Chapter Five
Her POV The New Student
I used to believe intelligence was enough to protect me.
That as long as I stayed careful never greedy, never obvious I could take what I wanted and leave before anyone noticed the damage. For years, that belief held.
Until it didn't.
The first crack appeared in the form of a letter.
It arrived on a Tuesday morning, thin and unremarkable, slipped under my apartment door like junk mail. I almost ignored it. I would have, if not for the return address one I hadn't seen in years, printed too neatly to be accidental.
A law firm.
I read it standing up, heart steady, mind already calculating responses. It was formal. Polite. Devastating.
An internal audit. Frozen accounts. Ongoing investigations tied to misrepresented investments and personal transfers. My name appeared more than once.
I told myself it was a mistake.
It wasn't.
People talk more than they realize. The kind of people I once relied on the quiet ones, the agreeable ones eventually get tired of being useful. One of them had spoken. Provided documents. Messages. Timelines.
Patterns.
That was my first mistake. I had relied on patterns. Thought consistency would make me invisible.
The second mistake was believing I could talk my way out of it.
When they called me in for questioning, I wore my calm like armor. I spoke carefully, confidently. I never admitted intent. I never raised my voice.
They didn't need a confession.
They had proof.
Emails I had forgotten. Transfers I assumed no one would trace. Statements from people who once trusted me and now wanted distance from me, from responsibility, from guilt.
The money disappeared first.
Accounts frozen. Assets seized. Opportunities withdrawn without explanation. Calls stopped coming in. Invitations evaporated. People who once smiled too quickly now avoided eye contact.
Reputations don't collapse loudly.
They thin out.
I moved apartments. Then cities. I stopped using my full name. I learned how to live smaller, quieter. No more calculated charm. No more careful positioning.
For the first time, I was ordinary.
And it terrified me.
Late one night, I searched his name.
Old articles. Outdated profiles. Nothing recent. I wondered if he had finally let go of the past of her, of me.
I wondered if he ever realized the truth.
The worst part wasn't the loss of money or status.
It was irrelevance.
Manipulation only works when people care. When attention shifts elsewhere, there's nothing left to control.
I built my life on leverage.
And leverage, once exposed, turns to dust.
There was no courtroom scene. No public apology. No dramatic fall from grace.
Just a slow erosion.
Just consequences that followed me quietly, faithfully like a shadow I could never step out of.
I thought winning meant taking everything.
I was wrong.
Winning would have been walking away untouched.
Too little.too late
Too late. Too little