"God, I *hate* oat milk lattes," Naomi groaned, pushing her cup away with theatrical disgust. The café buzzed around them—laughter, clinking spoons, the low hum of conversation—but Iza barely noticed, too busy watching the door.
Then he walked in.
The café didn't go silent—that only happens in bad romance novels—but Iza's breath caught anyway. Lucas Brett moved like a blade through water: effortless, dangerous, leaving ripples in his wake. His charcoal suit was too formal for a student hangout, the sharp angles of his face catching the overhead lights in a way that made his pale skin glow almost unnaturally.
Naomi followed her stare and immediately choked on her almond croissant. "Oh shit," she wheezed, hastily wiping powdered sugar off her chin. "That's—"
"I know." Iza's fingers tightened around her mug. Everyone knew the Brett heir, even if only by reputation. His family's biotech firm funded half the university's research labs, and rumors swirled about their private security detail carrying weapons too advanced for civilian use.
Their table happened to be directly in his path to the counter. Iza stiffened as he approached, catching the faint scent of bergamot and something metallic beneath it. Then—impossibly—he paused. Not a full stop, just the barest hesitation as his gaze flicked down to her.
His eyes were the exact shade of black coffee left to go cold.
Naomi audibly gulped. Iza's pulse hammered in her throat as his attention lingered for three terrifying seconds. She could've sworn the temperature dropped. Then he was moving again, leaving behind the electric prickle of something unspoken in the air.
"Did he just—" Naomi whispered.
Iza exhaled sharply, realizing she'd been clutching her coffee so tight the ceramic was burning her palms. Across the room, Lucas accepted his drink without exchanging words with the barista. His fingers flexed once around the cup, tendons standing stark beneath alabaster skin, before he turned and left without glancing back.
The café chatter swelled again, but Iza couldn't shake the feeling of being assessed—and found somehow both lacking and intriguing. Naomi was already texting their group chat in all caps, but Iza just stared at the door swinging shut behind him, the ghost of that gaze still prickling down her spine like frost forming on glass.
Outside, rain had begun to fall in silver sheets, turning the pavement into a dark mirror. Through the window, she caught the briefest glimpse of Lucas stepping into a black town car with tinted windows, his silhouette swallowed by the shadows inside before the door shut with a whisper-soft click. The car pulled away without brake lights, as if it had simply dissolved into the storm.
"Earth to Iza!" Naomi snapped her fingers, leaning so far across the table her vintage band tee nearly dipped into Iza's abandoned latte. "What was *that*? Since when do billionaires personally fetch their own coffee? And why did he look at you like—"
"I don't know." Iza flexed her fingers, still feeling the phantom warmth of her mug. Her pulse hadn't slowed. "Maybe he recognized me from Professor Langley's research symposium?" Even as she said it, the excuse tasted thin. Langley's pet projects were niche at best, and the Brett Group's donations skewed toward weaponized virology, not behavioral psychology.
Across the room, the barista dropped a metal pitcher with a clang that made half the patrons jump. Iza didn't—because in that exact second, her phone buzzed with an unknown number. The message was a single line, the letters crisp and final as a guillotine blade: *Your thesis on nocturnal predator-prey dynamics. Tomorrow. 8PM.* No signature. No address. The title wasn't public. It existed only on her laptop—and in Langley's locked office.
Naomi grabbed her wrist. "You're white as his stupid tailored shirt. Iza__what's wrong?"
Iza turned the screen toward her just as the message vanished, leaving no trace in her inbox. The rain outside intensified, drumming against the windows with sudden violence, and for the first time in her sheltered, carefully catalogued life, Isabelle Matthew understood what it meant to be prey.