Page 1 of Redeeming the Villain

My gaze locks on to her the second she steps inside the school doors, following her as she hesitantly walks through the foyer and down the hallway.

Cautiously, she takes in her surroundings, scanning the hall full of students, studying each of their faces. The same thing she does every day.

I doubt anyone else even can see her tiny movements and glances. But I do. I’ve noticed everything she’s done since her first day here. Even before I found out what her last name was this past weekend.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how cute she might be, not since I discovered who she really was. As far as I’m concerned now, she is just as much my enemy as her dad is.

Her strides close the distance to where I’m leaning back against my locker—waiting and watching. She could not have picked a worse school to transfer to. She doesn’t know it yet, but she will come to hate me. I’ll make sure of it.

Following her down the hallway, I hook my arm over her shoulders and lean into her blonde hair, breathing her in and telling myself that I hate how sweet she smells … like strawberries and vanilla.

My voice drips with venom as I say, “You are as small and insignificant as a bug, Alora. Have I told you that yet?”

She slams to a halt, peels herself out from my arm, and looks straight up at me with a quivering lip and wide, naive blue eyes. “Y-you’ve never talked to me. Do I know you?”

I slide my finger down the length of her nose before bopping the tip of it. “Not yet. But I knowyou.”

Those doe eyes fall to my lips for a second, and I wonder how pretty her mouth would be while moaning my name and begging me for more. But I force those thoughts away—the same ones I have late at night in bed with the image of her in my mind.

Her brows pinch in confusion, and she tightens her hold on the books in her arms. “If I did something to offend you, I apologize.

So polite. So rehearsed. So fake. Her political-esque response earns a guttural laugh from deep in my chest.

My face falls flat, and I stare down at her, hatred boiling in my blood as I force myself to feel disgust rather than lust. “Your existence offends me. Is that something you can change? Huh,Bug?”

She glances around for help before looking back up at me. But there isn’t anyone who is going to come to her aid, not here.

This is my school, my domain, and no one will dare to interfere.

Pursing her full pink lips, she sucks her cheek between her teeth, considering what to say. But unfortunately for her, nothing she says will change the inevitable future. It was written in the stars before she ever stepped foot in this town.

Her gaze meets mine again, wetter than before. “N-no, I don’t think I can change that.”

Twisting a loose lock of her honey-blonde hair around my finger, I sigh, my saddened expression twisting into a devious smirk.

“Tsk-tsk. What a shame.” I chuckle, glancing away as a shiver sweeps across my shoulders.

Grabbing her jaw, I hold her stare intensely so I can watch my words imprint themselves in her mind like a curse.

“Every day for as long as you live, I will ensure your life is as unbearable and empty as you’ve made mine,Briarwood.”

I take a shuddering, chilling breath, her last name a curse on my tongue. Her eyes widen slightly with shock that I know her name at all.

But that’s not all I know about her. I’ve studied her since I learned she was one ofthem, one of the rich monsters who had flipped my world on its head. I know her likes, dislikes, dreams, fears, and I’m going to use each one of them against her.

There is only one thing I am certain of in this world: never trust aBriarwood. Not the pretty blonde one who just transferred to my school and, more importantly, not her father—the monster who stole all happiness from my life as if it meant nothing.

She deserves everything I have planned for her because no one from the kind of endless money and greed she was born into can possibly be good. She’s just like her father, flaunting her luxury brands and car, as if the cost of them weren’t more than what I could make in the next twenty years.

I tried to be nice—I really did.

Well, that’s a lie.

But it’s not my fault. I can’t look at her without seeing what her father, Congressman Daniel Briarwood, did. I might not be able to get to him, butshe’sright in front of me. Besides, the best way to hurt someone is to hurt the one they love most.

My entire life, I have navigated the balance between being forced into the spotlight by my father and hiding in the shadows cast behind him.

Don’t draw unnecessary attention. Don’t make a scene.

---