My Fake Boyfriend Is the School Bad Boy novel Chapter 74

Chapter 74 Cold Eyes Noticing the Sudden Shift

🙂

Ryder’s hand stopped in mid-air.

He looked at his own suspended hand, and then he looked at my face. He saw my wide, panicked eyes. He saw the way my chest heaved

with shallow breaths.

He did not drop his hand right away. The muscles in his arm turned rigid. The color drained completely from his face, leaving the fading,

yellowish bruises on his jaw looking stark and sickly.

“You pulled away,” he breathed. The sound was not a question. It was a fractured, bleeding statement.

“I just… I need space,” I stammered, my throat burning. I hugged my arms across my stomach, trying to hold myself together.

“Space, Ryder repeated. His hand fell to his side.

He stared at me. The confusion vanished, replaced by a rapid, agonizing sequence of emotions. Hurt flared in the golden shards of his eyes. It was the look of a boy who had finally dared to step out of the dark, only to have the door slammed in his face.

His jaw locked into a brutal, unforgiving angle. The broad span of his shoulders stiffened, rebuilding the dark, lethal armor right in front

of my eyes.

When he looked at me again, his hazel eyes were pitch black. The warmth was entirely gone.

“Someone talked, he stated. His voice lacked any inflection. It was a dead, hollow sound that chilled me to the bone.

“Ryder-

“Who was it?” he demanded. The icy composure did not crack. “Vance? Montgomery?”

“It doesn’t matter who it was, I choked out, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. “Is it true? What they said about sophomore year. Did

you do it?”

I needed him to lie. I needed him to give me a sarcastic smirk, tell me the school was full of idiots, and deny the entire story. I needed

him to tell me the rumors were just noise.

Ryder did not flinch. He did not break eye contact.

He looked at the defensive posture of my arms. He looked at the tears brimming in my eyes. He accepted the judgment written across my

face.

“I did it,” he said.

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12:55 Fri, Jul 10

Chapter 74 Cold Eyes Noticing the Sudden Shift

“You put someone in a coma,” I whispered, the horror bleeding completely into my voice.

‘Yes.’

:))

He stood in the middle of the crowded hallway, wearing his crimes like a heavy, rusted crown. He was giving me exactly what I asked for. He was giving me the monster.

“How could you?” I cried softly, a single tear escaping and tracking down my cheek. “How could you do something like that?”

The muscle beneath his bruised cheek ticked rapidly.

“Because I am exactly what they say I am, Petrova,” he rasped. The use of my last name severed the final, invisible string holding us together. It was clinical. It was an absolute boundary. “I warned you in the stairwell. I told you I was a wrecking ball.”

“You told me you were protecting people!” I countered, the heartbreak warring with the fear.

‘I told you I destroy things,” he corrected, his voice dropping into a dark, lethal register. “You just didn’t want to listen. You wanted to play a game. You wanted to put a collar on the bad kid and see if he would fetch.”

“That is not fair, I argued, my voice shaking. I didn’t play a game with you.”

Contract’s over, he stated.

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