The steak was fucking incredible.

Phei hadn't realised how ravenous he was until the next bite hit his tongue—perfectly seared, juices bursting with salt and smoke and something expensive that made his taste buds throw a party and send thank-you notes. A meal that made you understand why rich people acted like food was a personality trait.

And Melissa had made this. With her own hands. For him.

The world had gone properly mental.

Between bites, his mind kept drifting back to the timeline. To everything that had changed. To everything that could still go catastrophically, hilariously wrong.

The original week—the one that ended with him stepping off a rooftop—had been a carefully orchestrated symphony of shit. Each day building on the last, each humiliation compounding until the weight of it all crushed him flat.

But now?

Now the symphony was playing a different tune entirely. Something with more bass, more teeth, and a lot less violin weeping.

The confrontation in the morning hallway. The thing with Maya Scarlett—whatever that loaded silence was going to turn into. Then the big ones: Sierra's public domination and the fight with Brett that had ended with Paradise's golden boy eating concrete and his own pride.

Any one of those events would've been enough to derail the original script. All of them together?

He'd basically taken a sledgehammer to that timeline and started swinging.

Which was either genius or suicidally stupid, depending on how the next few days played out.

Depending on how a certain character reacts to my stunt:Sierra.

That was the wild card.

The ticking time bomb with perfect makeup and a vendetta sharper than her cheekbones.

The Hell Queen wasn't known for taking humiliation gracefully. She was known for revenge—creative, devastating, social-murder-level revenge that left her victims wishing they'd never been born.

Phei had seen her dismantle a girl's entire existence because said girl had looked at Marcus wrong.

And Phei hadn't just looked at her wrong.

He'd made her kneel; basically. Made her beg. He'd dominated her in front of the entire school—

Hell, probably the entire internet by now, because Paradise kids record everything like it is their civic duty.  If Sierra decided that is unforgivable and goes full scorched-earth...

Then I'll deal with it, he thought grimly. Like I've dealt with everything else.

Because honestly? How long was he supposed to keep giving a shit about their reactions? Their power? Their precious fucking feelings?

Ten years. Ten years of walking on eggshells, of keeping his head down, of letting them use him as a punching bag because fighting back meant consequences he couldn't afford.

And where had that gotten him?

A rooftop. A six-story drop. A decision to just... stop existing.

Fuck that.

If playing nice led to death, then maybe playing dirty was worth the risk.

"You're thinking again," Melissa said, bumping her shoulder against his. "I can hear your brain overheating from here."

Phei snorted, accepting another bite of steak from her fork. "Just running scenarios."

"Anything I should know about?"

He chewed. Swallowed. Considered.

"How's Mrs. Adriana taking things?"

Melissa's expression flickered—amusement mixed with something sharper, like a cat watching a particularly stupid bird fly into a window.

"Adriana." She said the name like it tasted sour. "She hasn't said anything bad directly she's planning for you, of course. She's far too refined for that."

"But?"

"But I know her." Melissa speared a piece of vegetable with unnecessary force. "We've been friends for fifteen years. I can read that woman like a book, and right now that book is titled 'How Dare Your Charity Case Nephew Humiliate My Precious Baby Boy.'"

Phei couldn't help it. He laughed.

"She blames you?"

"She blames everyone except Brett, because God forbid her golden child take responsibility for anything." Melissa's eye-roll was magnificent—world-class, Olympic-level disdain. "In her mind, you're the villain, I'm the enabler, and Brett is an innocent lamb who was viciously attacked for no reason."

"An innocent lamb who called me out to the parking lot and threw the first punch."

"Details." Melissa waved a dismissive hand, the gesture pure aristocratic boredom. "Details don't matter when you're constructing a narrative of victimhood. It's like interior decorating for the morally bankrupt."

Phei laughed again, darker this time.

The circle turns.

Adriana—queen of thrown lattes and casual cruelty—was probably pacing her marble floors right now, clutching pearls that cost as much as diamonds, wondering how her perfect son had ended up viral for all the wrong reasons.

