The hallways of Lincoln High felt like burial shrouds—air thin, walls closing in, and every sneaker squeak echoing like it was trying to stab my eardrums for attention. The lighting was that sickly fluorescent kind that made even the happy kids look like ghosts pretending to smile. My Taboo Aura thrummed low under my skin, not a wildfire, just a contained inferno—caged heat waiting for permission to burn the world. Even reined in, it warped the edges of reality, like walking through a photo where someone cranked the contrast up until colors bled.

Then came Lea.

I smelled her before I saw her—jasmine and desperation, the kind of mix that announces trouble before your brain even processes it. She slipped into my orbit between third and fourth period, perfume first, pretenses second. The jealousy rolling off her wasn't emotional—it was chemical, tangible, like smog you could choke on.

Her pupils blew wide the moment our eyes met. Not romance. Not curiosity. Just her biology submitting to a predator it didn't understand. My Eyes, the System's HUD, painted her heat like a crime scene—rose-gold halos pulsing at her throat, wrists, thighs. Every flicker of her body screaming what her lips were too proud to say.

She wanted answers. About Madison. About the changes. About me.

Not today. I had a kingdom to build.

I pivoted before her Chanel No. 5-fueled TED Talk on heartbreak could start. The Aura recorded her heartbreak like data points: shoulders slumping, breath catching, hand half-raised before gravity—or shame—dragged it back down. Somewhere behind me, her pride cracked like porcelain.

Then came Kayla, lurking near my locker like a thirst trap in 3D. Hips cocked, tank top artfully negligent, eyes telegraphing a message written in lust and bad decisions. Three weeks ago, I'd have been all over that—hormones first, brain later. Now? The Lust Presence stirred in my chest, eager, hungry, and annoyed I wasn't feeding it.

The Eyes saw everything: pupils dilating, pulse accelerating, her skin temperature jumping two degrees from a five-second proximity. The kind of physiological tell you can't fake—not even with good lighting and lip gloss.

She wanted to be seen. To be consumed. To matter.

I didn't even blink. Just detoured through the science wing, her disappointed exhale trailing me like background music.

Because today wasn't about high school politics or dopamine distractions. Today had gravity. I wasn't a student anymore—I was an architect watching insects fight over a breadcrumb while skyscrapers rose around them, silent and inevitable.

By final bell, I'd ghosted every problem, person, and pretty face Lincoln High could throw at me. My phone buzzed—Vice Principal alert: "Meeting. Concerning behavior patterns."

Delete.

If they knew how "concerning" I really was, they'd call the Pentagon, not a parent-teacher conference.

Instead, I texted my girls.

Me: Leaving now. To the estate.Madison: Already in the parking lot, baby. Where are you?

A second ping followed.

And the entire future crystallized—razor-sharp and diamond-clear.

Victoria: Catherine confirmed. Meridian wants you before close of business for assessment and initial procedures. Don't be late—she doesn't appreciate tardiness.

There it was.

The call.

The next ascension.

I smiled—slow, dangerous, and inevitable.

Game on.

Meridian Elite Modeling Agency.A front, of course. A gilded choke-point where Miami's wealthiest and most disillusioned women paid obscene premiums for the illusion of control. The husbands couldn't satisfy them. The cocktails couldn't numb them. So they came here—to be seen, to be wanted, to be wrecked by something they couldn't buy.

A place where billion-dollar CEOs whispered "please," where politicians' wives dropped their pearls along with their pretense.

And for me?

It was the doorway.

The next tier. The part where power stopped being a theory and started being a habit.

The Convoy: Rolling Thunder

My Lamborghini Veneno crouched in the parking lot like a chrome-scaled beast mid-pounce—every line a flex of engineered violence. When I twisted the key, the exhaust didn't roar. It threatened. A detonation of mechanical fury that sent alarms shrieking down the rows like frightened witnesses.

Madison's McLaren slid up beside me—papaya orange, molten and impossible to ignore. Through the tinted glass, her smirk caught the light, that same "I own the world" curve I'd tasted that morning. Confidence rolled off her like radiation.

Behind us, Sarah and Emma took the Range Rover SVR, black-on-black with chrome like knife edges. They didn't walk anymore; they arrived. The kind of arrival that made trust-fund brats check their last names twice. New money, unbothered and unapologetic. They'd leveled up, and they knew it.

