She pulled out her phone and dialed the principal’s office with numb fingers. It was picked on the first ring...

"I need to speak with the chancellor. It’s urgent. Regarding Stan Harrison — I need the expulsion order withdrawn. Immediately."

There was a brief pause on the other end. Then the chancellor’s voice came through, not the polite, deferential tone she was accustomed to, but something drier. Almost amused.

"Miss Reeves. You’re a little behind the curve, I’m afraid." A soft chuckle. "Mr. Harrison’s position at this university was secured hours ago. After I received a call from his associates, people whose influence, I must say, operates at a level somewhat above campus politics, I realized that pursuing the matter would have been deeply unwise."

He paused.

"In future, Miss Reeves, you might consider researching a person’s background before attempting to have them expelled. It saves everyone a great deal of embarrassment."

The line went dead.

Vivian lowered the phone slowly.

He already handled it. Before the meeting. Before the cafeteria. Before any of it.

He sat through all of my threats knowing, the entire time, that none of them could touch him.

She pressed both hands over her face and let out a long, shuddering breath.

I have been threatening, bullying, and trying to humiliate a man who owns thirty percent of the company I work for, who has the chancellor of my university on speed dial, and who could end my career with a single phone call.

And he let me do it. He stood there and let me make a complete fool of myself, over and over, because he didn’t think I was worth correcting.

That last realization stung worse than all the others combined.

Vivian dropped her hands from her face. Her jaw set. Her eyes hardened.

A gift. I need a gift. Something valuable. Something that proves I understand what I’ve done and that I’m willing to make amends.

Maybe, maybe if the gesture is right, if it’s sincere enough, if it’s expensive enough, he’ll forgive me. Or at least he won’t fire me.

She wasn’t sure but it was worth the try.

She stood up, left the untouched wine and cold food on the table, and walked out of the restaurant with the purposeful stride of a woman who had exactly one card left to play and intended to play it perfectly.

I am not losing this job. I am not losing this position. Whatever it takes.

Whatever it costs.

Vivian spent the rest of that afternoon at the most exclusive luxury boutique in Inksea.

She moved through the floors with the focused, slightly manic energy of a woman shopping against a deadline that only she could see. She didn’t browse. She didn’t deliberate. She pointed, she paid, she moved on, assembling a gift package with the ruthless efficiency of someone who understood, with painful clarity, that her career now depended on the taste and generosity of a man she had spent three days systematically tormenting.

By evening, the gift was ready. Wrapped, ribboned, and accompanied by a handwritten note she’d rewritten four times before settling on the final version.

She also made a phone call to a high-end furniture company.

Meanwhile, Stan had gone back to campus to help Zack deal with the aftermath of Vivian’s dormitory raid.

The room was still stripped bare, Zack’s dismantled bed frame leaning against the wall, his belongings piled in the corridor, the space looking less like a dormitory and more like a storage unit that had been hit by a small tornado.

Stan rolled up his sleeves and spent the next hour helping Zack sort through the wreckage, separating what was salvageable from what wasn’t, carrying armfuls of clothes and books back inside, reassembling what could be reassembled.

"Have you apologized to her yet?" Zack asked, balancing a stack of textbooks against his hip.

"No."

"Stan"

"No need. She’ll probably apologize to me."

Zack set the textbooks down very slowly. Then he reached over, placed his palm flat against Stan’s forehead, and held it there for three seconds.

"You don’t have a fever," he announced, genuinely confused. "So why are you talking like a crazy person?"

"I’m serious."

"Vivian Reeves is going to apologize to you." Zack repeated the words back with the careful enunciation of a man testing whether a sentence sounds less insane the second time. It did not. "The youngest and most doted daughter of the Reeves family. The most powerful student at Peak University. The woman who just had your dormitory demolished. She’s going to come find you and say sorry."

He shook his head.

"I really hope that’ll be the case since I wish you well as your best friend, but that’s the thing, it’s all nothing but wishful thinking, high chance the complete opposite will happen in real life."

Stan smiled, said nothing, and continued sorting clothes.

...

That evening, after Stan had left for his apartment, Zack was alone in the gutted dormitory trying to figure out where he was going to sleep when the door opened.

Three men in matching work uniforms walked in carrying a bed frame, not a standard-issue university bunk, but something significantly more substantial. Dark wood. Clean lines. The kind of frame you’d see in a furniture showroom, not a campus dormitory.

They assembled it in silence with practiced speed, then brought in a mattress, thick, firm, clearly expensive, followed by a full set of designer bedding, pillows in sealed packaging, and a small box containing a matching set of toiletries: toothbrush, cup, towels, all branded.

Zack stood in the doorway and watched the entire operation with his mouth hanging open.

When the workers left, he pulled out his phone.

"Stan. Did you buy me a bed?"

"No."

"Then why did a team of men just install a luxury bed in our room? With designer sheets?"

"It was probably sent by Vivian Reeves."

A long silence.

"Why would Vivian Reeves send me a bed?"

"Because she destroyed your old one and she’s trying to make amends."

"That’s that doesn’t" Zack sputtered for a moment. "Stan, are you sure you don’t have a fever?"

"Get some sleep, Zack. You’ve got a nice new bed."

With that Stan hung up.