Aiden finally spoke, his voice carrying that natural authority that made everyone shut up and listen—like Moses if Moses had been born with a trust fund and a personality disorder.

"Brett made his bed. He can lie in it. None of us are going down because he couldn't handle one fight."

The fear was naked now. Raw. Seven boys who'd never had to be afraid of anything in their privileged little lives—except maybe running out of daddy's money—and here they were, terrified of a shadow that might or might not show up to collect.

Delicious.

Brett looked at them—his friends, his crew, his brothers-in-arseholery—and saw nothing but rats polishing their resumes for the sinking ship.

Something in him crumbled.

Brett Castellano—golden boy, Academy king, the guy who'd made Phei's life a living hell for three years—dropped his head to the cold tile floor. Forehead pressed against it like he was praying to the god of lost causes.

Please.

His voice was wrecked. Absolutely destroyed. The kind of broken that made you uncomfortable to witness—like watching a peacock get plucked in real time.

"Please, you have to help me. When he asks—when he finds out—I can't face him alone. I can't—"

"Why would we?" Danton looked down at him with the expression of someone watching a spider drown in the bath. Mildly interesting. Not worth saving. "You fucked up. You threw the fight. You made us all look like idiots by extension. Why should we risk our arses for your spectacular failure? I'd sooner volunteer for community service."

"Because—" Brett stopped. Bit his tongue so hard the taste of copper flooded his mouth.

Phei had been crystal fucking clear.

Tell your little gang what happened. Open your mouth about any of this. And everything you've been hiding goes public.

But.

Compared to Phei—scrawny, pathetic, barely-a-threat Phei—and Him...

It wasn't even a choice, was it?

Phei was a problem. While HE was an extinction event.

Brett swallowed blood and pride and what remained of his dignity.

"Phei knows."

The circle went still. Like someone had pressed pause on reality and forgotten to hit play again.

"Phei knows what?" Danton asked slowly, voice suddenly very quiet.

Brett pushed himself up to his knees again, ignoring the screaming pain in his ribs. Made eye contact with Anderson first—watched the exact moment understanding hit, watched his face cycle through about seven stages of grief in two seconds flat—then swept his gaze around the circle.

"Phei knows about me and Anderson."

Anderson made a noise like a deflating balloon. "Brett—"

"He's got a video. Screenshots. Everything." Brett's voice was flat now. Dead. Like someone who'd already accepted they were fucked and was just trying to spread the misery around. "Our faces. Clear as day. Doing... you know."

"Oh my god." Kyle's voice was barely a whisper. "Oh my god."

"And that's not all." Brett laughed—ugly, broken, completely humourless. "He knows about all of you. Every single person in this room. Your secrets. Your dirt. The shit you've been hiding from everyone."

Silence.

Silence that happens right before a car crash, when your brain has processed what's about to happen but your body hasn't caught up yet.

"Bullshit." Zack didn't sound convinced by his own denial. "There's no way he could—"

Brett pulled out his phone with his good hand. Navigated to his messages with fingers that shook like leaves in a hurricane. Pulled up the screenshots and held them up for the class.

The video preview filled the screen.

Two figures. Unmistakable. Brett and Anderson, faces crystal clear, doing things that would end both their social lives faster than you could say career-ending scandal.

"Jesus Christ," someone breathed.

The circle of cowards tightened—not in solidarity, but in collective horror.

Brett swiped to the last message Phei had sent him and held the phone up like it was a loaded gun.

Phei: From now on, you wait for my orders. You do what I say, when I say it. You smile when I tell you to smile. You bark when I tell you to bark.

Phei: And if you ever—EVER—get the bright idea to disobey me, the whole Academy and Paradise will know about you and Anderson. Not just the other stuff. ALL of it. Every "adventurous activity" you two have been up to when you thought no one was watching.

Phei: Reply with "Yes I understand" or "No."

Brett swiped again and hit play on the rooftop recording.

Phei's voice—calm, cold, almost bored—filled the locker room, tinny through the speaker but sharp enough to cut skin.

