Chapter Four
1049 Words
Aanya POV
The thing about whispers was—they never came all at once.
They came in fragments.
In sideways glances.
In unfinished sentences.
And in silences too loaded to ignore.
At first, Aanya thought she was imagining it. That maybe the electricity in her veins every time she thought about Ryan Williamson was just a silly crush—something inevitable when you bumped into a man like him on your first day in a new world.
But the more she settled into campus life, the more she realized: Ryan wasn't just the billionaire owner of Valemont University.
He was something else entirely.
Something… darker.
It started three days after the ceremony.
She was in the library, a mug of lukewarm coffee beside her, half-buried in a reading on global corporate influence when two upperclassmen sat down behind her. Their voices were low but not low enough.
“He was here again yesterday,” one of them whispered.
“Who?” the other asked.
“Ryan. He met with Professor Landen. Whole floor was cleared. Security, no students allowed up. Landen looked pale afterward.”
The other girl scoffed. “Probably just investor meetings. He funds half the university.”
“No, it was different. Landen said something to my roommate afterward. Something about blood money and threats.”
Aanya’s pulse quickened.
“Ryan Williamson?” the other girl asked, a little louder.
“Sssh!” the first girl hissed. “You’re not supposed to say his name like that. Not around faculty. Didn’t you hear what happened at that partner college in Italy last year?”
“What?”
“They shut it down. Overnight. Campus vanished. Like it never existed. No press. No statement. Just… gone.”
“Okay, that’s dramatic—”
“Just be careful,” the first one muttered. “He’s not just a CEO. He’s…” Her voice dipped even lower. “Connected.”
A pause.
“Connected how?”
“Like… mafia-connected.”
A scoff. Then silence.
Aanya didn’t move. Her fingers tightened around her pen, the ink bleeding a small mark on the page she wasn’t reading anymore.
Mafia-connected?
That’s ridiculous. Isn’t it?
But the tension in the girls’ voices said they didn’t think so. Not really.
That night, Aanya lay in bed, her phone clutched in her hand. The screen glowed softly in the dark as she scrolled past articles and images, diving deeper than she had dared before.
Ryan Williamson.
Everything on the surface was clean.
Founder and CEO of Williamson & Co., a global conglomerate with stakes in tech, luxury real estate, cybersecurity, private finance.
But the deeper she dug, the more… off things seemed.
A failed investigation into offshore accounts—sealed and buried within weeks.
A reporter who had gone missing mid-article during a Williamson exposé.
A rival company that had burned to the ground. Electrical failure, they said. But the CEO disappeared two days before.
And nothing was ever proven.
Because there were no trails. No names. No fingerprints.
Just silence.
Powerful, suffocating silence.
Aanya slammed her laptop shut.
Her heart was racing again, but not from attraction.
From something colder.
Something sharper.
Fear.
She sat back, staring into the darkness, replaying every interaction she’d had with him.
The bump.
The auditorium.
The cafeteria.
The way he looked at her.
The stillness behind his eyes.
Like a man who knew how to end a life and still drink wine over dinner.
No.
No, this is crazy.
She wasn’t in some movie. She wasn’t in danger.
Right?
The next morning, the tension still clung to her skin like smoke.
Her classes passed in a blur, but her awareness of him—of Ryan—had changed. She walked the campus like it was a map, trying to retrace where she had seen him, where he might appear again. Not because she wanted to see him… but because she needed to know.
She needed to understand what she had walked into.
She was just finishing her late afternoon lecture when she heard her name.
“Aanya, right?”
She turned. A tall girl with deep auburn curls and a clipboard smiled at her, dressed in a campus ambassador badge.
“Yeah,” Aanya replied cautiously.
“I’m Brielle. I work in student events. There’s an exclusive leadership mixer tomorrow evening—invitation only. You’ve been selected. Your academic profile flagged you early.” She handed her a sleek, black envelope.
“Leadership mixer?” Aanya repeated.
“It’s small. Private. Mr. Williamson himself curates the guest list sometimes,” Brielle said, winking. “So… maybe dress nice.”
And with that, she was gone.
Aanya stood frozen in the hallway, her fingers closing around the envelope.
It was blank. Heavy. Embossed with a silver crest.
Her pulse quickened.
Ryan.
He had remembered her.
But why?
That night, she didn’t sleep.
Not because she was excited.
Because now she knew too much… and not enough.
Why her?
Why now?
If the whispers were true—if Ryan was really connected to something criminal, to blood and power and empire—then what did he want with a scholarship student from Delhi?
And yet, despite her questions, despite the flicker of fear…
She wasn’t going to walk away.
Because deep inside the pit of her chest was something even more dangerous than fear.
Curiosity.
The next day came far too quickly.
By the time the evening arrived, Aanya stood in front of her dorm mirror in a black dress she had almost left in the suitcase back home. Her hands trembled as she added a touch of kajal to her eyes, brushed down her curls, and stared at herself like she was about to step into someone else’s life.
Maybe she was.
As she walked toward the private hall listed in the invitation, everything felt surreal.
Security stood at the doors, but the moment she gave her name, they opened with smooth efficiency.
And there he was.
Ryan Williamson.
In a dark navy suit this time. A glass in hand. Leaning against a marble column like he owned the world—because, in some twisted way, he did.
Their eyes met across the room.
And she knew—without question—he had planned this.
Planned her.
- Writer
