Valentina's POV

I stared at the glowing screen of my phone until my eyes began to burn.

WELCOME TO WESTBRIDGE, VALENTINA.

My thumb hovered over the delete button, my heart hammering frantically against my ribs. I had spent the last four hours staring at the ceiling, analyzing every possible angle of that photograph. The angle. The lighting. The distance.

"It's just a prank," I told myself, repeating the lie and hoping it'd sound like the truth. It has to be a prank.

If my father had tracked me down, he wouldn't have sent a cryptic text message. Don Rossi didn't play games. He would have simply sent two men in sharp suits to drag me out of my

dorm room and throw me into the back of a black SUV.

Some upperclassman probably snapped a random picture of the new girl looking lost. Maybe they got my name from the dorm registry. It was creepy, yes, but it was normal creepy. Not mafia creepy.

I locked my phone and shoved it under my pillow. I was not going to let paranoia ruin my first full day of freedom.

"Are you going to stare at your mattress all morning, or are you going to get up and tell me everything about your life?" I jumped, startled by the voice. My roommate, Chloe, was sitting cross-legged on her bed, perfectly applying a coat of mascara. She had bouncy blonde hair, a bright, friendly smile, and a personality that filled the tiny dorm room to the brim.

"Sorry," I muttered, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. "Just trying to wake up."

Chloe laughed, tossing her makeup bag onto her desk. "Well, wake up faster. I need details. Where are you from? What's your major? And most importantly, how did you manage to absolutely publicly destroy Damon Blackwood on your first day without immediately combusting?"

I couldn't help but smile slightly. Chloe was funny, a little nosy, and radiating a harmless,

bubbly energy that put me at ease. After a lifetime of being surrounded by guarded, dangerous people, her open book personality was refreshing.

"I'm from a boring town you've never heard of," I lied smoothly, falling into my practiced cover story. "I'm undeclared. And Damon Blackwood is just an arrogant jerk who doesn't know how to drive."

"He's a gorgeous, untouchable god," Chloe corrected, leaning forward with a conspiratorial whisper. "But I respect the rebellion. Seriously, you're already a campus legend. Let's go get coffee. We're officially best friends now."

I let out a genuine laugh. For a moment, the knot of anxiety in my stomach loosened. Maybe I really could do this. Maybe I could just be normal. Two hours later, I walked into the Westbridge athletic complex, the familiar scent of floor wax and clean sweat hitting my senses.

Volleyball tryouts were already underway. The massive gymnasium echoed with the squeak of rubber soles on hardwood and the smacks of volleyballs hitting the floor. I strapped on my knee pads, tied my dark hair into a tight ponytail, and stepped onto the court.

The moment my hands touched the ball, the rest of the world disappeared. There were no anonymous text messages here. There was no mafia, no father, no fear. There was only the

net, the ball, and the kill.

I was in my element. I moved fluidly, diving for impossible digs and setting up plays with ease. When it was my turn to hit, I leaped into the air, feeling the familiar weightless suspension before driving the heel of my palm into the ball.

The gym went silent for a split second.

Coach Miller, a stern-looking woman with a clipboard, lowered her whistle. She looked at me, then looked at the spot on the floor where the ball had hit. "Rossi," she called out, her voice booming across the gym. "You're starting outside hitter. Go get your practice gear." A rush of triumph washed over me. The other girls on the court clapped, some of them giving me impressed smiles. For the first time all day, things were actually going my way. I belonged here.

That feeling lasted exactly ten minutes.

I walked out of the gymnasium, a towel draped around my neck, riding the high of making the team. The path back to the dorms cut directly alongside the massive ice of the university hockey rink.

The men's hockey team was running drills. And standing right by the sideline fence, casually holding a hockey puck, was the bane of my existence.

Damon Blackwood.

He was wearing a tight gray practice shirt that clung to his athletic frame, a sheen of sweat making his dark hair stick to his forehead. He kicked the puck up, sliding on the ice to hit a

goal.

Then, he turned his head. His dark eyes locked onto mine through the glass fence. From the look on his face, I could tell he recognized me instantly. He paused, a slow, wicked smirk spreading across his face. He walked right up to the fence.

"Well, if it isn't the campus terror," Damon called out, his voice carrying easily over the chatter of the other athletes.

A few of his teammates stopped their drills, jogging over to see what their captain was looking at. A group of girls from my volleyball team, walking a few paces behind me, stopped in their tracks.

I didn't back down. I walked closer to the fence, matching his arrogant stare. "Well, if it isn't the guy who compensates for his bad driving with daddy's money."

Damon's smirk faltered for a fraction of a second, his eyes flashing with a gleam I couldn't decipher. "You've got a sharp tongue, Rossi. You should be careful. It might get you in trouble around here."

