At St. Augustine’s Academy, privilege and power run through every marble hallway. For some, this final year means freedom. For others, it’s the stepping stone to even greater influence. But for a few, it will become a life-altering secret they can never escape.

Isabella Marquez has her future mapped out; graduate top of her class, enter the most prestigious university, and one day take control of her father’s empire. Nothing and no one will stop her.

Especially not Alexander Hawthorne with his smirk and blue eyes, the Duke’s reckless second son. To Isabella, he’s nothing more than a chain-smoking, party-throwing menace who will likely end up in jail before graduation.

But when a classmate turns up dead in Isabella’s dorm room, Alexander becomes the only person who can help her prove her innocence. Forced into an uneasy alliance, Isabella discovers that behind his arrogant smirk and scandalous reputation lies someone far more complicated than she ever imagined.

And in a world where secrets are currency and friends can become enemies and enemies can become something dangerously more, Isabella may find herself risking more than just her future, she may risk her heart.



Dive in to explore Isabella's life as it either takes a turn for the best or the worse.


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The dining hall smelled of butter and toasted bread, undercut by the sharper tang of brewed coffee that drifted from the faculty section and fruits, various types of fruits. Morning light filtered through the wide arched windows, gilding the edges of chatter, laughter, and clinking cutlery. To anyone else, it was just another breakfast at St. Augustine's...students crowding around polished oak tables, trading gossip and notes. But to me, it was anything but that. 


I spotted Mateo easily. He always sat at the same place, near the far end of the second row of tables, where his friends flanked him like soldiers while he was the emperor looking down on his subjects. That made no sense but I don't care. There was this utter dislike I was beginning to have towrds Mateo and it irked me that I was so blind to his true self before.


Chapter 28 - The Confrontation I