Liulian collapsed back onto the edge of the bed. Her mind a chaotic blur of static. *Soon enough?* What the hell did that mean? She didn't want a "soon." She wanted an "out." Wanted to erase every second of last night, not wait for a sequel.
A cold, invisible hand seemed to tighten around her throat. She felt like a bird trapped in a high-tech cage. Watched by a predator she couldn't see.
After a few minutes of hollow silence, she wiped the dried salt from her cheeks with the back of her hand. Reached for the clothes the housekeeper had left. But as she leaned over, something caught her eye on the nightstand.
A small piece of high-end stationery.
She grabbed it. Her breath hitched as she scanned the sharp, aggressive handwriting. The ink looked heavy. Like a threat written in plain sight.
*"Liulian, I'm out of patience. I'm done waiting for you to grow up. From this moment on, your life belongs to me. I won't let another hand touch you, and I won't let the world hurt you again."*
*— An Old Friend.*
Liulian stared at the paper until the words blurred. A cocktail of terror, confusion, and strange, buzzing anxiety exploded in her chest. Her heart hammered against her ribs, desperate to break free. She gripped the note so hard the paper crumpled. Her lungs gasped for air that felt too thin to breathe.
*An Old Friend?*
The only "friend" she had was her high school bestie, Summer. Currently backpacking through Europe with zero interest in playing savior.
So who? She stared at the bold, sweeping strokes of the pen. There was a haunting familiarity to the curve of the *L*. A ghost of a memory in the way the ink bled into the page. A name flickered in the back of her mind—a silhouette of a man who had once been her entire world and her entire nightmare.
No. Impossible.
She shook her head violently. Tried to rattle the thought loose. The gap between them was an ocean. When she was seventeen and he was twenty-four, they were from two different planets. He was the heir to a billion-dollar dynasty. A shark who already owned a listed company while she was just a penniless student. An illegitimate daughter with nothing but a scholarship and a broken home.
Sure, he'd shown some… unsettling interest in her during high school. Sure, there'd been that one night of alcohol-fueled madness three years ago. But she'd always told herself it was just the whim of a powerful man. A predator's temporary obsession with a piece of fresh fruit.
A man with his looks, his wealth, his lethal intellect? No way he'd spent three years pining for a girl like her. He probably had a trophy wife and a seat at the head of a global empire by now.
*It can't be him,* she whispered to the empty room. *It won't be him.*
But the more she denied it, the more the memories flooded back. The dream from the lecture hall. The heat of that night three years ago. It all felt too real.
Panic clawed at her. She grabbed the designer clothes and bolted for the bathroom. She was losing her mind. Had to be. This was the man who had burned her first love to the ground. The one who had forced the boy she truly loved to vanish into the night. She was supposed to hate him until her last breath. Supposed to excise him like a cancer.
She didn't even look at the clothes she was putting on. Just threw them over her body. Her hands shook so hard she could barely manage the buttons.
She burst out of the bedroom. Nearly collided with the housekeeper waiting in the hallway. The woman tried to say something about breakfast, but Liulian didn't hear a word. Snatched her bag and ran for the elevators. Her heels clicked a frantic rhythm against the marble floor.
She didn't look back. Ran as if the very air of the penthouse was poisoned. Unaware that she was already wearing his brand, head to toe.
The penthouse was a labyrinth. Gold leaf, heavy velvet, silent hallways. One mahogany door bled into another—a gilded cage designed to disorient. By the time I stumbled into the chrome-and-mirror elevator, my lungs were burning. I leaned against the cool glass, eyes clamped shut, waiting for my pulse to stop thundering in my ears.
When I finally opened them, I froze.
The reflection in the mirror wasn't me. Or at least, not the me I knew. I was dressed in a sleek, sleeveless black jumpsuit that clung to my curves like a second skin. On my feet were lake-blue stiletto sandals that cost more than my semester's tuition.
The look was effortless. Sophisticated. Elegant in a way that made my stomach churn. I didn't recognize this version of myself—this "woman" someone else had carefully curated and dressed.
The elevator doors hissed open. I bolted. Ran past the marble lobby and the silent valets, leaving the suffocating luxury behind. I walked until the skyline of the hotel faded, my legs moving in a frantic, mechanical rhythm. I needed distance. If I could just get far enough away, maybe I could pretend last night was just a fever dream.
I walked until the designer sandals began to bite into my heels. Collapsed onto a park bench in a quiet plaza, chest heaving. I needed to call Summer. She was the only person who wouldn't judge the mess I'd become.
But when I pulled out my phone, the screen was black. Dead.
I cursed under my breath. Fumbled with the charger in my bag until it flickered to life. The moment the signal bars appeared, my phone exploded. Dozens of missed calls. A wall of frantic texts. All of them from Leo.
Leo was my high school tutoring student. Spoiled, brilliant, utterly exhausting senior. I'd missed our session yesterday without a single word of warning.
