Chapter 300: My Little Ghost Valkyrie

The smell of expensive coffee and something distinctly breakfast-like pulled me from the bed. My stomach reminded me that even gods needed fuel, especially after transforming their entire genetic structure in a hotel bathtub.

*

The dining area looked like the kind of scene you’d see in a glossy lifestyle magazine—if that family portrait also featured a traumatized Korean trafficking survivor cooking, a billionaire CEO in crisis, her recently-topless mother, and two women who’d been sharing me without complaint. Dysfunction packaged as luxury.

Margaret wouldn’t meet my eyes. She’d found clothes—silk blouse, flawless cut, price tag obscene—but her cheeks stayed crimson like she’d swallowed a sun. Every time she reached for something, she glanced at me, then looked away so fast you’d think the sight of me burned or as if my eye contact itself might undress her again.

She was behaving like a teenager minimizing porn when the door opens.

"Morning," I said, casual, as though I hadn’t watched her C-cups bounce like they were auditioning for a slow-motion reel in the hallway three hours ago.

She made a sound that might have been "morning" or might have been her choking on air. Charlotte gave her mother the kind of look you reserve for toddlers licking wall sockets, the look that said,

’what the hell is wrong with you?’

but Margaret just pinned her hopes on her eggs, staring like they contained the code to surviving this room.

"Why didn’t you all eat?" I asked, lowering myself into a chair that probably cost more than a car loan. "You didn’t have to wait."

"Charlotte insisted," Madison said, rolling her eyes. "Something about ’proper etiquette’ and ’business partners eating together.’"

"It’s called civilization," Charlotte replied smoothly, though her smile betrayed the stiffness.

"Civilization?" Madison tilted her head. "You call this civilization? It looks more like hostage etiquette."

"Still, civilization in any way," Charlotte countered, but she was smiling. "Some of us weren’t raised by wolves."

"Wolves with trust funds," Madison corrected. "Very different breed."

Soo-Jin arrived with enough food to end wars—or start them. A spread that looked like art, smelled like sin, and promised cardiac arrest in the most dignified way possible. Kimchi omelets, bulgogi Benedict, French toast that had abandoned France entirely but reinvented itself as something far superior.

"Soo-Jin, this is incredible," Amanda said, already halfway through a dish with a moan that didn’t belong at a breakfast table.

"Is nothing," Soo-Jin muttered, though the tiniest lift at the corner of her mouth betrayed her satisfaction.

Charlotte’s phone buzzed. One glance and her face collapsed faster than a deal gone wrong.

"Harvard," she said, setting it to speaker. "President Harrison."

"Ms. Thompson," came Harrison’s voice, stretched thin with panic. "We need to discuss the timeline for releasing the authentication documents."

Charlotte’s tone held more steel than warmth. "What’s the situation?"

"We’ve lost forty-seven million in pledged donations since yesterday. Alumni associations are threatening to withdraw support. The student newspaper is calling for investigations. We need to act."

ARIA, without being asked, pulled up the news feeds on the wall-mounted TV. The damage was fucking brutal. Harvard was taking blows like a boxer who’d forgotten how to guard. Stanford wasn’t faring any better — protesters at the gates, faculty demanding answers, donors abandoning ship like rats from a listing vessel.

Charlotte looked at me. The question in her eyes was clean and deadly: when?

"Tomorrow," I said. "Wednesday morning, 9 AM Eastern. Synchronized release."

Harrison’s relief came through over the line like a man pulling oxygen. "Tomorrow. We can survive until tomorrow."

"You’ve survived worse," Charlotte said. "And you’re still getting paid."

"Yes, well, five hundred million does buy considerable patience," Harrison admitted. "But Ms. Thompson, the damage to Quantum Tech—"

"Is my problem," she finished, flat and sharp. "Focus on your end. Tomorrow, 9 AM."

She hung up and opened her laptop like someone ripping off a bandage. The numbers were worse than yesterday. Quantum Tech: down forty-five percent. Nearly half the company’s value evaporated in hours.

My phone buzzed. Tommy.

"Bro, do you know what the fuck is happening?" His voice was raw panic mixed with giddy disbelief. "The school is on fire!"

"Literally or metaphorically?" I asked.

"Metaphorically, but almost literally. Sofia and Lea got into it, Jack tried to intervene, someone threw a chair — I’m not even kidding, an actual fucking chair — and now everyone’s choosing sides like it’s Civil War but with more hormones."

"What do you mean Sofia and Lea got into it?"

"I know just half the details, man. Something about you, something about Madison, something about someone being a gold-digging whore — Lea’s words, not mine — and then Sofia apparently slapped her so hard the sound echoed in the cafeteria."

