“Sir Andrew, don’t you think we should step in and help him?”
Tommy nervously chomped down on his thumb, his teeth clicking against the skin as he stood slightly behind Andrew’s shoulder.
They were positioned just beneath the shadow of the brick archway, hidden from the flicker of the courtyard bulb.
From this distance, they could clearly see the dark, uncoordinated shapes of the commoner seniors dragging Harry’s limp, unresponsive frame toward the blind mouth of the alleys.
Harry’s hands scraped a dull, friction-heavy line through the gravel until the darkness swallowed them completely.
“Should we?”
Andrew murmured, his posture entirely relaxed.
He folded his arms across his chest, a sharp, slow smirk spreading across his handsome face as he watched the brazen boys disappear with their prize.
“But why help him, it’s none of our business, though?”
Andrew added and Tommy peeked over Andrew’s shoulder, his eyes wide, his expression a mix of sheer horror and utter disbelief.
“But, Sir Andrew… what if they rape him? Then what? If they go that far, won’t he just get pregnant again and completely ruin his life?”
“No, he won’t fall pregnant,”
Andrew replied instantly, his voice dripping with an icy, absolute certainty.
He didn’t even turn his head.
“Trust me, I know.”
“But—” Tommy stammered, his hands trembling as he reached out, not quite daring to touch the fabric of the King’s tailored coat.
“But he is the father of your child! Won’t you at least help him for the absolute sake of your daughter?”
“And since when do you care, Tommy?” Andrew countered, his dark eyes cutting sideways to fix his companion with a flat, piercing look.
The smirk remained, cold and unchanging.
“If they molest him, then it will simply be quite unfortunate for him. Let’s just go. This has absolutely nothing to do with us.”
Andrew turned his back on the dark corridor, his leather shoes clicking evenly against the stone as he walked away from the spot.
“And besides… I find this entire situation quite entertaining. What will our Harry do to get himself out of that situation?… aren’t you also curious Tommy?”
Tommy followed closely behind him, his head low, his face pale with concern.
They walked down the long, paved driveway toward the elite sector’s private transit lane.
Just as Andrew was about to reach his personal driver’s parking spot where the sleek black sedan sat idling, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Tommy, who had been staring anxiously at the ground, bumped hard into the King’s broad back.
He stumbled backward for a moment, his hands flailing as he caught his balance, before bowing his head and apologizing endlessly in a panicked rush.
Andrew didn’t hear the apologies.
He turned his head slowly, his gaze drifting back across the manicured lawns to the exact spot where Harry had been dragged out of sight.
He let out a long, heavy sigh, turning his full frame to face Tommy.
“Did you say they might rape him?”
Tommy startled, his breath catching in his throat as he looked away from Andrew’s piercing, analytical gaze.
He nodded frantically, his shoulders shaking.
“Yes… those seniors are more than capable of doing so. They are the exact ones we usually use for the M&M organization.”
“The Man Eat Man, huh?” Andrew’s eyes narrowed into dangerous, frozen slits.
He tilted his head, his knuckles cracking quietly inside his pockets.
“How brazen of them to act so entirely out of orders. I am the only one who has the right to harm Harry McGuire though.”
*****
Back to the present time.
Back in Lucas’s room, the air was heavy with the sterile scent of linen and the sharp copper tang of fresh blood.
Harry lay sprawled across the long leather sofa, his shredded commoner’s uniform staining the pristine cushions with dark, wet patches.
“Guys, I really have to go since it’s getting so late,”
Tommy said, his voice quiet as he checked the time on his wristwatch.
He looked up, his eyes moving between Andrew’s silent figure and Lucas, who stood near the edge of the carpet.
“I trust that Lucas will take care of him, right?”
Lucas let out a harsh, irritated sigh, his eyes dropping down to fix on the unconscious, battered face of the McGuire heir.
“The exact moment he wakes up, he is out of here,”
Lucas said, his tone biting and raw.
“I absolutely cannot have this jerk overstaying his welcome in my quarters. You should have taken him straight to the campus infirmary in the first place, Andrew, not brought him here to my room.”
Lucas clicked his tongue, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his entire frame radiating a deep, unyielding annoyance.
