The head boy

Part 45 - Ray of sun

(William's POV)

"Alex isn't his full name, right Alexander?" Tom hisses through gritted teeth in the direction of the blond boy with a polite smile plastered on his face.

"Yeah I'm sorry, I should have made it last longer you know, the suspense," He seems amused by the situation whereas the three of us are not finding this funny, at all. "But I was so bored, horses are not very chatty, nor very interesting," he directs his gaze towards Lin as he says that and she frowns at him. I would have expected her to give him the middle finger or even punch him...

"Him and his little group of useless spoiled kids threatened Ida's life. They made me take upon important projects of theirs in exchange for her safety, and before you ask: Why? I don't know..."

Useless spoiled- oh, the head student gathering. Tom's been ignoring them for some time and it probably didn't go unnoticed by them.

"It was a payback, wasn't it?" I ask, I remember him now, Alexander Volkov, I saw him once, a year ago.

Alexander tilts his head a little, "I'd rather call it justice, don't you think it's normal for those who take advantage of the system to be punished?"

"So you punish someone by threatening somebody else's life?" My fists clench, justice huh?

Lin snorts, "they weren't gonna do anything, they're just a bunch of rich losers with too much imagination, too much time on their hands and a mobster movie fancy," she folds her arms across her chest, there's something about her attitude that makes it look like she's challenging Alexander, all the time.

"Oh darling," Alexander cooes, "I love how innocent and sweet you are under that thick layer of brat behaviour," He smiles at her, she squints her eyes but doesn't say anything, probably realising that these people are probably not all talk and no action.

"Enough with the waste of time, I did what you asked me and you approached her anyway," Tom steps forward, raising his voice.

Alexander shrugs, completely unfazed by Tom's menacing attitude, "I didn't mean for it to happen, she just came to me. Anyways," he sighs before directing himself towards the door, "As soon as this is over I'll go back to Russia and, Tom, remember," he looks over his shoulder as he shows us his back, "you must not disrespect us again, and if you're not scared for your life, you can be scared for hers," I can spot the glimpse of a smirk right before he walks through the door.

Alexander's father is somehow linked to the Russian mafia, he grew up surrounded with crime and most probably blood, I wouldn't downplay his threats...

"So...you spent the past few weeks working for ten people in order to...protect her?" Lin asks, I think we're both feeling a little left behind, or maybe useless.

Tom doesn't answer, he doesn't even look at us, his usual pride taking over as he acts like it's no big deal.

"Why didn't you tell her? She could have understood, she could've helped you, we could've helped you," I interject, this is insane and stupid, we're a team, we work together, there's no good reason explaining what he did...

"Keeping her safe is my job, not yours. And what's the point of keeping people safe if they feel scared? Ida doesn't need to know about any of that," He says it calmly but somehow I know he's warning us, we must never tell her about what we just learnt. Knowing her, she would hate this...

"Go to be with her," I encourage Tom, "today is important for her and following your logic, what's the point in keeping people safe if it makes them unhappy?" I'm surprised when he lowers his eyes, staring at the ground lost in thoughts.