Chapter 5 Chapter 005

Tito Hayes’s POV

I pressed the back of my hand to my eyes, but the tears kept spilling anyway. My chest felt like it had caved in. Nothing about this house, this man, this sudden life made sense. A part of me screamed that we didn’t belong here, that we were being swept into a tide I couldn’t fight.

I wanted to leave, run. Go back to the cracked walls and leaking sink of our apartment. At least there, misery was ours. It wasn’t borrowed.

The door creaked, and Mum stepped in.

The sight of her undid me. Her face…so full of color just days ago—was pale again, trembling. For a moment I saw her as she had been all those years: collapsed on floors, bottles rolling from her hands, eyes glazed and lost.

My heart clenched with fear. Fear of losing her again. Fear of watching her slide back down into the abyss she had only just crawled out of.

She sank onto the edge of my bed, covering her face with her hands, and the sobs broke free. “Tito, please don’t hate me. Please don’t walk away. I can’t do this without you.”

The sound hollowed me out.

I wanted to shout that this wasn’t love, that this wasn’t normal. I wanted to grab her and shake her awake again. But instead, I wrapped my arms around her shaking shoulders, and the only thing that came out was a whisper.

“Fine. I’ll stay. But the second I see something off, the second I hear something that feels wrong… I’m gone.”

She pulled back, her eyes wet and wide. “You won’t. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

I didn’t believe her. Not fully. But I nodded because it was easier than tearing her apart again.

She kissed my hair and smoothed it back like she used to when I was a child. “Now, wipe your face. You’ve got school today.”

I blinked. “School?”

Her smile flickered back, cautious but hopeful. “Yes. He’s already arranged it. A better school. A driver’s waiting outside.”

Shock rippled through me. I opened my mouth to argue, to demand why she hadn’t told me sooner, but the defeat in her eyes stopped me. Maybe going to school was the only way to breathe again. To feel like myself, even just a little.

I sighed. “Fine.”

The uniform wasn’t required, thank God, so I pulled on my usual sweater and baggy jeans, stuffed my books into my worn backpack, and tied my hair into a messy bun. The mirror didn’t lie: I looked like me. Nerdy, tired, out of place.

Downstairs, the sight waiting outside made my stomach lurch.

A sleek black Audi 2025 Limited Series gleamed in the driveway, polished within an inch of its life. The kind of car that turned heads on the highway, the kind of car people whispered about in awe.

For one foolish second, a smile tugged at my lips. It was beautiful. I imagined Dad behind the wheel, his soft laugh filling the car, his warm hand reaching over to squeeze mine as we drove through the city like we used to.

The thought shattered as quickly as it came.

This wasn’t Dad. This was him. The man who terrified me with his silence and controlled us without permission. Luxury was a gilded cage, and I wasn’t stupid enough to forget it.

The driver stepped out, immaculate in a black suit, and opened the door with a small bow. “Miss Hayes.”

I climbed in, clutching my backpack, my face pressed to the glass as the gates swung open and swallowed us into the city. The drive was fast, beautiful buildings sliding past us until we took a turn and arrived at a very tall building.

The school was nothing like mine.

It wasn’t the peeling government-owned building I’d known, with chalk dust in the air and lockers that barely closed. This place rose like a palace of glass and stone, polished walls gleaming, banners fluttering proudly. Students poured across the courtyard, their laughter sharp, their clothes tailored even when casual. They smelled like perfume and money.

And then there was me.

Glasses sliding down my nose. Sweater stretched from too many washes. Baggy jeans. Hair tied up without effort. I wanted nothing to do with the new clothes, bags and shoes in the wardrobe at home.

I tried to walk with purpose, to ignore the stares that clung to me like burrs. Whispers rippled as I passed, laughter muffled behind manicured hands. I swallowed hard and kept going, clutching my bag like it could shield me.

But after three wrong turns and two dead-end hallways, panic crept in. My chest tightened. The map they’d given me swam in my vision.

“Hey!”

I spun, startled, and found a girl smiling at me like sunlight. She was my age, maybe younger, with hair pulled into a neat ponytail and lips pink as gloss. Her blazer was fitted, her shoes polished, her presence confident without being cruel.

“You look lost,” she said, cheerful and warm. “First day?”

Relief whooshed out of me. “Is it that obvious?”

“Kind of.” She grinned and stuck out her hand. “Chloe.”

“Tito,” I said, shaking it quickly. My voice cracked but steadied. “I’m supposed to be in… uh, Room 3B for Literature.”

Chloe’s eyes lit up. “No way. That’s my class too.” Her smile widened as she tugged my arm gently. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

The classroom was already buzzing when we walked in. Rows of polished desks, sunlight streaming across the floor-to-ceiling windows, the kind of space that smelled of money even in the ink and paper.

The moment I stepped through the door, the buzz shifted.

Eyes turned. Whispers surged. A laugh snickered from the back. Someone muttered “Misfit” under their breath, and the heat climbed up my neck.

I shrank into myself, moving quickly toward the front as Chloe gave me a reassuring nudge. “Ignore them. They’re vultures. They’ll get bored.”

I dropped into a seat, clutching my bag on my lap, wishing I could disappear into the wood grain of the desk.

The chatter rose around me, loud enough to rattle in my skull—until the door opened.

Silence rippled through the room like a switch had been thrown.

He walked in.

My stomach dropped, my blood turning to ice.

A folder in one hand, his jacket perfectly fitted, glasses perched like a mask over eyes I knew too well. The same broad shoulders, the same dominating aura.

It was him.

The man from the alley. The man from the hospital. The man sitting at the head of the dining table this morning.

And now…my professor???

His gaze swept the class, calm and controlled, until it landed on me. It lingered, sharp as a knife pressed to skin, before sliding away as if nothing had happened.

“Good morning,” he said, voice low and commanding. “I’m Professor Kendrick. Open your texts to page twelve.”

I gripped my desk until my knuckles ached, my heart hammering.

This couldn’t be real.

But it was.

I was trapped in his house. And now I was trapped in his classroom???.