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.