52. COLD LUST.

OLLIE’S POV The drive home was the last time I saw Mia and since then, she’d vanished. No texts. No calls. No sign of her anywhere. Her phone had been unreachable for days, and every hour that passed without a word from her clawed a little deeper into me. The school hadn’t offered any information, nor would they likely ever do so. But Mia wasn’t just another student. She was the heiress to a multibillion-dollar empire, the only daughter of the man whose company practically kept the school running. That name alone wrapped her in some kind of untouchable privilege and it made her absence all the more conspicuous. Still, the halls went on without her. Classes resumed. The world spun. And yet, for me, everything felt… hollow. I sat at my desk, papers scattered across and the afternoon sunlight stretching thin through the blinds. Normally, I thrived in this routine but lately, that order had been slipping. Every time I walked into a classroom, I caught myself searching the back row, e