“Come to think of it Harry…”
Andrew stopped midway from approaching the office exit.
He froze just a few feet from the heavy oak door, his back completely rigid as the silence of the room settled around them.
Harry blankly looked up at him as he fixed his shirt to fit.
His fingers were still trembling slightly from the pain of his ribs, tugging at the white fabric to hide the fresh medical dressings Andrew had just finished pinning down.
“What are you—” Harry started, his voice a low, raspy murmur.
“Why did you ever do that?” Andrew interrupted.
He didn’t turn around.
His hands were tucked deep into his uniform pockets, his shoulders tense beneath the golden-trimmed blazer.
“Why did you betray me and my trust even after everything that we went through together because of our families? What were you hoping to achieve, Harry?” Harry blinked, he was utterly dumbfounded about where this conversation was heading.
“Or was it your father’s orders to spy on my family and find a piece of information that could have ruined us?”
The air in the office went completely cold.
The steady hum of the campus ventilation felt suffocating.
“You know, I always asked myself these questions but I never got the answers,” Andrew continued, his smooth voice dropping into a dark, quiet rhythm that made the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck stand up.
“…..—Because only you would have the answers to my questions. Harry McGuire.”
Harry let out a slow, heavy breath.
He finished buttoning his shirt and smoothed down the fabric, his expression hardening into a defensive wall.
“Andrew, just as you said, it is no point bringing up the past now,” Harry said, staring flatly at the back of the King’s head.
“So please, let us forget about it. After all, it’s not like you would believe anything that I say, you still have the wrong idea about me and our past, Andrew, and I can just see that right through you. So there is no point for us to talk about that past right now since it led us to this misunderstanding in the first place.”
Andrew swiftly turned on his heel.
The movement was sharp, sudden, and terrifyingly precise.
“A misunderstanding?” Andrew whispered.
Harry took an instinctive step backward whilst gulping down his saliva.
The sheer weight of the room seemed to press down on his chest.
Perhaps it was because Andrew had his back turned just a second ago that Harry hadn’t fully noticed the absolute death glare coming from Andrew’s hazel, sharp eyes.
They were wide, unblinking, and burning with a toxic, ancient fury.
“Is that what you call your betrayal?” Andrew hissed, stepping forward, his limp barely even visible under the sheer force of his anger.
“A misunderstanding?”
“I never betrayed you!!” Harry roared back, the sudden burst of volume ripping through his raw throat and sending a sharp, agonizing spike through his fractured ribs. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
He didn’t back down this time.
He glared right back through the shadows of the office.
“If anything, you are the one that betrayed me, Andrew Mayfair! I nearly died by your hands countless times because of the lies that you believed about me! Lies that weren’t even there!”
“Quit bullshitting me, Harry!” Andrew barked, his calm mask completely cracking for the first time since they had stepped into the suite the previous night.
He slammed his hand against the edge of the mahogany desk, the loud crack echoing off the walls.
“You are the only one I trusted with that secret back then! So how the hell did everyone get to know about it at school?”
Harry’s silver eyes flashed behind his dark lenses as he took another painful breath.
“Are you certain that I was the only one that knew that your grandfather was—”
The hard grasp on his neck cut Harry’s words short.
In a fraction of a second, Andrew closed the distance between them.
His large, strong hand clamped tightly around Harry’s throat, pinning him backward against the wall with a dull, heavy thud.
Andrew only tightened his fingers around his neck until Harry gasped for air, his throat closing up completely.
He felt his toes scrape against the floorboards as his feet literally left the ground under the force of Andrew’s grip.
“I only ask one thing of you. Just only one thing,” Andrew whispered, his face inches away from Harry’s.
His voice wasn’t loud anymore—it was a terrifying, low hiss that vibrated right against Harry’s skin.
“And it is the truth.”
Harry desperately struggled to remove the tight hold from his neck.
His hands tore at Andrew’s wrists, his fingernails digging into the expensive fabric of the King’s uniform, but Andrew’s fingers felt like solid iron.