"Throw the fight. Every round. Make it convincing. Try anything clever and this video goes to your father's business partners. Your mother's social circle. Every news outlet in the state. And that's just yours. I have files on all of them. Danton's little habit. Aiden's side business. Kyle's accident last summer. Derek's family secret. Anderson's other dark adventures at that club. Zack's... well, Zack knows what Zack did. Every. Single. One.

Lose the fight. Walk away quietly. Or watch your entire world burn. Your choice, Brett. Choose wisely."

The recording ended.

The reactions were almost funny.

Would've been hilarious if it wasn't happening to them.

Anderson looked like he was about to vomit his own spine. Hand clamped over his mouth, face the colour of spoiled avocado, eyes bulging as if someone had just told him his dick pics were trending worldwide.

Danton had gone blank—the terrifying kind of blank that meant his brain was running damage-control scenarios at lightspeed, calculating exactly how many bodies he'd need to bury to fix this.

Aiden's mask cracked for the first time—just a hairline fracture, but enough to show the panic underneath. Jaw locked so tight it looked painful, fists clenched like he was imagining wrapping them around someone's throat.

Probably Phei's. Probably his own.

Zack kept opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish discovering fire. "My—how the fuck would he know about—"

"The accident?" Kyle's voice cracked like a prepubescent choirboy's. "That was covered up. My dad paid people. There's no way—"

"My family's—" Derek started, then just... stopped. Couldn't finish. The blood had drained from his face so completely he looked like a vampire who'd forgotten to feed for a decade.

Brett let them marinate in it for a moment. Let them feel exactly what he'd felt when those messages first landed—pure, distilled terror.

Yeah. Not so fun when it's your secrets on the chopping block, is it, you pack of hyenas?

Danton's voice cut through the panic like a scalpel. Cold. Controlled. Dangerous.

"Let me remind everyone what we're actually dealing with here."

He started pacing. Slow. Deliberate. Like a shark that had just smelled blood and was deciding which limb to take first.

"Brett. How many times have you and Anderson cornered Phei in the bathrooms? Made him clean the toilets with his toothbrush? Held his head in the bowl until he nearly drowned?"

Brett flinched.

"Three times a week, minimum. For three years." Danton's voice was matter-of-fact, almost bored. "And every time, you made sure it was worse than the last. Isn't that right?"

"We were just—"

"Danton." Brett turned seeing Danton want to make himself innocent. "How many times have you 'accidentally' broken Phei's stuff? His laptop with your sister. His phone. His textbooks. Always making sure he watches while you do it, yeah? Always making sure he knows he can't do anything about it?"

Danton swallowed hard. Said nothing. But he found his preys too;

"What about you, Derek. The thing with the photos. Making him pose for those humiliating shots and threatening to post them if he told anyone. How many of those do you have saved? Fifty? A hundred?"

Derek's face went grey.

"Zack. The thing with the car. Making him stand in the parking lot for hours in the rain while we took turns driving at him, seeing how close we could get before he flinched. You hit him once, didn't you? 'By accident.' He walked with a limp for a week."

Zack looked like he wanted the floor to open and swallow him whole.

"Anderson." Danton's voice dropped to a whisper. "The thing at the party. When you and Brett got him drunk and then—"

"We don't need to—" Anderson started, voice shaking.

"Yes. We do." Danton stopped pacing. "Because everyone in this room has been doing shit to Phei for years. Not just once. Not just occasionally. Three times a day, minimum. Sometimes more. And every single time, we made sure we outdid ourselves. Made it worse. Made it more creative. Made it more memorable."

He let that sink in.

"If Phei has video of Brett and Anderson..." Danton's voice went quiet. "Then he has video of all of us. Every bathroom beating. Every parking lot game. Every time we made that kid's life a living hell and laughed about it afterwards is going to be the very thing that will determine how deep he'll burry us. You can Imagine how furious he is."

The room had gone completely silent.

The silence that precedes a massacre.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.