I turned my back on the headmaster, left my overturned cart on the pavement, and walked toward Elias’s SUV.
As Elias opened the heavy passenger door for me, I glanced back one last time. Cameron wasn't smirking anymore. He was staring at the black SUV, realizing that poor, exhausted janitors didn't have private drivers in armored vehicles.
And as I climbed inside, I caught Dylan’s eye. The third boy was still standing by his car, looking at Mason’s pocket where the silver flash drive was hidden.
Dylan looked utterly terrified.
CHAPTER 2
The heavy door of the armored SUV closed, sealing out the heat and the noise of the parking lot. The interior was cool, smelling faintly of leather and ozone. I sank into the back seat, letting out a long, slow breath. The adrenaline was beginning to fade, and the dull, throbbing pain in my knee was rushing in to take its place.
Elias climbed into the driver’s seat. He didn't immediately put the vehicle in gear. Instead, he adjusted the rearview mirror to look at me.
“Hospital?” he asked.
“No. It’s just a scrape,” I said, stripping off my yellow rubber cleaning gloves. I balled them up and dropped them onto the floorboard.
Beneath the right glove, on my index finger, sat a heavy gold signet ring. It was stamped with the crest of Vanguard Holdings. It was the only piece of my old life I hadn't been able to part with when I took the job at Crestview Academy. For three years, I had kept it hidden under rubber and canvas, a quiet reminder of the power I had temporarily set aside.
I twisted the ring around my knuckle, my mind racing.
“They fired you,” Elias stated. It wasn't a question.
“Yes. Headmaster Davis terminated me on the spot to protect Arthur Sterling’s son.”
Elias let out a low rumble of disapproval. “I warned you that staying undercover this long was dangerous. The board vote is tomorrow morning. You already have enough evidence to bury Davis and Arthur Sterling. We should have pulled you out last week.”
“I needed to be sure,” I said softly, looking out the tinted window.
Outside, Headmaster Davis was personally helping Cameron pick up the three hundred dollars from the spilled wax. It was a pathetic display of servitude.
“I needed to know exactly how Arthur was moving the school’s endowment,” I continued. “And I needed to know who else on the board was complicit. But more than that… I needed to know if the culture had changed.”
I looked down at my hands. Three years ago, my grandson, Leo, had been a scholarship student at this exact academy. He wasn't wealthy. He didn't drive a Porsche. He was brilliant, quiet, and targeted by boys exactly like Cameron Sterling. When the bullying pushed Leo to the breaking point, resulting in the car accident that left him in a permanent coma, the school had closed ranks. The police report was scrubbed. The wealthy boys involved faced zero consequences.
I had bought the holding company that owned the school’s debt two months later. But I didn't want to just burn the institution to the ground. I wanted to expose the rot from the inside. I wanted to see the truth with my own eyes.
“Well,” Elias said, putting the SUV in drive. “Your cover is blown now. If they run the plates on this vehicle, it leads back to a corporate shell company. But Arthur Sterling has the resources to look past the shell.”
“Arthur won’t look,” I said. “He’s too arrogant. He’ll assume I’m just some poor woman with an overprotective relative who leases a nice car.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Not the heavy executive device, but the cheap, cracked prepaid burner phone I used for my janitor persona.
I pulled it out. The screen showed an incoming call from the Crestview Academy administration office.
I answered it. “Yes?”
“Margaret,” Headmaster Davis said. His voice was no longer barking and authoritative. It was tight, strained, and unnaturally polite. “Listen, I think we both let our tempers get the better of us in the heat of the moment.”
“You fired me, Richard.”
“I suspended you,” Davis corrected quickly. “Pending a review. However, I’ve just spoken with Mr. Arthur Sterling on the phone. He was very distressed to hear about the… misunderstanding… in the parking lot. He is actually on his way to the school right now. He would like to meet with you personally to apologize on his son’s behalf.”
I narrowed my eyes. Arthur Sterling didn't apologize to hourly employees. Ever.