She set down her fork, turning to face him more fully. Her expression had shifted from amused to something more serious—predatory, almost, like a cat that had just realised the mouse was actually a grenade with teeth.

"She wanted to report you, you know. Right after the fight. Word attacked me, practically frothing at the mouth, going on about assault charges and expulsion and making sure you 'paid for what you did.'"

Phei's stomach tightened. "And?"

"And I reminded her of a few inconvenient facts." Melissa's smile was sharp enough to cut glass—slow, deliberate, the kind of smile that made you check if your wallet was still there. "Like the security footage from the hallway. Both incidents—morning and afternoon. Very clearly showing Brett and his merry band of arseholes dumping trash on you, cornering you, making threats."

"The locker thing is on camera?" He asked as if he didn't know.

"Everything at Ashford is on camera, darling. The school's paranoid about liability." She picked up her wine glass, swirling the contents like she was admiring blood in crystal. "There's also footage from the parking lot. Brett calling you over. Brett throwing the first punch. And you—poor, innocent, terrified Phei—merely defending yourself against an unprovoked attack."

The way she said it—dripping with false sympathy, voice syrupy enough to give diabetes—made Phei snort.

"'Defending myself.' Right."

"That's the official story, and I'm sticking to it." Melissa took a sip of wine. "I pointed all of this out to Adriana. Reminded her that if she reported you, there would have to be an investigation. And investigations have a nasty habit of uncovering things people would rather stay buried."

"Like years of her son and all his crew bullying me?"

"Exactly." Melissa's smile widened, eyes gleaming with malicious delight. "The whole Academy knows you've been bullied. Everyone's seen it. Everyone's ignored it because that's what people do—they look the other way when it's easier. But if Adriana pushed for an investigation? Suddenly all that looking-away becomes complicity. Suddenly people have to answer uncomfortable questions about why they let it happen."

Phei leaned back in his chair, processing.

"So she backed off."

"She backed off." Melissa confirmed. "But not just because of the investigation risk. There's also Brett's reputation to consider."

"His reputation?" Before stepping in and accepting the fight, Phei had considered all these but hearing Melissa pointing them out felt like she'd been the dark voice that had whispered them to him; to give him the confidence to do it.

"Darling, her son just lost a fight. In front of witnesses. To the kid everyone thought was a pushover."

Melissa laughed—bright and genuinely delighted, the sound of someone watching their enemy's house burn while roasting marshmallows. "His pride is already in tatters. His image is cracked. If Mommy suddenly swoops in to report the big bad bully who hurt her baby boy? He becomes a joke. A spineless mummy's boy who can't handle losing and needs his parents to fight his battles."

"Everyone would see him as pathetic."

"Worse than pathetic. Weak!" Melissa practically purred the word, savoring it like fine wine. "And in Paradise, weakness is the one sin that can never be forgiven among Main Legacy mostly. It's like showing up to a knife fight with a pool noodle and expecting respect."

Phei absorbed this, idly stroking her hair as she settled against him.

So, Mrs. Adriana won't make a move. Just like he'd expected. At least not directly.

That was one less thing to worry about. One less front in the war he was apparently now fighting.

"You should have seen her face," Melissa murmured, voice rich with satisfaction. "When we laid it all out. When she realised she couldn't touch you without destroying her own son in the process. I thought she was going to have an aneurysm right there in the sitting room."

"Wish I could've been there."

"Trust me, it was glorious."

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, Melissa warm against his side, the city glittering beyond the windows. They were like two perfect partners in crime. Which he was going to crown her as: His Agent to help him build a harem and conquer her friends.

But Phei's mind was already moving ahead. Planning. Calculating.

Brett won't keep quiet.

He knew it with absolute certainty. Had known it even as he'd whispered those threats on the rooftop, even as he'd watched Brett's face cycle through fear and fury and desperate calculation.

Brett was a coward. All bullies were, when you stripped away the posturing. And cowards cracked under pressure.

And when they crack, they run to daddy.

Or, in this case, to Danton.

Or worse.

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