The campus breathed around me like a living algorithm — complex, unpredictable, always shifting. Yet, despite the throng of students, the chatter, and the hum of fluorescent lights, I felt like an outsider. Not just because of the way I carried myself — a ghost drifting in and out of view — but because the game I played was on a different plane altogether.
I sat beneath the high windows of the library, the filtered sunlight casting slashes of light across my notebooks. Around me, students wrestled with quantum algorithms and network topologies, but my mind was elsewhere. Flickering across my laptop screen was a new code I'd been developing—an encryption protocol that could disrupt even the most advanced trackers. It was elegant, cold, and unbreakable. Like me.
A vibration pulled me back to reality. My phone lit up with a message from Mio.
"Caramel Latte for you? You look like you need it. Matcha Latte for me? I look like I need it."
Mio. My tether to the real world. She wasn't a hacker — never claimed to be — but she understood the pressure that weighed on me. On her as well. The constant vigilance. The war fought in silence.
She's as heiress as well. Yakuza heiress, to be specific. Our worlds are so similar, yet so different at the same time. She lives lavishly, drinking her Match while sitting at the front row at every and any fashion show during Fashion Weeks all over the world. Me, on the other hand? I have more money than the richest fuck across three continents - coffee addicted, sleep deprived, and under-fucked. So in some weird, twisted way, we became soul sisters. I'd kill for her, no questions asked. She'd do the same for me - with her Yakuza entourage, of course.
I texted back, In ten.
We met at our usual café off-campus. It was an unpretentious place, the kind that didn't care if you stayed for hours, drowning in espresso and schematics.
Mio was already there when I arrived, her long black straight hair tumbling over a new leather jacket that probably costs well over five figures, eyes bright with concern.
"You look exhausted," she said, pushing a cup of steaming coffee toward me.
"Long day," I admitted. "The simulation project is getting complicated."
She gave me a sideways smile. "You're playing a dangerous game, Puni."
"You mean with Lucenti," I sighed. "Also, stop calling me squishy, cuddly, or any kind of huggable being."
"He's not just some rival student. You know that, right?" Mio's eyes darkened. "And stop telling me what to do, Lorelei-chan. I can call you whatever the fuck I want, because you love me and I love you."
I nodded, giving up the fight and swirling the bitter coffee. "Yeah. But it's more than that. It's like... every time I get close to something —some edge— I feel him there, watching, waiting."
She reached across the table, her hand briefly touching mine. "You're not alone."
I wanted to believe her.
Back on campus, I wasn't the only one feeling the pressure.
Theo Lucenti's presence was impossible to ignore—like a magnetic field tugging at everyone's attention. But even beneath the confident facade and tailored suits, I knew the game was changing for him, too.
At the library's far corner, Jasper tapped furiously on his keyboard. He was my oldest friend, yin to my yang, the one person I trusted implicitly with my secrets and my code. Unlike me, he wore his warmth on his sleeve — light and laughter that cut through my dark walls.
"Hey," I whispered, pulling up a chair. "Any news on the weird server activity?"
Jasper nodded, eyes flickering to his screen. "Someone's been probing our research servers—intense, targeted. Not just random hackers. Professional."
My pulse quickened. "Do you think it's connected to Lux?"
"Could be. Or someone bigger." He leaned closer. "We're being watched, Lorelei. On and off campus."
That made the hairs on my neck stand up.
Later, as I walked across the quad, my phone buzzed again — a message from Jasper.
"Found something strange in the logs. Meet me at the tech lab. Now."
My heartbeat thudded in my ears as I rushed through the empty hallways, heart pounding like a warning siren. When I arrived, Jasper was already there, hunched over multiple screens.
"What is it?" I asked.
He pointed to a map dotted with red markers—locations around campus where data breaches had been attempted.
"Someone's been accessing our systems remotely, but not just ours. Theo's team has been hit too."
I frowned. "So this isn't just about me and Lucenti."
"No," Jasper said grimly. "It's bigger."
That night, alone in my apartment, I replayed the day's discoveries in my mind.
Someone was manipulating us—my team, Theo's team, even our friends. We were pawns in a game far more dangerous than academic rivalry.
I opened my secure terminal and scrolled through the encrypted messages I'd collected over the last few weeks. Most were cryptic challenges between Nyx and Lux, the usual cat-and-mouse games. But one stood out:
FROM: UNKNOWN
"You think you control the game. You don't even know who's holding the board."
The message chilled me.
Who was watching? And what did they want?
The next morning, I found Mio waiting outside my lecture hall.
"You look like hell," she said, nudging me playfully. "Want to get out of here after class? I need to talk."
I nodded. The weight of the unknown was suffocating.
Later, in the quiet corner of a bustling café, Mio leaned in, voice low.
"Jasper thinks someone is trying to force you and Theo together."
I blinked, heart skipping.
"Why?" I whispered.
"Alliance," Mio said. "Between your family and his."
I stiffened. My father was the head of the Bratva in Russia. An empire built on fear and power. I hadn't spoken to him in years — not since I left that life behind. But the ties were still there. Stronger than I wanted to admit.
Mio's eyes searched mine. "You know what that means, right?"
"Marriage," I said quietly.
She nodded. "A deal to unite the families. To control the underworld. And you and Theo are the pieces moving on the board."
I clenched my fists beneath the table. The thought made my skin crawl.
"I'm not that girl anymore," I said.
"No one is asking if you want to be."
Days blurred into nights filled with whispered threats and coded warnings. The simulation project pressed on, but the real battle was hidden beneath the surface.
One afternoon, Jasper burst into my apartment with news.
"Someone hacked into Mio's account. Left a message."
He handed me his phone.
"Be careful who you trust. Shadows have teeth."
My breath caught.
"Who would do this?" I asked.
Jasper shook his head. "Someone powerful."
Meanwhile, across campus, I caught sight of Theo, leaning casually against a doorway, eyes scanning the crowd.
Our gazes met for a fraction of a second before he turned away. A silent acknowledgment in the middle of chaos.
He wasn't just my rival. He was part of this tangled web now.
And neither of us could see the full picture.
That night, alone with my thoughts, I realized something terrifying:
No matter how many firewalls I built, no matter how many codes I cracked, there was one thing I couldn't control.
The way Theo Lucenti haunted my mind — like a ghost, a challenge, a dangerous obsession.
This game my father played, it couldn't be because of that night 6 years ago? Right?
I took away someone and something he loved. Someone being me and something.. related to me as well.
"Blood is thicker than water, Solnyshko. Don't you ever forget that."
Да,папа. But that little sun of yours dimmed a long time ago.