When pride collides

The king’sGame

Chapter 3 – The King’s Game

Zayden Wellington didn’t walk. He prowled.

There was something in the way he moved that suggested the world owed him not just respect—but silence. Even the squeaky tiles of the administrative hallway seemed to shut up when he passed. The trees even have their own way of bowing to him whenever he walked pass.

The son of Silas Wellington and raised in one of the most exclusive ranch estates in all of Texas, Zayden didn’t grow up with bedtime stories. He grew up with board meetings and extravagant dinner parties.

He was fluent in stock prices by age ten. Negotiated a horse-breeding contract at twelve. At fifteen, he bought out an entire line of skincare products after a girl he liked said she hated the way her lotion smelled. The girl never even knew. But the lotion vanished from every luxury shelf in the state.

Power was his inheritance.

And Starlight College was his playground.

The school had a structure. Not one written in student handbooks or pinned to bulletin boards—but a social pyramid as real as any caste system.

At the top were The Royals.

A group of five students, a mixture of sophomore year, 3rd year and final years. All children of billionaires. All untouchable.

Zayden, of course, was their king.

Liam Callahan, his right hand. Sharper than most professors, quieter than most ghosts.

Ava Monroe, the strategist. Beautiful, deadly, and always three steps ahead of her own allies.

Rafael De Luca, the muscle. His father was an international arms dealer, which no one ever discussed, but everyone just knew.

Bianca Rose. Pretty. Petty. Plastic. The face of Starlight’s social media. If she posted about you, you were relevant. If she blocked you, it was social death.

And Scarlette Summers. The Poisonous snake. Deadly.Arrogant. Her Father is a mafia don and the leader of all the mafias in the continent and she is a mafia herself. If you cross her you are dead.

The Royals had a private lounge beneath the west tower. Rumor had it, there was a retinal scanner to get in and a minibar stocked with liquor brands that didn’t exist in regular stores.

And Zayden? He ran the lounge like a CEO. It wasn’t about fun. It was about control.

It wasn’t always like this.

Zayden hadn’t always planned to rule the school. He had arrived freshman year with zero interest in college drama. His plan was simple: stay detached, keep grades decent, and wait out the four years before taking over the Wellington empire officially.

But then, on his first day, a senior had the audacity to trip him in the hallway.

The boy laughed.

Zayden didn’t.

By the end of the week, that boy’s father was fired from a Wellington-run oil refinery in Houston.

No one tripped Zayden again.

No one bully Him.

No one talk back at him.

And so began his reign.

His classes weren’t mandatory. Professors knew better than to mark him tardy. He was never really in school. He was the school.

Even the deans had meetings with him weekly—updates, reports, favors requested in hush tones. It wasn’t illegal, but it felt immoral.

Still, he wasn’t reckless.

Zayden played chess while others were still learning checkers. He knew what buttons to push and when. He never screamed. Never hit. Never got his hands dirty.

He let people fall on their own. He just moved the ground under them.

Meanwhile, across campus, Anastasia Michaels was adjusting.

By now, she’d memorized every shortcut between classes. Knew which professors actually read the essays and which ones just skimmed for formatting. Knew to never take the elevator during lunch—too many models touching up makeup and snapping selfies for their followers in Monaco.

She still didn’t understand the obsession with monogrammed water bottles.

But she’d stopped reacting.

Every comment, every sideways glance—she collected them like data. Her face never showed the equation she was solving in her head.

She wasn’t intimidated.

She was calculating.

And when she passed Zayden in the hall for the first time, she didn’t even flinch.

He looked at her.

She looked away.

For the first time, he was the one left wondering.

That same afternoon, Zayden called an emergency Royals meeting.

They gathered in their underground lounge inside Zayden’s Mansion, lounging on leather couches that cost more than some people’s college tuition.

“She didn’t look at you?” Bianca asked, eyes wide like she’d just heard a slur.

“Didn’t even pause,” Zayden muttered, tossing his phone onto the table.

“Maybe she’s blind,” Rafael offered. “Or on something.”

“She’s not blind,” Liam said, glancing at the screen where a video looped of Anastasia shutting down a teacher with an articulate clapback about early capitalism.

“She’s sharp,” Ava added. “And not scared of us. That’s rare.”

“I don’t like rare,” Zayden said. “I like predictable.”

There was a moment of silence.

Then Bianca leaned forward. “You could break her.”