Tommy sighed softly, stepping forward to gently nudge Lucas’s shoulder with his arm, trying to force a calming smile.
“Don’t be like that, Lucas,” Tommy murmured gently.
“I’m sure Harry will properly apologize to you once he finally wakes up and realizes what happened.”
“Not even in my wildest dreams,” Lucas countered flatly.
Tommy chuckled softly at the stubbornness, turning around to make his way toward Andrew.
He reached up, wrapping his arms around the King’s neck to passionately kiss him goodbye.
Andrew accepted the gesture smoothly, his large hand resting on Tommy’s waist for a brief moment before they parted.
“I will see you guys tomorrow morning,” Tommy whispered, stepping toward the door.
“Let Bob drive you back to your sector, Tommy,” Andrew commanded softly, his voice returning to its usual authoritative lilt.
Tommy nodded, throwing one last look at the room before finally leaving their presence.
The heavy mahogany door clicked shut behind him, and the moment he left, he left behind a massive, suffocating wave of silence that hovered directly over Harry’s broken, wounded body.
“He shouldn’t be here,” Lucas repeated, his voice dropping into a tense whisper as he pointed at the couch.
“He should be under medical supervision at the infirmary, judging by how much blood he is completely draped in.”
“I will ask one of our trusted private nurses to come and check on him tomorrow morning,” Andrew said, his voice dropping into the calmest, most measured cadence he could ever master.
He walked over to the kitchen counter, leaning his hip against the marble.
“But right now, you just need to take care of him and clean him up, Lucas. He also needs to stay here in your suite for a little while. He is simply not safe enough to live alone in the lower barracks anymore.”
“Andrew, that is absolutely none of my business,” Lucas hissed, turning his back on the sofa to face the King.
His eyes were wide, a frantic edge creeping into his voice.
“Harry is none of my business! And most of all, I—”
“They nearly gang-raped him in that alley, Lucas,” Andrew interrupted.
The words were spoken softly, but they carried the weight of an anvil.
Andrew leaned forward, his dark eyes locking onto Lucas’s pale face.
“Do you really want what happened to Malfoy to happen to him too? Because if that’s exactly what you want, then what on earth was the point of you saving his ass from those seniors earlier today?”
Lucas fell entirely silent.
No…
he was completely taken aback by the sudden, horrific revelation.
His breath caught in his throat, his mind flashing back to the cold concrete of the East Hall.
“Harry will stay here for the time being,” Andrew continued, taking a slow step toward him.
“He cannot be alone. And neither can you.”
“What is that supposed to mean? I am pretty fine on my own, Andrew.”
“No, you are not,” Andrew countered, a slow, predatory smirk spreading across his lips as he closed the remaining distance between them.
He extended his right hand, using his thumb to gently nudge Lucas’s chin upward, forcing the boy to look directly into his dark eyes.
“You think I don’t know about your little condition? You think I don’t know about the hallucinations you have the moment you are left alone in the dark?”
Lucas’s eyes quickly shot up, his pupils dilating with a sudden, freezing terror.
“You always seem to forget that you can’t hide a single thing from me, Lucas,” Andrew whispered, his thumb pressing slightly harder against the bone of Lucas’s jaw.
“I know everything that happens to you in this building. Oh… I mean *everything*.”
Lucas froze under the touch, his heart hammering against his ribs.
‘Figures…’ he thought bitterly, his jaw tensing against Andrew’s thumb.
‘After all, aren’t you the exact one who sent that private courier to bring me those heavy antipsychotic pills in the first place?’
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Lucas muttered, sharply pulling his chin away from Andrew’s hand.
He turned his entire body away from the King, facing the sofa where Harry lay breathing in shallow, ragged rasps.
“I am getting much better now. I only need to get over his death. That’s all this is.”
“I still can’t believe you actually loved that guy to the point that you’d get physically depressed over his death,”
Andrew scoffed, letting out a short, mocking laugh as he looked at the couch.
“What did you actually like about him anyway, Lucas? He was just a worthless nerd.”
“Andrew, Malfoy was my absolute best friend and my roommate for years,” Lucas said, his voice cracking with a sudden, massive surge of raw grief that he couldn’t suppress.
