Liana didn't know it yet, but the boy who sat beside her that day—Zayne Oluwafemi—wasn't just handsome. He wasn't just charming or intelligent. He was dangerous in a way no one could see… and in danger in a way even he couldn't fully understand.
Behind his soft smile and calm voice hid a storm of secrets.
Zayne came from wealth—real wealth. His father, Chief Femi Oluwafemi, was the CEO of F & Co. Gold Mines, a company worth billions. Their name echoed through every business circle in the country. The Oluwafemi estate was legendary—bodyguards at the gate, glass walls, elevators in the mansion.
But the riches came with a price.
Zayne was born the only son, the rightful heir to the gold empire.
And that made him a target.
His uncles, aunts, and even distant relatives—all wanted the power that came with his inheritance. Whispers of betrayal haunted every corner of their home. Zayne's mother had seen enough. She had grown up in a simple, quiet town—nothing like the world of diamonds and deception her husband had dragged her into.
When the threats became real—when one of the bodyguards turned up poisoned and another disappeared—she knew it was time.
"Take Zayne. Disappear," she told her mother on the phone. "Let him be safe, even if just for a little while."
And so, Zayne Oluwafemi was hidden in plain sight—sent far away from his father's world, to stay with his grandmother in a quiet community where no one knew his name or his bloodline. No mansions. No luxury. Just peace.
Even though he had already graduated from university at just 16, he agreed to attend God's Will Tutorial—not because he needed to learn, but to blend in… to act normal.
He thought he would be bored.
But then he saw her.
The moment he walked into the classroom, he felt the usual stares—the way girls gawked, how boys sized him up. He was used to it. But then… he saw her.
She wasn't loud. She wasn't flashy. She didn't wear makeup like the other girls or try to stand out. She sat at the corner, quietly observing, twirling a pen between her fingers, lost in thought.
But something about her… pulled him in.
Her stillness.
Her silence.
Her soft presence that screamed louder than the crowd.
Zayne didn't think. He walked straight to her row and sat beside her.
And when she turned to him—eyes wide, cheeks flushed, stunned into silence—he smiled to himself.
Interesting, he thought. She's different.
"Hi. How old are u ?" he asked, as the lesson ended.
"I'm… 15 years old. And you are?"
"I'm 16 years old."
She nodded, looking away quickly. But Zayne didn't miss the way her fingers fidgeted or how her breath caught.
From that moment on, his eyes kept drifting to her when she wasn't looking. The way she bit her lip when thinking. How she shyly looked at the floor when someone praised her. She was soft… real… untouched by the loud world he came from.
Zayne had faced people who wore masks. People who lied with a smile.
But Liana was raw. And that scared him in a way no enemy ever had.
Because she made him feel something he hadn't felt in years—
Safe.
And that… was the beginning.