The shrill bell rang. Professor Thaddeus Wainwright marched into the lecture hall.

He stood at the podium and scanned the room. His eyes stopped on Scarlett for a fraction of a second. His upper lip curled in obvious disgust.

He turned and switched on the projector. A massive spreadsheet appeared on the screen. It detailed the recent cross-border acquisition data for the Vance Consortium.

"Pop quiz," Wainwright announced. "You have forty minutes to complete a full risk assessment report on this merger. Begin."

Groans echoed through the room. This was a Harvard Business School level case study. For high school students, it was a slaughter.

Students frantically flipped open their textbooks. They started plugging numbers into basic financial models, sweating under the pressure.

Scarlett did not move. She leaned back in her chair. Her eyes scanned the dense rows of numbers on the glowing screen.

In her past life, she had been groomed to take over the Sinclair empire. For three years, locked in her own mind, she had done nothing but analyze, deconstruct, and rebuild every business case she had ever studied. This was not a test; it was a reflex. Her brain processed the data like a supercomputer.

Five minutes passed. Scarlett pulled a sheet of loose-leaf paper from her binder. She reached over, pulled the fountain pen out of Dwayne's desk, and began to write.

Wainwright paced the aisles. He walked toward the back of the room, heading straight for Scarlett. He wanted to catch her cheating or staring at a blank page.

He stopped beside her desk. He looked down at her paper.

The mocking smirk vanished from Wainwright's face.

Scarlett was not using the standard P/E ratio models. She was writing out a complex formula that bypassed the surface numbers entirely. She was digging straight into the target company's hidden offshore debt.

Wainwright pushed his reading glasses up his nose. He leaned closer. His breathing grew shallow and fast.

Scarlett's pen did not stop. She wrote down a highly obscure SEC antitrust exemption clause.

Wainwright's brain raced. He tried to find a flaw in her logic. He calculated the numbers in his head.

She was right. She was perfectly, flawlessly right.

Twenty minutes into the test, Scarlett drew a sharp period at the end of the page.

She stood up. The chair scraped loudly against the floor. Every student turned to look at her.

She held the paper out to Wainwright.

"If the Vance family signs this deal under the current terms," Scarlett said, her voice carrying through the silent room, "the Department of Justice will hit them with an antitrust investigation in exactly three weeks."

Wainwright's hands shook as he took the paper. He held it like it was a live bomb.

He didn't say a word to her. He didn't dismiss the class. He turned around, clutched the paper to his chest, and sprinted out of the lecture hall.

Wainwright ran down the marble corridor of the administration wing. He ignored the other professors calling his name.

He knew exactly what this report meant. It was enough to cause a minor earthquake on Wall Street.

He burst into his private office and slammed the door shut. He locked the deadbolt.

He grabbed the phone on his desk and dialed the direct internal line to the Student Council President.

The line clicked open.

"Speak," Dontae Vance's voice came through the speaker. It was deep, cold, and heavy with authority.

"Mr. Vance," Wainwright stammered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Someone... someone found a fatal flaw in your family's acquisition plan."

Dontae let out a low, dark chuckle. "Which rival firm is trying to scare us now, Professor?"

"It's not a firm," Wainwright said. He read the final two lines of the deductive reasoning out loud.

The line went dead silent.

Thirty seconds passed. The silence felt suffocating.

"Bring the person who wrote that to my office," Dontae's voice dropped to a dangerous, lethal whisper. "Now."

Wainwright pushed open the heavy double mahogany doors of the Student Council President's office. He was out of breath.

Dontae Vance sat behind a massive leather desk. His dark eyes were locked onto the scrolling stock data on his Bloomberg terminal.

Wainwright walked forward and placed the handwritten loose-leaf paper carefully on the desk.

Dontae shifted his gaze. His eyes swept over the sharp, aggressive handwriting. He read the formulas.

His jaw tightened. The muscles in his neck corded. His fingers gripped the edge of the desk so hard his knuckles turned stark white.

Dontae snapped his head up. "Which Wall Street analyst gave you this?"

Wainwright swallowed hard. A bead of sweat rolled down his neck. "It wasn't an analyst, sir. It was... Scarlett Sinclair."

Dontae froze. He stared at Wainwright. His eyes darkened with sudden, violent anger. He thought the professor was playing a very stupid joke on him.

Helen Mercer, the council assistant standing by the wall, quickly tapped her tablet. She pulled up the security footage from Class Z. She mirrored it to the large screen on the wall.

The video showed Scarlett sitting at her desk. Her face was completely blank. Her hand moved rapidly across the paper, writing the exact formulas Dontae was holding.

Dontae stared at the screen. He watched the woman he had always considered a pathetic, brainless stalker tear apart his family's billion-dollar deal with a fountain pen.

His worldview cracked.

"Get out," Dontae said to Wainwright. He didn't look away from the screen.

Down in the academy's Michelin-star cafeteria, Scarlett carried her tray to a quiet corner table by the floor-to-ceiling windows.

She sat down. She picked up her silver knife and fork and cleanly sliced into her beef Wellington.

