Freya Arsov sits on top of a world of diamonds and sports cars. Her father is a billionaire, head of a world-renown company, her mother, an esteemed lawyer. She attends the most prestigious boarding school in England. She has four amazing best frien...
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DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JIYA DEEPAK STEPPED out onto the asphalt of Arrowsmith Institute for Excellency's car park, the sound of her smart heels clicking on the floor was lost by the panicked crying and screaming and blaring sirens that echoed around the campus. The school itself was painted in colours of flaring red and blue as police and ambulance lights shed brightness upon the dirty secrets littered across the campus, exposing what shadowed truths lay hidden.
An officer was quick to approach her, a younger man with a grim face. Though, no one's face was as grim as hers.
Jiya walked across the car park without halt.
She could already taste the scandal that this case would bring. She didn't want anything to do with it, yet here she was, roused from her bed in the city to a school that oozed privilege from its bricked walls.
"Detective Inspector Deepak," respectfully addressed the man as he fell into step beside her, walking past throngs of whispering students bedecked in gowns and suits of exquisite make. Silk and gossamer would not hide their secrets from the detective, however.
She felt their eyes trace her as she passed, curious and predatory— more like tigers than teenagers. Blood had been spilled this night and it appeared the privileged students of Arrowsmith did not mind spilling more.
She paid them no heed.
Jiya's attention was caught on only one group of teenagers tonight and she'd been informed that they'd been successfully subdued in the school's library.
Whatever the officer meant to say next, as they broke from the cluttered car park, down a quieter cobblestone walkway of the school, Jiya did not wait to hear. Instead, she asked, "The Arsov girl?"
Even the name felt heavy on her tongue.
She was glad that no students were here along this walkway to hear her speak it, the students having been ushered away from the main compound as quickly as possible, pulled from the glittering Winter Ball when bullets had begun to fly.
The officer's hesitation to respond made her stop in her step. She turned a dark stare onto the man. "The Arsov girl, officer?" asked Jiya once again. She was already tired of this case.
"Ma'am," he said, fiddling his fingers. "I'm afraid she's gone to the hospital."
Jiya inhaled shortly. Then, she snapped, "You people let the girl who just shot someone walk away?"
But she wasn't even too surprised. This case was already stinking of the chaos of rich people, the type of people who did not care for the law, the type of chaos that made you understand that lead and diamond were both made from the same thing— that jewels and bullets were much more closely linked than you'd think.
