Chapter 184/We didn’t mean anything bad

Chapter 184: 184/We didn’t mean anything bad

Chapter 184

Stephanie’s point of view

Marco’s hand violently shot forward, clamping around the strands of my red hair from behind. He yanked back with massive force to tilt my face directly toward the dirty sneaker, while hot, bitter tears of pure humiliation and rage flooded down my cheeks in torrents. The sheer degradation completely crushed every single shred of dignity inside my soul, my entire frame vibrating with a ruthless terror.

"Please..." I choked out through a broken sob, my voice trembling violently. "Cain... just stop... I didn’t mean to..."

Their mocking laughter echoed loudly in enjoyment. Cain shoved his foot even closer until the filthy edge of his shoe was insolently brushing against my chin. "I said use your goddamn tongue!" he barked with strict authority. "Clean it right fucking now, or I’ll have the guys rip your school uniform right off your body in the middle of this hall!"

At that exact microsecond just as my breakdown hit its absolute peak and I was about to surrender entirely to my pitch-black fate the dead silence of the corridor was violently pierced by the sound of heavy, commanding strides. A deep, gravelly baritone erupted through the space, so frozen and strict that it instantly paralyzed every single body in the hallway.

"What the living hell is going down here?!"

The hands of the pricks instantly locked up against my skin. Cain snapped his head up with lightning speed, the arrogance completely draining from his face as a sudden, panicked paleness took over his features. I turned my head with agonizing difficulty, my tear-filled eyes straining toward the end of the hall.

Through the blur, I caught sight of his towering, dominant, and magnificent frame marching toward us, his storm-grey eyes burning with a dark, lethal fury capable of burning the entire high school to the ground.

*Professor Alexander Thorne.*

The air was sucked completely out of the deserted corridor, every ounce of power and bravado vanishing in a literal heartbeat. The pricks let go of my arms in a frantic, involuntary reflex the exact microsecond Professor Thorne’s scalding glare locked onto them like a physical weapon. I collapsed helplessly to the floor, curling tightly into myself with rigid limbs. My fingers trembled violently as I scrambled to pull together the torn edges of my scattered school uniform, my hot tears streaming down in a silent, agonizing torrent that choked my throat with the raw taste of humiliation.

The Professor took slow, heavy, and highly calculated strides toward our group. His smooth black dress shoes hit the concrete floor with a terrifying resonance, sounding through the narrow hallway like a death knell announcing absolute, merciless destruction for everyone present. He was dressed in his signature, impeccably tailored black formal suit, but the serene, composed dignity I was used to had completely vanished. In its place was a pitch-black, unreadable mask of pure, lethal malice, his sharp eyes flashing with a savage, sadistic urge to utterly tear apart anyone who dared lay a finger on what belonged to him.

He loomed at his full, towering height directly in front of Cain, leaning his massive torso forward just enough so his dark, suffocating shadow completely devoured the boy, freezing his muscles in place. A heavy, suffocating silence gripped the air for a few agonizing seconds, broken only by my broken, muffled sobs as I desperately pressed a shaking palm against my mouth. Then, the Professor delivered his next words in a deep, gravelly baritone that slid through the veins of the corridor like pure, slow-acting poison.

"Repeat exactly what the hell you just said, Cain... I didn’t catch it clearly."

Cain swallowed with immense difficulty, his throat visibly clicking as if it had turned to dry wood. His pathetic crew instantly took several frantic steps back in genuine horror, desperately trying to detach themselves from the perimeter and escape the epicenter of that black fury.

The blood rushed to Cain’s face in a deep, panicked flush, his eyes darting frantically between the Professor’s shoes and his rigid expression. When he spoke, his voice was a frail, stuttering thread, completely stripped of his previous garbage courage.

"P-Professor Thorne... we... we were honestly just joking around with Stephanie. We didn’t mean anything bad by it, seriously... we didn’t intend to hurt her."

The Professor lowered his head slightly until he was dead-level with Cain’s face, his storm-grey eyes narrowing into terrifying slits as he delivered a frozen, lethal hiss. "Joking around? You force a student to her knees to clean your goddamn shoe, and you call that a joke?!"

Then, without a single microsecond of warning, Alexander’s massive, powerful hand shot forward with lightning speed, violently clamping around the collar of Cain’s shirt. He hoisted the boy right off the floor with such raw, immense force that the prick’s toes could barely touch the concrete. Alexander ground his teeth together, the veins in his neck bulging with an unhinged, raging fury as his eyes flashed with dark, absolute ruin.

"If I ever catch your pathetic face anywhere near her line of sight again, or if I hear that your mouth uttered a single goddamn syllable to cross her dignity, I will make your family weep tears of pure blood over the future I will personally crush with these two hands. Now... take your fucking dogs and get the hell out of my face right now!"

He violently hurled Cain’s body, sending him slamming hard against the concrete wall. The boy and his useless crew didn’t waste a single fraction of a second; they bolted down the hallway like lunatics, running for their absolute lives until their footsteps faded into nothing.

A dead, heavy silence reclaimed the empty corridor. Alexander slowly turned his frame toward my shivering, curled-up body on the floor. Moving with deliberate weight, his knees smoothly bent as he dropped down to kneel right in front of me. His massive, warm palm extended, settling firmly over my trembling shoulder. When he spoke, every ounce of hostility completely vanished from his voice, replaced by a deep, anchoring worry that instantly flooded my shattered soul.

"Stephanie... look at me," he commanded softly, his eyes searching mine. "Did those bastards hurt you in any way?!"