The chair across from her was pulled out with a loud scrape.

Harlow Montoya dropped into the seat. He was the heir to the Montoya Consortium, known for his endless string of scandals.

A heavy wave of expensive cologne hit Scarlett's nose. Beneath it was the sickeningly sweet smell of cheap women's perfume.

Harlow leaned his elbows on the table. He gave her a lazy, mocking smile.

"Playing hard to get today, Scarlett?" Harlow drawled. "It's a new look. But I haven't forgotten you standing in the rain for three hours just to hand me an umbrella."

The students at the surrounding tables stopped eating. They watched, waiting for Scarlett to beg for his attention.

Scarlett set her knife and fork down. She picked up a white napkin and dabbed the corner of her mouth.

She looked up. Her eyes swept over Harlow like he was a piece of rotting garbage on the sidewalk.

"There is a smudge of cheap red lipstick on your collar," Scarlett said, her voice devoid of any inflection. "And the dark circles under your eyes suggest severe sleep deprivation. Combined with your pallor and slight hand tremors, I'd say your kidneys are failing."

Harlow's smirk vanished. A heavy, suffocating pressure settled over the table.

Scarlett leaned forward slightly. "You are filthy."

She looked straight into his eyes. "Before you sit at my table again, I suggest you go through a chemical decontamination chamber."

Harlow's face turned dark red. He slammed his hands on the table and stood up violently. His knee hit the table leg. His water glass tipped over, spilling ice water all over his expensive pants.

His pride was bleeding out on the floor. He pointed a shaking finger at her face, opening his mouth to scream at her.

Scarlett didn't even look at him. She picked up her knife and fork and cut another piece of steak. She treated him like empty air.

Harlow's fists clenched. He looked around at the staring crowd. He turned and stormed out of the cafeteria, his wet pants clinging to his legs.

"Cognitive restructuring detected in surrounding male subjects," the system pinged weakly in her head.

Harlow kicked a solid brass trash can as he stormed down the hallway. The metal clanged loudly against the marble floor.

His current date, Lexi Blum, ran up and touched his arm. Harlow violently shoved her away and kept walking.

Scarlett watched the scene through the cafeteria's glass wall. Her face remained entirely passive. She picked up her tray and walked toward the disposal station.

A sudden, sharp pain spiked at the base of her skull. Scarlett stopped. She pressed her hand against the cold wall.

A glowing red countdown timer flashed across her retinas.

"Main task critical," the system's mechanical voice warned. "Failure to establish interaction with Dontae Vance will result in Level One electrical punishment in three minutes."

Scarlett sneered in her mind. Patience, you parasite. She forced the warning screen away and pushed herself off the wall. She kept walking.

She stepped out of the cafeteria doors.

Frank Baxter, a senior Student Council officer, stood in the middle of the hallway. Two large juniors stood behind him. They blocked her path.

Frank tapped the gold-rimmed council badge on his chest. He looked down his nose at her.

"President Vance is waiting for you in the top-floor office," Frank said. His tone was arrogant, like he was delivering a command from a king.

He looked her up and down. "You might want to fix your hair. And try not to cry on his carpet this time."

The hallway traffic slowed down. Students lingered, watching the confrontation. Everyone knew what happened when Dontae Vance summoned someone. They expected Scarlett to run up the stairs like an obedient dog.

Scarlett slowly raised her left arm. She looked at the vintage Patek Philippe watch on her wrist.

She dropped her arm. She looked Frank dead in the eyes.

"I don't have time right now," Scarlett said flatly. "Tell him to wait."

Frank's jaw dropped. The arrogant smirk slid off his face. He stared at her, completely unable to process the words.

Scarlett didn't wait for his brain to catch up. She stepped around him and headed toward the main exit doors.

Frank snapped out of his shock. His face flushed with anger. He reached out and grabbed Scarlett's shoulder to drag her back.

Scarlett shifted her weight. She dropped her shoulder, breaking his grip. In the same fluid motion, she swung the heavy, hardback textbook in her hand backward.

The thick spine of the book smashed directly into the back of Frank's hand.

Frank let out a sharp hiss of pain. He yanked his hand back, cradling his bruised knuckles.

"Are you crazy?" Frank yelled. "You don't reject the President!"

Scarlett stopped. She turned her head slowly. Her eyes were like shards of black ice.

"If Dontae Vance wants to see me," Scarlett said, her voice echoing in the quiet hall, "tell him to roll down here and ask me himself."

She turned around and walked out the heavy oak doors of the academy.

Ten minutes later, Frank pushed open the doors to the top-floor office. He was sweating.

Dontae stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the campus.

Frank swallowed hard. He repeated Scarlett's exact words.

The temperature in the office plummeted. Helen Mercer stopped typing and held her breath.

Dontae slowly turned around. There was no anger in his eyes. Instead, his pupils were dilated with a dark, predatory thrill.

He walked over to his desk. He picked up the handwritten report, folded it sharply, and slid it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

He cursed under his breath. The corner of his mouth lifted into a dangerous smile. Fine. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad... He was going to hunt her down himself.