My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 72

Chapter 72 Dark History Whispered With Intent

I dug my fingernails deep into my palms. I refused to let her see the crack in my armor.

“Your past with him is none of my business,” I said.

“It will be your business when he gets bored, Vanessa warned. “He always gets bored, Raisa. The quiet, smart girl routine is a fun

distraction, but it does not fix what is broken in his head.”

“There is nothing broken in his head,” I fired back.

Vanessa let out a sharp laugh.

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“You really believe that, she marveled, shaking her head. “You saw him punch a piece of metal in the hallway, and you convinced yourself it was a grand, romantic gesture. You think he is just a misunderstood guy with a temper problem.”

“Move out of my way, Vanessa.”

She did not budge. She leaned closer, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial, lethal whisper. “Do you even know why he disappeared for

three months during our sophomore year?”

My breath stalled. The school rumor was legendary. His father had shipped him off to an exclusive boarding school in Europe to correct his failing grades. Everyone accepted the story. Ryder never bothered to correct it.

“He was studying abroad,” I said.

“He was locked in a juvenile detention center,” Vanessa corrected.

The words hit me like a physical blow to the chest. The humid air in the locker room turned to ice.

“That is a lie, I breathed.

“It is public record, if you know which court to search,” she stated. Her eyes were completely devoid of pity. “There was a guy from St. Jude’s. A senior. He got into an argument with Ryder behind a gas station on the edge of the county line. It was not a fair fight. Ryder did

not just throw a few punches.”

I tried to swallow the dry, jagged lump in my throat. I wanted to look away, to cover my ears, but her gaze pinned me to the wooden

bench.

“He took a steel tire iron from the bed of his truck, Vanessa said, the details pouring out of her with devastating precision. “He hit the guy until he stopped moving. And then he kept hitting him. He crushed his jaw. He shattered his orbital bone. He put a seventeen-year- old kid in a medically induced coma for three weeks.”

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Chapter 72 Dark History Whispered With Intent

“No,” I gasped. I stumbled backward, my spine hitting the cold metal of my locker door.

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“Yes,” Vanessa insisted, stepping forward to close the gap. “The kid almost died, Raisa. The paramedics said his skull was fractured in four places. The only reason Ryder isn’t rotting in a prison cell right now is because Richard Steinmann wrote a massive check to the family

and bought a judge to seal the juvenile record. He bought his son a clean slate.”

My hands began to shake. The tremors started in my fingertips and raced straight up my arms, rattling the heavy canvas of my backpack.

I am exactly what they say I am. His broken confession from the stairwell echoed in my skull. He had warned me. He had told me he was a wrecking ball. He had told me everything he touched ended up in pieces.

I had ignored him. I had looked at the way he touched my face on the back of his truck and convinced myself the rumors were just noise

created by a bored, entitled student body.

“He is a ticking time bomb, Vanessa said. She stepped back, giving me a clear path to the exit. “He does not protect people. He destroys

them. He almost killed a kid over a bruised ego.”

She slung her dark leather bag over her shoulder. She walked toward the heavy double doors, her combat boots loud against the oppressive, heavy silence of the room.

She paused at the exit, looking back at me over her shoulder.

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