“Why waste time?” Liam cut in, tone even.

“Because this is Starlight,” Bianca said, flipping her hair. “And people are getting bored. We haven’t had new drama since Felix’s crypto scheme flopped.”

Zayden didn’t reply.

But something in his expression shifted.

A thought.

A plan.

A trap.

The next day, the school’s social platform, StarlightSphere, exploded.

A new post from Bianca:

📸 "Scholarship girls shouldn’t look like models. Someone check her bank account before I call fraud."

It got over 800 likes in 20 minutes.

Anastasia saw it between classes. Blinked once. Then deleted the app.

She wasn’t there for approval.

But others noticed. The whispers got louder. The attention heavier.

Still, she walked through it like smoke.

Unbothered. Unshaken. Unreadable.

And that was what drove Zayden mad.

Liam, as always, observed.

He met Anastasia once in the library—accidentally. Or so it seemed.

She was researching Texas judicial history, scanning three books at once, earphones in and eyes focused on what she was doing.

“Ambitious reading list,” he remarked casually.

She looked up. Gave him one quick nod.

“That’s what you get when you want to debate without sounding dumb.”

Liam smiled. “You’re not like the others.”

“You say that like it’s a compliment,” she replied.

Then she packed up and left.

He didn’t follow.

But he was interested now.

Not in a romantic way. Not yet.

In a dangerous way.

She was a variable.

And Starlight hated variables.

Meanwhile, the lecturers had started whispering, too.

Mrs. Lennox in history called her “an overachiever but polite.”

Mr. Dawson in economics muttered that she “asks the right questions, but with the wrong tone.”

Coach Ray didn’t care. He was too focused on football and his upcoming Botox.

Mrs Camilla in Philosophy called her “Brainy”.

But one teacher—Mrs. Blanche, the drama instructor—pulled Anastasia aside after class.

“You’re smart,” she said. “Smarter than this place deserves. Be careful.”

Anastasia tilted her head. “Why?”

Mrs. Blanche gave a tired smile.

“Because people with your kind of mind don’t play games. And Starlight? This whole school is a casino.”

Later that night, in the Rafael’s Mansion, Ava, Bianca, and Rafael were watching old clips from the Royals’ prank archives.

Zayden wasn’t laughing.

He was watching Anastasia’s student file.

Her GPA: perfect.

Behavior: spotless.

Scholarship: full ride, sponsored by the Starlight Legacy Foundation.

Parents: divorced. Mother—nurse. Father—unknown.

Zayden closed the tab.

He wasn’t looking for dirt.

He was looking for motive.

No one got into Starlight by accident.

So why her?

He didn’t have answers.

And Zayden Wellington hated not having answers.

“She doesn’t even behave like most of the scholarship students, She behaves like she owns the place and he Zayden, is going to break her like they break Susan” Zayden thought with a smile.

Flashback 1 year ago

During Zayden’s first year in college there was a particular Scholarship student named Susan Langford, Susan was fire, Everybody knows Susan, Susan does not bow for anyone and she is both beautiful and arrogant. Susan came from a very poor background. Susan moved around Starlight college like she owns the place, she disrespected both the royals and the other wealthy kids until she crossed Scarlette Summers (Double s) as people call her. Scarlette Summers is not any time of girl you mess with and go scott free, Susan was a fresher but Double S was in her third year. Double s is the quiet type of girl with deadly smile. She is referred to as a poisonous snake herself, her face is deadly and she rarely smiles. Everybody knows Double S as Ruthless, Merciless and Quiet. Scarlette summers is feared by a lot of people herself, even Zayden feared her but he does not show that, he dares not confront her or cross her. Scarlette is not just a student, She is a mafia don herself and the apparent heir to Black Angels Mafioso castle, they are not italian mafias but they are deadly, They rule their continent and even some Italian Castle bow to them. Her Father is the ruthless Alexander Summers, Presidents bow their heads when he his talking, they dare not look at his face when he is talking, Even Silas Wellington respected him cause he did not want his head to be served on a platter. Scarlette Mother, Maria Summers is deadlier than her husband, she kills without blinking, her conscience is ripped and that is how scarlette is also.

But, Susan Langford does not care afterwards, people warn her not to cross Scarlette with her attitude but she never cared. She sees everyone as her mate and she thinks everyone is on her level but one day she did the unthinkable to Scarlette and she reaped the