Chapter4

An hour later, I put my phone away and left the law school library. The cool breeze brushed my face, but it did nothing to lift the suffocating weight pressing down on my chest. I made my way back to Room 201, and the ajar door swung open with a gentle bump.

A hardcover notebook slammed against the floor right at my feet, its pages exploding outward and scattering everywhere.

I froze in the doorway. Vanessa stood dead center in the dorm room, her eyes rimmed red. Over on my desk, the iPad I had forgotten to lock was glaringly bright. There were no academic articles on the screen. Instead, it displayed a meticulously cropped photo—the one I had secretly hoarded. It caught the sharp angle of Ethan's profile, revealing a short segment of the metal chain resting against his collar.

"Is this what you meant when you said you’d figure something out?" her voice trembled.

"I can explain."

"Explain what?!" Her voice skyrocketed as the tears finally spilled over. "I knew something was off from the start! From the very first day you met him, your eyes have been glued to him! I treated you like my one and only genuine friend in this entire university, and I came to you the second Ethan got into trouble. But you? You sneak around taking pictures of my boyfriend behind my back! Do you honestly think that if you cover this money for him, he'll feel indebted to you and leave me for you?!"

"I didn't."

I wasn't a homewrecker. That man was the person I had been desperately searching for through thirteen long years. He was the boy who had pressed half a chain into my palm in that basement when I was eight. The truth hovered right on the edge of my lips, but watching Vanessa break down in tears in front of me, I forcefully swallowed it back. She was already entirely convinced I had betrayed her. If I told her now that her deeply loved boyfriend was my lifelong obsession, she wouldn't believe it. She would only think I was spinning lies.

"Can you look me in the eye and say you don't have feelings for him?" she pressed, gritting her teeth.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Ethan pushed the door open, clutching a book in his hand. "Vanessa, you left your book at my—"

His words died in his throat. His gaze swept over the scattered pages on the floor, the lit iPad displaying the photo, and finally landed heavily on me. He quickly stepped forward and grabbed Vanessa's wrist. "Calm down. This has nothing to do with Maya."

"Nothing to do with her?" Vanessa violently shook off his hand and pointed a sharp finger at the screen. "She's secretly taking pictures of you! She’s obsessing over you! Have you two been sneaking around behind my back this whole time?!"

She snatched her purse from the back of the chair, slamming her shoulder brutally into my arm as she pushed past. "You can keep this filthy man!" The door slammed shut with a deafening bang.

It was just Ethan and me left in the dorm room. I realized then that my unintentional action had completely destroyed their relationship.

Looking entirely drained, Ethan pulled out a chair and collapsed into it, burying his face tightly in his hands.

"I'm sorry," I spoke up, my voice tight. "If it weren't for that photo—about the money, I—"

"Don't talk about the money." He dropped his hands. His bloodshot eyes looked up to meet mine. "You never should have been dragged into this penalty mess to begin with. If I can't scrape together fifty thousand by Friday, I won't just get expelled. I'll be indicted for commercial fraud. I originally started this project just to get on my feet early, so I could give Vanessa a solid future. In the end, I completely screwed everything up."

I stared at the defeated, resigned man sitting in front of me, a toxic mix of heartbreak and excruciating guilt churning violently in my chest.

"I'll help you." I picked up my phone, unlocked the screen, and pulled up the wire transfer page. "This is my own personal savings. Just consider it compensation for the misunderstanding that ruined your life today."

"No." He shot up instantly. "That's your money. I cannot take it."

The more he backed away, the guiltier I felt. I lowered my head and rapidly inputted the amount—fifty thousand. The recipient was the official corporate account printed on his recruitment flyers. There was only one final confirmation step left.

My index finger hovered right above the dark blue Confirm button. Suddenly, Leo's cold warning from the library violently echoed in my head: He isn’t who you think he is. Some people just aren't worth it.

In that exact fraction of a second, the top of my phone buzzed sharply. An MMS text popped up, completely overriding the wire transfer screen.

Against a dim background, the backside of the half-silver chain was captured in stark clarity. Right beneath the third interlocking link, a thin red circle framed a tiny patch of warped metal—a jagged, uneven cluster of indentations.

The bite mark. I was the only person in the world who knew its origin. It was the exact mark I had desperately bitten into the metal when I was eight years old.

Beneath the image sat a chilling line of English text:

Before you pay him, ask him where the bite mark came from.

My fingertip locked rigid in mid-air, utterly unable to press down.