He turned his head, his eyes blazing with tears as he looked at the King.
“So of course I would get depressed by his death… a death that I literally witnessed with my own two eyes!”
“You—” Andrew started, his jaw tightening as his eyes flared with an immediate, dangerous jealousy.
“No, just let it rest now,” Lucas interrupted, his shoulders dropping in complete exhaustion as he raised a hand to cut the King off.
He closed his eyes, a tear escaping from the corner of his lid.
“I don’t want to fight with you over my dead friend anymore. So please. Just leave it like that or else it won’t end.”
Just then, even before Andrew could frame a reply to Lucas’s defensive outburst, a low, ragged groan cut through the tense atmosphere of the suite.
Harry stirred against the plush leather cushions, his bruised fingers twitching against his torn trousers.
Both Andrew and Lucas snapped their heads down to look at him.
“Let’s drop this topic entirely before Harry hears us,” Lucas calmly suggested, his voice instantly dropping back into that smooth, clinical midline register.
He adjusted his frames with a cool, steady finger.
“The absolute last thing that we need right now is this hothead hearing us bicker about his dead brother.”
Andrew hesitated for a fraction of a second, his dark eyes flickering with a cold, residual jealousy, but he finally gave a curt nod, agreeing with the logic.
Just then, Harry let out another heavy, fluid groan, his eyelashes fluttering before he forced his hazy, bloodshot eyes open.
The bright, warm LED lights of the midline suite made his vision blur instantly.
He grimaced, attempting to push himself up to sit straight, but the moment his weight shifted, a white-hot wave of agony rolled through his fractured ribs and sliced straight through his abdomen.
The physical pain anchored him, forcefully pushing him right back down onto the couch.
“Those fucking cowards!…”
Harry fumed, his voice raspy and broken as he lay flat.
He spit a smear of copper-tasting saliva onto his lip, his teeth gritting together so tightly the bone in his jaw clicked.
“I will kill those bastards… I’ll kill them with my own bare hands!”
“Lucas warned you clearly not to leave like a total dumbass just to avoid this exact situation,” Andrew said, remaining at the edge of the counter with his arms crossed.
He looked down at the battered heir without a shred of sympathy.
“But what did you do instead, you stubborn prick? You marched right out into the dark.”
Harry hissed, rolling his silver eyes away toward the ceiling, though the movement made his head throb brutally.
“They wouldn’t have stood a single chance if they didn’t all gang up on me at once… those miserable mutts.”
“Yeah, right…”
Andrew took his turn to roll his eyes, a dry, mocking chuckle escaping his lips.
Harry merely clicked his tongue in profound irritation, his hazy gaze wandering across the high-vaulted ceiling and the expensive wooden panels of the room as reality began to piece itself back together.
“How the hell did I even get back here anyway?”
“Andrew and Tommy brought you back,” Lucas finally spoke up, his tone flat as he indicated the King standing by the kitchen island.
“They saw those guys dragging your limp body somewhere dark, and they stepped in to save you from them.”
Harry froze.
He turned his head slowly, ignoring the sharp sting in his neck to look at Lucas as if he had completely lost his mind.
“Saved me?… Andrew Mayfair? Saved me?… Oh, please say something that actually makes sense, Lucas.”
“Is that honestly your only concern right now, Harry?” Andrew cut in, taking a slow, predatory step toward the couch.
He leaned over the backrest, his shadow completely blanking out the room’s light.
“If it wasn’t for me and Tommy intervening when we did, you could have been thoroughly defiled by those commoners by now.”
The raw truth of the word hit Harry right on a sensitive nerve.
His pride flared hotter than his physical injuries.
He snarled up at Andrew, his battered fingers clenching into weak, trembling fists against the leather.
“They would have never dared to go that far…”
Harry growled, his breathing turning shallow.
He forced his eyes to lock onto the King’s dark gaze.
“Andrew… find me those bastards. I need you to locate them. I need to break every single one of their fingers as soon as humanly possible.”
“Calm down. You’re not even in the physical state to lift your own arms right now,” Andrew countered smoothly, completely brushing off the violent outburst.
He reached out, his gloved finger casually flicking a piece of dried leaf from Harry’s torn lapel.
