Chapter 153 A butler in suit

Chapter 153 A butler in suit
Tegan

I stood frozen against Hayes’s chest, my fingers buried so tightly into the fabric of his white suit jacket that my knuckles were white.

My formerly pristine white silk gown, the one I had spent hours picking out to perfectly frame my pregnancy curves, now looked like a vintage Halloween wedding dress.

Splashes of thick, heavy black soot coated the front of it, bleeding into the fabric and destroying the expensive, old-money aesthetic I had planned.

I took a shaky breath, realizing my hands were shaking against his lapels.
I looked around the beach in complete, paralyzed shock.

The gorgeous white silk canopies were completely ruined, sagging under the weight of the dark powder that had rained down from the sky. The silver candelabras were covered in ash. The crystal flutes of champagne looked like cups of ink. But my eyes didn't stay on the wreckage for long. They snapped directly to the elevated DJ stage.

Why was the Dean still standing there?

In any normal crisis, an academic official in his fifties would be running for the hills, or at least looking for security. Instead, he was standing directly behind the podium, completely unfazed by the black mist still settling over the sand.

He unhooked the microphone from its heavy metal stand with a slow, agonizingly deliberate click. The sound echoed through the high-end beach speakers, sharp and clear.

His prestigious, tailored coat was unbuttoned, catching the strong November gale and blowing behind him like a dark, dramatic villain cape.

He began to pace the length of the elevated wooden deck, his steps measured and rhythmic. He looked down at the hundreds of students frozen in the sand, and he smiled.

It wasn't a reassuring smile. It was a wide, hollow expression that carried the chilling weight of a man who had completely lost his mind.

Without missing a beat, the Dean took a sharp step toward the edge of the platform and pointed the microphone directly down at a guy at the front seat who was trying to wipe the black soot off his white sneakers.

"Nobody move," Dean's voice boomed through the sound system, smooth as silk but laced with a flat, terrifying finality.

The guy froze, one foot in the air, looking up like a deer caught in high-beam headlights. The Dean paused, his gaze sweeping over the rest of the crowd before he reached into his deep pocket.

He pulled out a lighter, the striking cap glinting under the amber twilight.

"I suggest you all practice respiratory discipline. This black mist coating your designer clothes, your white canopies, and the very sand beneath your shoes isn't smoke. It is a highly volatile, weaponized chemical aerosol. If I strike this single flare….the entire shoreline will vaporize in a fraction of a second. We will all burn as a singular unit."

A collective, terrified gasp was instantly swallowed by the crowd. Beside me, Hayes went completely, stone-cold rigid. I could feel the violent, frantic pace of his heartbeat vibrating straight through my palms, his muscles coiling tightly beneath his suit jacket, his arm tightening around my waist to physically shield my body from whatever was coming.

I stepped a fraction of an inch forward, leaving the safety of Hayes’s shadow, my spine perfectly straight.

"Why are you doing this?" I demanded.

My voice cut through the silent, frozen air, surprisingly steady. "You're a respected academic. You've run this university for a decade. Why are you holding your own students hostage?" I blinked in confusion.

Mr. Garrison turned his head slowly, looking down at me through the settling mist. A bitter laugh tore from his throat, echoing hollowly across the ocean waves.

"A respected academic?" he sneered, his tone dripping with deep, systemic venom as he started pacing again, walking back and forth near the main speakers.

"Oh, Tegan. You're a brilliant girl, but you're just as blind as the rest of these entitled, wealthy parasites. For ten years, I have been the 'owner' of an institution that is entirely out of my control. I am the gatekeeper of a playground for the rich. Do you have any idea what it feels like to sit in boardrooms with your corrupt parents, being treated like an invisible piece of administrative garbage?"

He stopped near the center podium, his face twisting into a deeply painful grimace. He slammed his fist down onto the wooden surface, making the microphone feedback hiss loudly.

"I spent twenty years earning my doctorates, researching academic policy, and trying to run a clean institution!" he shouted, his voice rising, tearing through the speaker system.

"And what for? To be treated like a goddamn puppet by your parents! They pull my strings with their donations. They call my office at two in the morning demanding I change a grade. They threaten to pull funding if their spoiled, useless brat gets suspended, and they look at me like I'm a butler in a suit! I have sat across from billionaires who couldn't spell basic administrative terms, forced to nod and smile while they treat me like trash because they have an extra digit in their bank accounts!"

He pointed the lighter aggressively at the crowd of students frozen in front of the stage. He took two rapid steps toward the left wing, gesturing wildly.

"And you... all of you! You come to my campus and treat it like your personal playground. You trash the dorms, you bribe the professors, you smuggle narcotics into the buildings, and you run around like you own the very air because daddy's black card covers the damages!"

"You commit hit-and-runs, you cover up accidental deaths, and I am the one who has to sign the nondisclosure agreements," the Dean continued, his voice dropping to a harsh, manic whisper as he leaned over the edge of the stage.

"I am the one forced to sweep the blood under the rug to protect your precious family names! You think you're untouchable. You think your wealth makes you gods. But under this mist, you're all just fragile, terrified little sheep."

He shook his head, a wild, manic look breaking completely through his composure, his eyes darting across the shore.

"That’s why, when I caught Noah Brookes hacking into the campus servers weeks ago, I didn't report him," the Dean confessed, a sick, victorious smirk breaking through his rage.

He looked directly at Charlie, who was trembling like a ghost near the front row, clutching Sophie’s arm. "Noah was smart, but he was driven by pathetic, blind grief for his dead brother. I took over the Tessa Bloom proxy database right out from under his nose. I used his encryption to track every single dirty secret on that campus. I finally had the leverage! I used the leaks to blackmail the board, control the faculty, and finally bend the university to my absolute whim. For the first time in my life, the elite kids and their wealthy parents were crawling to my office, begging a common administrator for help. I was the one pulling the strings!"

He stopped at the right edge of the stage, his eyes narrowing to dangerous slits as he pointed the lighter directly at me. Causing me to flinch.

"But then you had to be the smart girl, Tegan. You and your little strategy group started setting traps. You got too close to the source. I realized the forensic digital audit was going to trace the pings back to my administrative server line. I panicked. I had to sacrifice my pawn."

A pawn? Noah of course. He called me and told me it was Noah, he even played dumb about not knowing why I was asking if Ethan had a relative in the school. My chest heaved as the pieces fell into place.

"The phone call," I whispered, the sound carrying just enough for Hayes to hear beside me. "You purposely gave me Noah's real Fieldstone file."

"Of course I did!" the Dean shouted, taking three rapid steps back to the center of the stage. He raised his arms wide, the lighter clutched tightly in his right hand.

"I framed him! I dropped every single piece of incriminating server hardware, the backup drives, and the Tessa Bloom data logs straight into Noah’s room and had the police find the evidence. I handed him to you on a silver platter so you would stop looking for the real ghost. But now... I'm left with nothing, I'm back to square of of being a fucking puppet."

He lifted the lighter high into the twilight air. His thumb rested directly over the striking cap, his steps turned erratic and heavy on the wooden deck.

"If I am going down, I am not going down in silence!" he screamed, his voice a deafening, terrifying wail that echoed across the ocean water.

"I am going to take my revenge on every single old-money lineage in this state! This beach will be a massacre, and it will be a name for me! The police couldn't touch you rich kids, but I am going to write my own ending. I will be written into the history books forever, and you are all going to burn with me!"

He took a final, definitive step back, his grip tightening on the cap as he prepared to strike the flame.