart looking for him.

Timing. Positioning. The twin pillars of any successful ambush.

"Fine," Derek bit out, voice tight as a garrotte. "You want context? Here's your fucking context. You have dirt on Brett and Anderson. I don't know how you got it. I don't know what sick game you're playing. But you have it. And you're going to hand it over."

"Am I, though?"

"You are." Derek took another step forward. His enforcers mirrored him. The circle shrank. "Because right now a journalist has my life in a hydraulic press, and the only way I walk out of that press with my spine intact is if I feed her something bigger. Something that makes whatever she has on me look like playground gossip. Problem is, I know everything but no evidence to back it. But you do."

"And you believe I can supply that."

"I know you can." Derek's eyes were fever-bright, pupils blown with desperation and the kind of fear that turns rational people into cornered predators. "Everyone fucking knows. You've been hoarding secrets since the day you crawled out of whatever gutter they found you in. Don't even try to deny it. I've seen how you watch. How you listen. You know things about us—things that should be impossible. You've threatened us with them."

"Maybe I'm simply observant."

"Maybe you're a dead man walking if you don't start talking. Right. Fucking. Now."

There it was. The threat. Right on schedule.

Phei tilted his head. The smile faded—slowly, deliberately—until only something colder, quieter, more surgical remained. The laughter was gone. Completely. As if it had never existed.

Phei smiled again. Smaller. Sharper. The smile of someone who has already calculated the exact number of seconds until blood hits tile.

"Let me make sure I have this crystal clear." His voice was calm, almost conversational. "You want me to hand over information capable of ending Brett Castellano and Anderson. Two of the most untouchable legacies in this school. Sons of families that could have me disappeared so thoroughly my dental records would be classified. Sons of families whose private security details carry suppressors and black budgets and zero qualms about making problems vanish over international waters."

"That's exactly what I want. Yes."

"And your opening move—" Phei gestured lazily at the three slabs of meat behind Derek "—is to threaten me with violence. With this."

"It's not a threat." Derek jerked his chin toward his enforcers. "It's a promise."

"Interesting."

Phei stopped smiling.

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