I laughed despite myself, standing up and walked to the balcony. "Sofia slapped Lea?"

"Bro, she went full telenovela. The whole school’s talking about it. The group chat is exploding. You need to check the forum when you get back. It’s... it’s fucking incredible."

"I’ll be back Thursday, probably. Try not to let them burn down the actual building."

"No promises. Oh, and Jack’s walking around like someone stole his soul. He’s having an existential crisis because Sofia defended you."

"Good. Let him suffer."

"Cold, bro. Ice cold. But fair."

"But first, dude," Tommy continued, his voice dropping to serious panic mode, "what the actual fuck is going on with Quantum Tech? Every news channel is calling Charlotte a fraud. They’re saying her degrees are fake, her whole company is built on lies. And you’re there with her? Bro, are you okay? Is she holding you hostage or some shit?"

I let the question hang like a charm gone sour, because sometimes the best answer is the one that makes people rearrange their insides.

I could hear the genuine worry in his voice. Tommy might joke about everything, but when it came to people he cared about, he was protective as a mother bear with anger management issues.

"Tommy, breathe," I said, leaning against the railing. "Charlotte’s not a fraud. The media’s being fed bullshit by people who want to destroy her company."

"But her degrees—"

"Are real. The documents proving it drop tomorrow morning. This whole thing is a setup, and we’re about to flip it back on the fuckers who started it."

"Are you sure? Because the news is making it sound like—"

"Like she’s Bernie Madoff in designer heels, I know. But trust me on this. By Wednesday afternoon, everyone calling her a fraud is going to look like the idiots they are."

Tommy was quiet for a moment, processing. "Okay, but... the auction, dude. My API software. Is that still happening? Because if Charlotte’s company is going down in flames..."

I smiled, even though he couldn’t see it. The API was his ticket to millions. If he wasn’t worried about it, I would’ve called him a fool. Tommy was the kind of guy who’d triple-check a pizza order but forget his house keys.

"Tommy, look at me through the phone."

"That’s not how phones work, dipshit." This real motherfucker...

"Just listen then. The auction is not just happening — it’s going public. Full media coverage. Major players bidding millions on your software while everyone’s claiming Charlotte’s a fraud. What do you think that does to the narrative?"

I could practically hear his brain clicking into gear. "It makes the fraud claims look like bullshit."

"Exactly. And more importantly for you, it makes you the youngest tech millionaire in California history. On live television."

"Holy shit," he whispered. "Holy actual shit."

"So yeah, the auction’s fine. Better than fine. You’re about to be famous."

"But what if they don’t bid? What if—"

"Tommy," I interrupted, "Microsoft’s already pre-registered. So has Salesforce. And Oracle. They’re not spending millions on software from a fraud, are they?"

The relief in his exhale was audible. "Okay. Okay, I believe you. But dude, this is insane. Like, Hollywood movie insane."

"You have no fucking idea," I muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Now tell me about this school drama. Sofia and Lea got into it?"

"Oh dude, you missed the show of the fucking century," Tommy said, his excitement returning full force. "So apparently Sofia’s been defending you to anyone who’ll listen since the engagement news reached everyone at school. Like, aggressively defending you. And Lea’s been going around saying you’re just Madison’s boy toy, that you’re using her for money, calling you a gold-digging manwhore—"

"Charming." My reputation was apparently being decided by girls who thought Model UN was foreplay.

"Right? So this morning, Lea’s at her usual table with her academic elitist friends, talking loud enough for half the cafeteria to hear about how ’some people’ sell themselves for trust fund access. And Sofia just... snapped."

"How bad?"

"She walked over, told Lea to shut her bitter mouth, and when Lea stood up to get in her face and shouted you’re whore and Sofia, Madison were bitches who were after your big dick, Sofia slapped her so hard it echoed. Like, the whole cafeteria went silent. You could’ve heard a pin drop." Ah, so Lea, somehow knows I fucked Sofia, huh. Maybe the latter had shared her good liberation to her best friend (Lea) who turned it into a school gossip.

I tried to picture Sofia — usually calm, usually controlled — losing her shit in public.

"Then what?"

"Then Jack tried to play peacekeeper, telling Sofia to calm down, and she turned on him too! Started yelling about how she never had defended you when he was beating the shit out of you and she was regretting it now or when he didn’t do anything when girls called her a whore that only loved him for his fame and family, so he doesn’t get to play second hero in her life now. The whole fucking cafeteria heard her call him a coward and a hypocrite."

"Damn."

"It gets better..."