Page 177 of The Wrong Play

Jagger: P.P.S. Don’t say mafia.

I sent Jagger the miniscule amount of docs I’d already found—some faculty emails, a suspiciously empty financial record, and a few complaints that had been conveniently buried. Itwasn’t much, but it was enough to start setting the stage. When I was finished, I looked up and realized Parker and Matty were still in the room…watching me. A little bit worshipfully looking if I cocked my head a certain way.

“It’s surprisingly easy to ruin someone’s life,” I mused.

Matty had been chewing another bite of my corn dog, and he swallowed theatrically. “Why are you saying that so threateningly?”

Parker didn’t look frightened at all, though, probably because he wasn’t eating my corn dog at the moment and had thus moved back into the number one position. I would tell him about his rise in rankings.

Later.

It was good to keep them on their toes.

Glancing down at my phone, I watched as the little typing bubbles popped up on Jagger’s end.

Jagger: This is going to be easy. Do you want it messy or slow-burn?

I grinned.

Me: Both.

I smirked, shaking my head as I turned to my laptop and got back to work. I had a feeling that Callum had built his life on control—controlling his students, his reputation…Riley. He had spent years making sure people feared him more than they questioned him.

But fear only worked when you weren’t up against someone crazier.

Lucky for me, I had no moral compass when it came to protecting Riley.

I cracked my knuckles, rolling my shoulders as I leaned closer to the laptop screen, my fingers flying over the keyboard with sharp precision. The dim glow of the monitor was the only light in the room, casting jagged shadows against the walls as I worked.

I’d waited until Riley was asleep to get back to it, not wanting her to know what I was doing until it was done. Every so often, I glanced over at the bed and got the pick-me-up I needed to pull another all-nighter. Time was of the essence here, though. He’d sent her another email today, reminding her of their next “tutoring” appointment. He’d be coming after me any day now.

People were lazy as hell when it came to cybersecurity. Callum Westwood…sorry,ProfessorCallum Westwood…was no different.

Tonight, it had taken me only ten minutes to crack into the university’s database. Five minutes after that, I was scrolling through his login credentials. And at the fifteen-minute mark?

I was deep inside his inbox.

The guy didn’t even try to make his passwords complicated, probably some variation of a pet’s name, an old birthday, maybe even a pretentious Latin phrase. Hell, the first one I tried wasFortunaFavetFortibus1and boom—I was in.

Pathetic.

I clicked through the usual academic drivel—emails from faculty members about meetings, half-finished drafts of research proposals…an obnoxious amount of correspondence with the dean kissing ass over some upcoming funding.

Bingo.

A folder titledResearch Proposals.

I frowned, clicking it open. It seemed harmless enough—Callum was a professor, after all, and reviewing proposals was part of the gig. But as I scrolled through the contents, a familiar, sick feeling started curling in my gut.

Half of these files? They weren’t research at all.

I spotted an email chain buried in the folder, the subject lineRe: Follow-Up on Discussion.

I clicked.

The first few messages were clean, basic faculty-to-student conversations about research methodology and scheduling meetings. But then, as I kept scrolling?

The tone shifted.

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