Page 67 of Marrying My Professor

Hayes, Brandon - Los Angeles, CA - 21 - Business - Sponsor: J. Harrington - Deceased

The room contracts around me. The fluorescent lights suddenly too bright, the air too thin, my vision tunneling until all I can see is my brother's name typed in neat Times New Roman font.

Deceased.

Like it's just another status update. Like he's no different from "Active" or "Withdrawn." Like his death is just administrative notation.

My hands shake as I flip to the next page, paper rustling in the quiet office. It's a more detailed breakdown of each initiate, including what they were promised in exchange for their participation. What price they agreed to pay for a chance at power.

I find Brandon's entry halfway down the second page.

Hayes, Brandon: Promised $500,000 upon completion of trials + information regarding biological father's identity + guaranteed position within Sovereign Bastard leadership structure.

The words blur as tears fill my vision, hot and immediate and impossible to stop.

Five hundred thousand dollars. Enough money to change everything. To pay off student loans and buy mom a house and never worry about rent again, never stress about whether we could afford groceries or new textbooks or any of the thousand small humiliations of poverty.

And information about his father.

God, Brandon. You were looking for Dad.

He never talked about it much—our different fathers, the fact that my dad stuck around long enough to give me his last name before disappearing into addiction and early death, while Brandon's dad was just a question mark our mother refused to discuss. "It doesn't matter," she'd say whenever he asked. "You have me. You have your sister. That's family enough."

But it mattered to him. It ate at him in quiet ways I didn't fully understand until now, looking at this document that proves someone knew exactly which wounds to prod, which promises to make.

James Harrington promised my brother everything he wanted. Everything he needed. Everything he would have been willing to die for.

And then killed him anyway.

"Find something interesting?"

Alexander's voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts, and I jump hard enough that the folder nearly slides off my lap. My hands slam down on it instinctively, pressing it flat against my thighs.

He's standing three feet away, watching me with an expression I can't read. Not quite angry. Not quite resigned. Something harder and more complicated that makes my stomach drop, makes cold understanding start to creep in around the edges.

His eyes drop to the folder, recognition flashing across his features.

He knows what I found. Of course he knows.

"You knew," I say, my voice coming out raw and accusing, stripped of any pretense of calm. "You knew about Brandon. About the initiation. About James sponsoring him."

The words feel like glass in my throat.

He doesn't deny it. Doesn't look away. Doesn't offer excuses or explanations. Just stands there with his hands in his pockets and that infuriatingly calm expression while my entire world fractures around me, while every assumption I've made about our relationship splinters into sharp, cutting pieces.

"Yes," he says simply. Just that. Just yes.

The admission hits like a physical blow, like he's reached across the distance between us and shoved his fist into my chest. I surge to my feet, the folder falling from my lap and scattering papers across the industrial carpet—Brandon's name, Brandon's promises, Brandon's death spreading across the floor like evidence at a crime scene.

"You knew and you didn't tell me?" My voice rises, echoing off the empty office walls, and I don't care who might hear, don't care about anything except the betrayal burning through my veins. "This entire time—from the moment we met, from the moment I told you why I came to Belgrave—you've known about my brother's initiation and you said nothing?"

"I told you what I could when I could safely tell you," he says, and his voice is still too calm, too controlled, like we're discussing the weather instead of my brother's murder.

"Safely?" The word comes out as a half-laugh, half-sob, bitter and ugly. "We're married, Alexander. We're supposed to be partners. We're supposed to trust each other. And you've been sitting on information about my brother's death this entire time? Letting me investigate and search and put myself in danger when you had answers in your fucking filing cabinet?"

"Elara—"

"Don't." I hold up a hand, backing away when he takes a step forward, needing space to think, to breathe, to process this. "Don't you dare try to justify this right now. Don't you dare tell me this was for my own good."