“Focus entirely on getting better, and I will handle everything else on your behalf, baby daddy.”
“After all… you and I are one now.”
Harry’s jaw tightened in disgust, but Andrew didn’t give him room to speak.
The King straightened his spine, delivering his terms with the absolute, icy clarity of a dictator.
“Focus on getting better. Tomorrow evening, we still have to visit your family’s grand mansion to pick up our daughter. Lolleta and your distinguished mother cannot see you looking this battered and broken up, or else they won’t trust me with the responsibility of taking care of you and our daughter. And from now on, you will live right here in this suite with Lucas for obvious safety reasons, since he also lives completely alone. You will sign that contract in order to officially have my protection and stay under my wing as my Vice President. I will personally arrange the new student council tunic for you to replace that shredded rag. Make sure to get along with Lucas… and you can thank me later, okay?”
Harry huffs, his mind spinning wildly as he tries to process the massive mountain of demands, logic, and conditions thrown at him all at once.
But his aching, concussed brain utterly fails him, leaving him trembling with pure, unadulterated irritation.
“You fucking—”
“Just like I said,” Andrew interrupted with a sharp, victorious smirk, “you can thank me later my love.”
Harry glared at him, his silver eyes flashing with a venom that could have milk curdled.
Andrew’s smirk only widened before he casually turned to the side, his gaze shifting to Lucas, whose face had hardened into a pale, tight mask throughout the entire exchange.
“Take good care of him, Lucas,”
Andrew commanded, adjusting the heavy gold cuffs of his elite uniform.
“I am leaving the building now, and I will come back to check on the two of you first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Of course…”
Lucas agreed verbally, but his expression soured completely, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the floorboards.
The commoner heir forced himself up by a fraction of an inch, wincing as his ribs protested.
“In order for me to actually agree to all of those absurd terms of me becoming your Vice Prez… then you will absolutely have to pay me a regular salary for it. I won’t slave for you for free.”
Andrew paused, turning his head back with an amused, condescending brow raised.
“But it’s entirely for your own safety, Harry.”
“I can just drop out of this godforsaken academy and go right back to where I came from,” Harry mocked, a bitter smile touching his lips despite the blood drying on his chin.
“It won’t be that hard. After all, surviving this structural hellhole was never part of my plans.”
“Do you honestly think I’ll let you?” Andrew’s voice dropped into a dark, freezing register that instantly pinned Harry to the cushions.
The King stepped back into the living area, his eyes boring into the injured boy.
“If you don’t sign that contract, Harry McGuire, you’re never getting your hands on Lolleta ever again. So tread extremely carefully around me.”
“I can just disappear with Lolleta just the exact same way I did three years ago,” Harry countered, his tone dripping with a dangerous, defiant mockery.
He tilted his head, staring directly into the King’s teeth.
“And trust me, Andrew… it’s really easy to vanish when I actually want to….you know that very well right?”
Andrew glared at him, his fists clenching inside his pockets as if silently daring the boy to even try it.
“Pay me for my slavery, Andrew Mayfair,” Harry demanded again, his teeth grinding.
“And I mean real, cold cash—not some measly peanuts from your allowance. I won’t slave for your political games for free. Or is that concept a bit too hard for you to grasp, big guy?”
“Are you truly that broke now, Harry McGuire?” Andrew snickered, the insult smooth and calculated.
“Did the distinguished Bishop finally disown you along with stripping off every single ounce of your inheritances?”
“I am not broke. My money is just highly limited right now,” Harry hissed, his face flushing.
“And besides… in order for me to move around independently without my father tracking every single cent that I spend money on, I need some clean cash that doesn’t bear his name. So make it happen.”
“Mhm. Well, that’s incredibly easy,” Andrew hummed, his expression instantly shifting back into a lazy, victorious amusement.
“I can easily make that happen for you, Harry. But… with an additional condition, though.”
Harry let out a defeated, painful sigh, his shoulders dropping against the leather as he shrugged.
He looked up at the towering elite.
“Spit it out then. What absurd, twisted condition did you make up in that head of yours now?”
“In order to make your little salary worth my investment,” Andrew whispered, leaning down until his shadow completely enveloped Harry once more,
“—you should do absolutely everything that I say, and exactly the way that I want them done. Each and every single thing, no matter what it is.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed into slits behind his crooked frames.