"I'm not the one who needs to be careful, Blackwood," I fired back smoothly, crossing my arms over my chest. "I suggest you watch your back. Or at least learn how to steer." His teammates let out a collective "Ooh," laughing and shoving each other. The volleyball girls behind me started snickering.

Damon stepped even closer to the barrier separating us. The banter was gone, replaced by a simmering tension that made my skin prickle.

"Game on, freshman," he murmured, his voice dropping to a register meant only for me.

"You don't want to play with me," I whispered back, before turning on my heel and walking away, leaving him staring at my back.

The adrenaline from my clash with Damon carried me all the way back to North Hall. I felt invincible. I felt like a normal college girl with a normal college nemesis.

But the universe had a cruel way of reminding me exactly who I was. When I reached the third floor and walked down the quiet hallway, I stopped dead in my tracks.

Sitting perfectly centered on the welcome mat outside my dorm room door was a small, unmarked brown cardboard package. There was no postage. No return address. No shipping label. Someone had physically carried it up the stairs and placed it here.

My breath caught in my throat. I glanced quickly down the empty hallway. But I saw no one. I scooped the box up, hurried inside, and locked the door behind me. Chloe was still at her afternoon lecture so the room was dead silent.

With trembling fingers, I tore the tape off the box. Inside sat a cheap, black burner phone. Beneath it was a single, crisp white index card with a message written in bold black marker.

YOU CAN'T RUN FROM WHO YOU ARE.

My stomach sunk, a cold dread replacing the warmth in my veins. Suddenly, the silence of the room was shattered by a ring. The burner phone in the box lit up, vibrating aggressively against the cardboard.

I stared at it like it was a live explosive. My hand shook as I reached down, grabbed the plastic device, and pressed the green accept button. I slowly brought it to my ear.

"Hello?" I whispered, my voice barely working. There was nothing but the hollow, crackling sound of static echoing over the phone. "Who is this?" I demanded, trying to force the steel back into my voice. Still nothing. Only the faint sound of deep breathing on the other end of the line. Then, with a sharp click, the call disconnected.

---

Down in the courtyard below North Hall, hidden in the shadows of a massive oak tree, a figure stood perfectly still. The figure raised a camera with a long-range telephoto lens, aiming it upward at the third-floor window. Through the glass, Valentina Rossi was visible, standing in the center of her dorm room, staring in horror at the black burner phone pressed to her ear.

The figure lowered the camera and pulled out a smartphone, attaching the high-resolution photograph to a new message.

'Target confirmed.'

The figure slipped the phone back into their pocket, stepped out of the shadows, and blended seamlessly into the passing crowd of oblivious college students.

Valentina's POV

The bass vibrating through the floorboards of the Delta Sigma fraternity house was strong enough to rattle my teeth. Red and purple strobe lights sliced through the air as hundreds of college students danced, drank, and shouted over the loud music.

This was it. The quintessential college welcome party.

"See? Isn't this exactly what you needed?" Chloe yelled over the thumping beat of a remixed hip-hop track, handing me a red plastic cup filled with something that smelled dangerously like pure rubbing alcohol and cherry syrup.

I took a cautious sip and grimaced. "It's definitely... an experience."

Chloe laughed, adjusting her glittery crop top before grabbing my arm and pulling me deeper into the crowded living room. "Stop analyzing everything and just have fun, Valentina. You're practically a celebrity tonight anyway. Look around."

I took a second to actually look past the strobe lights. Chloe wasn't wrong.

Ever since the incident on the pedestrian walkway yesterday and my subsequent staring match with Damon at the hockey rink, I had become a walking campus spectacle. As I navigated the packed room, I could feel the weight of dozens of eyes lingering on me. Girls were whispering behind their hands, and guys were giving me appraising, curious looks.

'There's the girl who humiliated Blackwood,' I heard a blonde cheerleader whisper to her friend as we squeezed past the kitchen island.

I was pretty, athletic, and fiercely unapologetic. But more importantly to the Westbridge rumor mill, I was the first person to ever look their untouchable campus god in the eye and refuse to bow. They found our sudden, volatile feud highly entertaining.

I hated it. I didn't want to be a spectacle. I just wanted to be a normal freshman holding a red cup in the corner. I took another, longer drink of the terrible cherry concoction, hoping it would burn away my lingering anxiety over the burner phone currently locked in the bottom of my dorm room drawer.

"I'm going to grab us better drinks," Chloe announced, eyeing a cooler across the room.

"Don't move. And don't start any wars while I'm gone."

"No promises," I muttered, leaning against a wood-paneled wall. I watched the crowd, letting the music drown out my thoughts. But the brief moment of peace was shattered when the sea of dancing bodies suddenly parted.

Damon Blackwood was walking through the room.

He was flanked by three of his massive teammates, but he was the only one anyone was looking at. He wore a dark, fitted henley that highlighted his broad shoulders, his jaw set in a rigid line. The arrogant smirk from yesterday was completely gone.

And he was making a beeline straight for me.