I bit my lip and dialed his number. I couldn't lose this job. Leo's mother paid me double the market rate because I was the only tutor who hadn't quit after a week of his tantrums.
The call picked up on the first ring.
"Liulian! Where the hell have you been?!" Leo's voice was a jagged roar that made me flinch. "Your phone was off! I called your dorm and they said you never came home last night! Do you have any professional ethics at all? You don't just vanish!"
I pulled the phone away from my ear, waiting for the storm to pass. When he finally stopped to breathe, I answered. My voice came out a dry, gravelly rasp—a lingering souvenir of last night's fever.
"I'm sorry, Leo. I… I came down with a flu. Spent the night in the ER on an IV drip. My phone died."
Weak lie. But it was all I had. I couldn't tell him the truth. Couldn't tell anyone.
The silence on the other end was sudden. Heavy. My raw, broken voice seemed to have knocked the wind out of him. After a long beat, his tone shifted from rage to a sullen, aggressive worry.
"You're going to make up for the lost time," he muttered. "Be at my house by 6:00 PM tonight. Sharp."
Then his voice dropped an octave. Almost a whisper.
"Do you have any idea how worried I was?"
Click. He hung up before I could respond.
I stared at the blank screen. A fresh wave of exhaustion washed over me. I wasn't blind to Leo's little crush. The lingering stares. The "accidental" touches. But he was eighteen, and I was a graduating senior with a life falling apart at the seams. We weren't even in the same universe.
I stood up. The lake-blue sandals pinched my skin. I began the long walk toward the bus stop. Had to get back to the dorms. Change out of these "stolen" clothes. Pretend to be a normal student again.
But as I looked down at the expensive fabric on my skin, I knew the Master's mark wasn't something I could just wash off.
The moment I stepped into the dorm, the air curdled.
The three girls were all there. Their eyes skipped over my face straight to the designer jumpsuit and the lake-blue sandals. A beat of stunned silence. Then a sharp, jagged laugh—like glass breaking.
"Well, well. Look who finally decided to crawl back," Melanie drawled. She leaned back in her chair with a predatory smirk. "Gone all night without a word, and she comes back dressed in this year's runway collection. I guess we finally know what your 'tutoring' sessions really consist of, Liulian. How much did you charge for the night?"
I didn't give her the satisfaction of a flinch. My skin was still buzzing from the fever, and my soul was too tired to bleed. I climbed up to my top bunk. Yanked the thin duvet over my head. Shut out the world. Out of sight, out of mind.
Melanie was the self-appointed queen of our six-person dorm. Beautiful as she was toxic. Backed by parents who owned half the real estate in the valley. Her arrogance was funded by a bottomless bank account, and she'd made me her primary target since freshman year.
I never understood why. I was the quiet one. The scholarship student who stayed in the library, wore thrift-store clothes, and kept her grades at a safe, mediocre level to avoid the spotlight. But to a girl like Melanie, my silence was an insult. She saw my simplicity as "fake purity." A challenge to her loud, expensive existence.
Our other three roommates were a mixed bag. Two were "ghosts"—pre-med students who lived in their textbooks and were too terrified of Melanie's temper to ever speak up for me. The other two were Melanie's shadows. Hangers-on who traded their dignity for a seat at her table.
"Look at her," one of the shadows chimed in. Voice dripping with artificial venom. "Acting all cold and untouchable, but she's filthier than any of us. No wonder she had the balls to slap the Police Chief's son into a coma. I guess she found herself a bigger, scarier sugar daddy to hide behind."
High-pitched, mocking laughter erupted from the trio. I turned over, facing the wall. Jammed my earbuds in. Cranked the volume until the music drowned out their poison.
I'd endured three years of this. I could endure a few more months. I was a senior now. My plan was to save every cent from tutoring, find a tiny studio off-campus, and vanish into the professional world.
I didn't stay silent because I was weak. I stayed silent because I was smart. Girls like Melanie fed on reaction. They wanted me to scream, to cry, to prove they could hurt me. By giving them nothing, I left them starving. They were just barking at a wall. Wasting their breath while I planned my escape.
Eventually, the sound of the door slamming signaled their departure. The room went quiet. Save for the hum of the old AC unit.
"Liulian? Are you… okay?"
It was the two pre-med girls. They'd crawled out from behind their monitors. Their voices small, laced with guilt. They were asking about the slap, the police, the fact that I'd been missing for twenty-four hours.
My eyes stung. I pulled out one earbud and forced a small, reassuring smile. "I'm fine. Really. Thanks for asking."
"Good. We're heading to the library. Get some rest, okay?"
They left. Finally, the heavy silence of the empty dorm wrapped around me. Only then did I let the first tear slip.
I stared at the ceiling. The designer fabric of the jumpsuit felt like a lead weight on my chest. I'd survived the night. Survived the precinct. Survived Melanie. But the mystery of the "Master" was a shadow I couldn't shake.
Was I really being protected? Or was I just being prepared for a different kind of slaughter?