"You don't get to make phone calls!" Tristan yelled, the veins in his neck bulging. "You don't get to do anything until I say you're done!"
As he screamed, he shifted his weight and drove his knee forward, catching me squarely in the left ribs.
The impact was brutal. The air rushed out of my lungs in a sharp hiss, and I doubled over slightly, planting my hand on the ground to keep from face-planting into the broken glass. I felt the bone flex dangerously, the deep, radiating ache of a severe bruise blooming immediately across my side.
"Tristan!" a voice in the crowd gasped, finally sensing that the violence was escalating beyond a joke.
"Shut up!" Tristan snapped at the crowd. He looked down at me, breathing heavily. "You think you can intimidate me? Do you know who I am? Do you know who my father is?"
I stayed hunched over for a moment, waiting for my diaphragm to unlock. When I finally drew a breath, it tasted like ash and memory.
"I imagine," I wheezed softly, looking up at his custom lapel pin, "he is Richard Vance."
Tristan froze, his eyes widening slightly. "My father is Richard Vance," he confirmed, his voice echoing with unchecked arrogance. "He owns Vance Properties. He sits on the board of this academy. He could buy your miserable life, sell it for parts, and not even notice the transaction fee."
I smiled. It wasn't a happy smile. It was a dark, terrible stretching of my lips that made Bryce take a physical step backward.
Tristan misunderstood the smile. He thought it was the broken, sycophantic grin of a poor man trying to appease a superior.
"That's right," Tristan sneered, feeling his power restored. "My father is the law in this town. And I am the law on this campus."
I looked at Tristan Vance. I didn't see an eighteen-year-old bully anymore. I saw Richard Vance, thirty years ago, weeping in a dingy warehouse, begging me for a loan to save his failing construction company. I remembered handing Richard his first five million dollars in unmarked bills. I remembered the handshake that bound him to the Golden Crown forever. I had built the throne this spoiled child was standing on.
"Your father," I said softly, wiping a spot of dirt from my cheek, "did not raise you well."
The words hit Tristan like a physical blow. The absolute lack of fear in my voice infuriated him beyond reason. He couldn't understand why kicking me and destroying my property hadn't broken me.
"I'll show you how I was raised," Tristan snarled.
He lunged forward, grabbing both lapels of my heavy leather jacket. "I told you to clean my car."
He dragged me forward by the collar, forcing me to stumble on my bad knee. I could have broken his wrists in a second. The counter-moves were hardwired into my muscle memory. But I held back. I let him pull me.
"Use your clothes," Tristan commanded, yanking violently. "Wipe the grease off, right now!"
"No," I whispered.
Tristan’s face twisted into pure, unfiltered rage. He tightened his grip on my jacket and the undershirt beneath it, and with a sudden, vicious jerk, he ripped the fabric apart.
CHAPTER 3
The sound of thick cotton tearing echoed over the parking lot. The heavy leather jacket parted, and the white undershirt I wore underneath split violently down the middle.