Tommy stayed behind with Mia—because sometimes even kings respect love when it's real. He waved from his car, grin wide and knowing. He didn't envy me. He believed in me.That's rarer than investors.

Ashley and her Insta-parasites wanted to tag along—phones ready, eyes hungry. I told them to go live their best "almost famous" lives. Empire doesn't wait for passengers; it only carries architects.

The drive wasn't transportation.

It was declaration.

We moved through Lincoln Heights like a convoy of intent—Veneno leading, McLaren shadowing, Range Rover anchoring. Heads turned. Mouths opened. Every stoplight was a coronation; every reflection in a shop window, a prophecy fulfilled.

Old money watched from their Bentleys, lips tight, realizing the hierarchy had shifted—and they weren't at the top anymore. Young money doesn't ask for permission.

It arrives with receipts.

At one red light, some kid in a modded WRX decided to audition for humiliation. He revved his turbo like it was a prayer. I didn't even look at him. The Veneno idled—a low, demonic purr that made his four-cylinder sound like a dying blender.

Light turned green.

Thirty percent throttle.

He vanished behind me in the mirror, somewhere between ego and regret.

Madison's laugh crackled through the private convoy comms—a little perk I'd coded into our synced Bluetooth systems.

"Baby, you didn't have to murder him like that."

"Didn't even try," I said. "That was mercy."

Sarah's voice joined, dry and amused.

"Show-off."

"Legacy-building," I corrected. "Same thing—just with better fuel efficiency."

"You're driving a two hundred-and-twenty-thousand-dollar Range Rover that hits sixty in four seconds," I shot back. "Throwing stones from a very expensive glass house, sis."

Emma's laugh was pure delight. "He's got you there, Sar."

The estate gates recognized our approach, the wrought iron parting like the Red Sea for Moses, except our prophet was a seventeen-year-old with supernatural seduction abilites and a bank account that rivaled a small nation's GDP.

We rolled through in sequence, our engines echoing off the stone façade. For a moment, I let myself feel it.

This was real. This was mine. This was just the fucking beginning.

The garage swallowed our convoy in its climate-controlled perfection, where ten other machines waited in silent judgment. My Rolls-Royce Phantom and others. Madison's BMW. The other Range Rovers. Charlotte's Aston Martin. Cars worth more than most people's houses, arranged like trophies in priceless glass cases.

But business could wait.

My women deserved their tribute first—the kind that reminded them why loyalty was rewarded, why choosing me meant choosing worship.

I found them in the main living space. Janet curled in the reading nook, Luna, already back stretched across Italian leather like a Renaissance painting, Isabella leaning against the floor-to-ceiling windows where the afternoon light turned her into something holy. They turned as one when I entered, and the Taboo Aura pulsed, a single, resonant word echoing in my soul.

Everyone was here.

Mine. All mine.

**

Until 4 PM, I lost myself in them. It was a deliberate ritual, careful and precise, making sure each one felt valued and satisfied beyond any question.

Janet's soft moans vibrating against my neck as I took her on the chaise, her fingers digging crescents into my shoulders. Luna's grateful kisses mapped along my collarbones after I'd made her climax three times in the master bedroom, her whispered "thank you, thank you, thank you" a litany of answered prayers.

Isabella's Spanish promises about next time were breathed hot against my ear while I fucked her against those windows, a forest sprawled below us like conquered territory.

All of it grounded me. It was a reminder: the empire existed for them, not in spite of them. Power without purpose was just masturbation with extra steps and I preferred the real thing.

Extracting myself from that tangle of warm, sated bodies felt like walking out of church mid-sermon, but duty called with the insistent voice of iron bells.

I showered until the steam erased their mingled perfumes from my skin—that lingering bouquet of jasmine and vanilla and something earthier I couldn't name.

I watched the water run clear, taking the physical evidence while leaving the emotional imprints untouched. Stood there, letting the heat punish muscles made sore from generous worship, and felt ready.

The Armani suit waited on its hanger like battle armor. Charcoal grey that looked black in the dim light, a subtle pinstripe that drew the eye without screaming for attention. I dressed with ritual precision: shirt, cufflinks, vest, jacket. Each piece sliding into place felt like assuming a new identity.

Peter Carter was being left behind. With every inch of Italian wool and surgical stitching, I became Eros. I was ready for Meridian.

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