The lack of oxygen made Harry’s vision blur at the edges, his bruised torso screaming from the sudden strain.
Andrew’s hazel eyes flickered with pure, unadulterated malice across his face.
He watched Harry choke, his expression dark and hollow.
“…And yet you deny me that very truth I truly need as well,” Andrew murmured, his grip remaining steady as Harry’s movements grew weaker.
“Don’t you think I deserve it now?”
“I–…” Harry scrambled to speak in between his hefty, desperate breaths, his lips parting but finding no air to form the syllables.
Andrew watched him for one more agonizing second, then he let out a sharp, disappointed sigh.
He abruptly let go of his grip.
Harry dropped instantly, falling heavily onto his knees on the carpeted floor.
He let out a loud, gasping scoff, his hands slamming into the ground to support his weight as his chest heaved violently, trying to pull oxygen back into his starved lungs.
He coughed roughly, the pressure in his neck slowly fading back into a dull, throbbing ache.
“I—…” Harry rasped, his voice incredibly weak as he stayed on his knees, staring down at the floor.
“I told you the truth once before… but you never believed me. And you even stabbed me to a coma for it. So what is the point for me to explain something that you won’t even believe in the first place? You never believed me… so what will fucking change now?!”
Harry hissed the last words out, completely infuriated, his silver eyes snapping up to glare at the tall figure standing over him.
“Our friendship has always been totally impossible, and you know that,” Harry whispered, his voice shaking with a mixture of rage and ancient exhaustion.
“What we had is all in the past, so let’s leave it like that and continue moving on as enemies that we already deem ourselves to be.”
He gripped the edge of the sofa, painfully forcing his battered body back up onto his feet.
His breath was still ragged, but his posture was completely rigid.
“A lot of our blood has been shed along with the sacrifices of our loved ones, so what’s the point of trying to redeem our friendship now after all that?” Harry asked, his voice dead and hollow.
He stared directly into Andrew’s sharp eyes, his face completely devoid of hope.
“Just kill me if it will all make you feel better, Andrew. At least I am prepared for that much.”
Harry finally scrambled off the floor and fixed his blazer, his fingers smoothing down the wrinkled collar of his shirt.
He picked up his dark sunglasses from the desk, slid them back over his eyes to hide the swelling, and turned his body directly toward the exit.
“Until the very end, Harry McGuire, you refuse to acknowledge your mistakes and your lies,” Andrew said.
His voice had returned to that cold, regular, tone, but the venom beneath it was thicker than ever.
“You refuse to take accountability for being the one that has betrayed our friendship. The one that has ruined us.”
Harry kept his hand on the door handle, but he didn’t pull it open yet.
He listened as Andrew walked up behind him, stopping just a foot away.
“You still remain completely unfazed by the fact that you ruined my life,” Andrew delivered, his whisper freezing the air.
“You might have not crumbled my family to the ground, but you definitely ruined each and every part of me, along with that man you call my grandfather. And for that… I will never forgive you.”
Andrew leaned in slightly, his breath hitting the side of Harry’s neck where the red finger marks were already beginning to darken.
“Just mark my words that I will make you pay with each and every single breath that you take next to me,” Andrew promised, his voice dead and final.
“You will pay dearly with your life Harry McGuire and that is my promise to you.”
Andrew clicked his tongue in pure disgust as he reached past Harry, and violently slapped the automated door control.
The heavy oak door slid open with a loud, hiss, and Andrew stormed out of the private office without looking back, his heavy boots clicking sharply down the bustling corridor.
And left entirely alone in the quiet office, Harry let out a massive, shuddering huff.
He slumped against the doorframe, his hand instantly flying to his chest to gather the oxygen that still felt like it was leaving his lungs.
His heart was hammering a frantic, terrifying rhythm against his broken ribs.
He stared out into the empty hallway where the King had just disappeared.
“Just do your worst,” Harry whispered into the empty room, a bitter, defiant smirk touching his pale lips.
“I’m already used to it all you damned bastard!”