He measured the trap, weighing the cash against his autonomy.
“If it’s absolutely nothing lewd… then you’ve got yourself a deal. And Lucas stands right there as our official witness.”
Lucas didn’t even look up; he just shook his head in profound disdain, completely refusing to mind their nonsense.
His mind was miles away, trapped in the East Hall with a ghost.
He only wished for the two of them to get out so he could be left alone in the dark, as usual.
“I am leaving for real now,”
Andrew said, straightening his coat and walking toward the door.
“Try your absolute best not to kill each other during the night, okay?”
“I won’t bother myself with a broken, crippled guy, you can rest assured of that,” Lucas mocked.
He stepped up to the couch, extending a finger to deliberately poke the bright red bruise rising on Harry’s painful cheek.
“Fuck!—”
Harry hissed, flinching away from the touch as he shot a lethal, white-hot glare at Lucas.
Lucas merely smirked down at him, his eyes narrowing behind his glasses with a cruel satisfaction.
“I am leaving now. See you two tomorrow,” Andrew called out.
Harry gave a curt, tight nod, and Andrew finally walked away from the living room, heading out into the foyer.
Lucas followed close behind, walking him out to the threshold to ensure the heavy lock clicked securely behind the King’s departure.
The click of the deadbolt sounded massive in the sudden silence of the suite.
Lucas turned back around, his soft footsteps echoing as he re-entered the living room.
Both he and Harry immediately locked eyes, staring at one another with an intense, raw disdain that filled the space between them like smoke.
“Since you clearly don’t want anything to do with Malfoy and his old stuff,” Lucas started, his voice dripping with an icy, unbothered detachment, “I’ll let you use my private bedroom instead, and I’ll take over Malfoy’s old room down the hall. The first aid kit is located in the cabinet inside the bathroom. So go get it yourself and clean your own face and body up.”
Lucas paused by the hallway entrance, casting a thoroughly dismissive look over his shoulder at Harry’s shattered form.
“I don’t exactly know how you’re going to manage since you are completely crippled right now, but I’m sure a proud main line heir like you will figure out a way to get there… crawl across the floor if you have to.”
With that final, parting insult, Lucas turned on his heel and left the living area, walking down the corridor without waiting even a second for Harry’s response.
Harry slammed his head back against the cushion, brushing the words off with a sharp, defensive sneer.
Loud enough for Lucas to hear him from down the corridor.
“What an absolute, nasty jerk…”
Harry muttered loudly to the empty room.
“One would swear that you’re currently on your fucking period, Lucas!”
“Well, since you’re the only man in this academy who actually had a child, it’s only possible for *you*, right?”
Lucas’s sarcastic voice countered instantly, echoing sharply from the depths of the hallway.
Harry shot a monstrous, death-filled glare toward the dark corridor, his teeth bared.
“Get the fuck out of my face before I shove that big head of yours straight inside my asshole and let you see the anatomy for yourself, you bastard!”
“Hmph!”
A sharp, dismissive scoff was the only reply that drifted back before Lucas’s shadow finally disappeared completely into the rear bedrooms, followed by the firm, distant click of a door closing.
Harry clicked his tongue in profound annoyance, his chest heaving as he finally let his tense shoulders relax, sinking back down into the soft leather of the couch.
The room went dark as the automated system dimmed the lights, leaving him alone with the throb of his wounds and the cold weight of the Mayfair contract hanging over his head.
‘I only wanted to mend my life for my daughter and continue my studies….not to tangle myself in a cob of web created by her father and playing the survival games against the rest of the students.’
‘Was coming back here the right decision?…Mom was right that I should have transferred schools.’
******
### Room 402 Multi-Room Allocation “` [Main Living Area] ────────────────┐
└─► Occupant: Harry (Temporary) │
▼ [Midline Corridor] ────────────────┼────────────────┐
│
│
│
▼
▼
▼ [Master Bedroom]
[Guest Bedroom]
[Shared Bathroom]
└─► Allocated to: Harry
└─► (Malfoy’s)
└─► First Aid Location
└─► Lucas