My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 205

Chapter 205 I Almost Make The Call

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The crisp white paper weighed nothing. Yet it crushed the breath from my lungs. The black geometric logo of Apex Holdings stared back at me from the top of the page. A subsidiary of the Steinmann Corporate Group. Arthur Steinmann owned the commercial building. He

owned the concrete beneath my boots.

My mother sat on the wooden bench beneath the dark diner awning. She buried her face in her calloused hands. Her shoulders heaved with ragged sobs. The sound of her crying cut through the cold morning mist.

“Pete, my mother pleaded. She dropped her hands. Red blotches covered her pale skin. “Let me call the corporate office. I can beg for an extension. We need to pack the kitchen equipment. We need to collect our personal items.”

“The management company refuses all contact, Maria, Pete said. He rubbed his tired eyes. The deep wrinkles on his forehead looked like carved stone. “They invoked a hidden structural clause. They claimed the foundation violates the city code. They plan to gut the entire interior. They sent a private security team to lock the back alley doors an hour ago. They changed the deadbolts on the delivery bay. If I touch the front metal grate, they call the police. They will charge me with trespassing. The business is gone.”

“But the food inside, my mother argued. Desperation laced her tone. “The fresh inventory. We unpacked three boxes of produce

yesterday.”

The corporate office seized the inventory,” Pete explained. He looked at the locked diner. Defeat radiated from his heavy posture. “They claim the food covers the penalty fees for breaking the lease. I lack the funds to hire a corporate defense lawyer. The Steinmann group employs an entire floor of legal sharks. They fabricated zoning violations. They buried me in legal red tape before the sun even came up. I

surrender.

Pete turned his back on the dark neon sign. He walked down the cracked sidewalk. He left us alone in the cold.

I stood frozen on the pavement. The eviction notice trembled in my grip.

I caused this destruction.

My mother worked ten years in that greasy kitchen. She scrubbed the cracked vinyl booths. She memorized the coffee orders of the local delivery drivers. She endured the aching joints and the relentless exhaustion to provide a stable foundation for my future. She sacrificed her own dreams to keep me enrolled at Crestview Prep.

I wiped her entire foundation away in a single night.

Arthur Steinmann warned me. He sat in the soundproof cabin of his luxury town car and laid out the exact consequences of my defiance. He offered me a massive check. He offered to fund my entire medical school tuition. He offered to purchase a house for my mother in the

affluent hills.

He asked for one specific condition. I needed to end my relationship with Ryder. I needed to walk away from the boy who kept my chewed

yellow pencil in a dark closet.

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Chapter 205 I Almost Make The Call

I rejected the billionaire. I stepped out of his vehicle and chose my pride. I declared war. I believed my brilliant mind offered a shield

against his immense wealth. I believed I possessed the strength to fight him on my own terms.

I was an idiot.

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Arthur did not fight with fists. He did not engage in high school hallway drama. He fought with commercial leases and corporate buyouts. He identified the single pillar holding my fragile life together, and he smashed it into dust. He required zero effort to ruin us. He made

one phone call to a property manager.

The elite did not fight fair. They used money to force compliance. They starved their enemies into submission.

I crouched beside the wooden bench. I placed my hand on my mother’s knee. The fabric of her pink uniform felt damp from the morning

mist.

“We will find a way,” I whispered. My voice shook. The words tasted like ash.

“There is no way out of this, Raisa,’ she cried. She wrapped her arms around her stomach. “The rent for our house is due on the first of the month. The power bill arrives next week. I possess no savings account. I lack a college degree. Who will hire a fifty-year-old woman

with a failing spine?”

The tears spilled over my eyelashes. They hit the cold pavement. Every single drop carried the heavy burden of my guilt.

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