ZyrenKova
"That's for Michelle."
Bea never planned to stand out during her freshman year, but defending her friend from Troy changed everything. One punch dropped the hallway into ringing silence, and her name echoed farther than she ever wanted.
That was when he returned.
Ryan Leighton stepped through the parted crowd. Cold as a rumor and feared like a myth, he carried the weight of the campus without lifting a hand. Students called him the Campus Emperor, though he never claimed a crown. His past was a shadow made of an explosion scandal, a missing year in Russia, and a punishment no one dared to name.
His gaze found Bea.
Troy watched her with revenge simmering in his eyes. The Circle stood nearby in quiet judgment, a group that never wasted mercy. Bea realized she was caught between the guy she punched and the Emperor who walked like a storm waiting to break.
She never asked for the crossfire.
But the moment she threw that punch, she became the center of a story that refused to let her stay invisible.