My spine stiffened, but I didn't shrink back against the wall. I stood my ground, my fingers tightening around the flimsy plastic of my cup.

Damon stopped exactly two feet in front of me. Up close, the anger radiating off him was almost palpable. He smelled of expensive cologne and simmering rage.

"Where is it?" he demanded, his voice low, cutting straight through the surrounding noise.

I frowned, genuinely confused. "Where is what?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Rossi." Damon stepped closer, invading my personal space. The scent of him wrapped around me. "My silver captain's bracelet. The one with the platinum links. It's missing from my gym bag."

I stared at him. "And what exactly does your missing jewelry have to do with me?"

"Because one of the athletic trainers saw you walking out of the men's locker room corridor right before practice ended," Damon practically growled.

The people standing nearest to us had stopped talking. The whispers began to ripple outward like a stone dropped in a quiet pond.

"I was leaving the volleyball gym," I said, my voice hardening. "The corridors connect, Blackwood. Half the athletic department uses that hallway."

"Half the athletic department doesn't have a vendetta against me," he shot back. Suddenly, the music cut off with a loud screech. One of Damon's teammates had marched over to the DJ booth and pulled the auxiliary cord.

The sudden silence in the packed fraternity house was deafening. Hundreds of heads turned toward us. The strobe lights kept flashing, casting erratic shadows over Damon's furious face. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the unmistakable glow of cell phone screens. People were recording us.

"Give it back," Damon commanded, his voice echoing in the dead quiet of the room. My heart hammered against my ribs, not from fear, but from barely contained anger.

I had spent nineteen years trying to escape a family of actual thieves and murderers. I had changed my life, abandoned my wealth, and fled across the country just to avoid being branded a criminal. And now, the campus golden boy was standing in front of a hundred recording phones, publicly accusing me of being exactly what I was trying so desperately not to be.

"I don't have your stupid bracelet," I said, my voice trembling with suppressed rage. "You're lying," Damon said coldly, crossing his arms. "You think this is a game? You think you can just take my things to prove a point because your ego is bruised?"

He was looking at me like I was dirt beneath his expensive boots. Like I was a street thug who didn't belong in his privileged world. Something inside me snapped. "I told you," I whispered, my voice dropping to a deadly calm. "I am not a thief."

Without a second thought, I raised my right hand and hurled the entire contents of my red plastic cup directly into Damon Blackwood's face. The sticky, cherry-red alcohol splashed across his cheek, soaking into his dark hair and dripping down the front of his expensive designer shirt.

The entire fraternity house erupted.

Gasps, shrieks, and a chorus of "Oh my God!" echoed off the walls. The flashes of phone cameras lit up the room like lightning strikes. Nobody, absolutely nobody, had ever publicly humiliated the king of Westbridge from what I'd heard.

Damon stood perfectly still, his eyes squeezed shut as the red liquid dripped off his jaw. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. The muscles in his neck jumped as he slowly opened his eyes and glared at me. If looks could kill, I would have been reduced to ash on the floorboards.

But I didn't blink. Neither did I apologize. I simply dropped the empty red cup at his feet. It bounced off his boots, clattering emptily on the floor.

"Watch your own back, Blackwood," I said, my voice ringing out in the silent room.

I turned around and walked straight through the crowd. The students parted for me instantly, pulling their phones back, staring at me with a mixture of terror and awe. By the time I pushed through the front doors and hit the cool night air, my hands were shaking violently. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Then it buzzed again. And again.

I didn't need to look at the screen to know what was happening. The videos were already spreading. The campus gossip blogs were exploding. I had just declared a public war against the most powerful student at Westbridge University. I had gained enemies I didn't know, and a blinding spotlight I never wanted.

Hours later, the adrenaline had completely crashed, leaving me hollow and exhausted on my dorm room bed. Chloe was asleep, oblivious to the fact that I was frantically scrolling through the Westbridge Anonymous gossip app, watching the video of my drink-throwing moment loop for the hundredth time.

The comments were brutal. Some hailed me as a hero. Most called me a psycho.

Then, at exactly 2:00 AM, the app refreshed. A new "Breaking News" banner flashed in bright red letters across the top of my screen.

UPDATE: THE KING'S CROWN IS FOUND.

Sources inside the men's hockey locker room confirm that Damon Blackwood's missing platinum bracelet has been located.

My breath hitched. I read the next line, my blood running instantly cold. It was found tucked inside the toe of Damon's own spare skates. Tucked safely in the back of his locked gym cubby. Exactly where it should have been all along.

I dropped my phone onto the mattress, staring blankly at the dark wall of my dorm. I hadn't stolen the bracelet.

Someone had deliberately moved it just enough to make him think it was gone, knowing exactly when I was walking past that locker room. Someone had set me up to take the fall. Someone wanted Damon Blackwood to publicly attack me.

And they had succeeded perfectly.