The Thorne Heiress Unveiling Shadow novel Chapter 28

A few days later, a wave of excitement washed over the Sterling University campus. Flyers appeared on every bulletin board, and sleek, dynamic ads took over the digital screens in the student union. The announcement was official: the annual Blackwood Innovation Prize was open for registration. For the students in the School of Engineering and Computer Science, it was everything. The grand prize was life-changing: a quarter-million-dollar cash award, and more importantly, a coveted summer internship working directly with Kaelen Blackwood's personal innovation team—the secretive "Division Zero." Winning didn't just guarantee a job; it launched a career into the stratosphere.

For Aria Sutton, the announcement was not about a career. It was about a lifeline. Her life since the Foundation Ball had been a slow-motion nightmare. Her father's company was in a death spiral, with creditors calling at all hours. Her mother had locked herself in her room, alternating between fits of weeping and screeching phone calls to their lawyers. And Aria herself was a social ghost. The few friends who still spoke to her did so with an air of pity that was almost worse than the mockery. She spent her days in her luxurious dorm suite, the silence broken only by the constant, mocking buzz of her phone with notifications from gossip sites.

She was staring at a digital flyer for the competition on her laptop when the ad began to play on the campus network. The image of Kaelen Blackwood, his face cool and commanding, stared back at her. The humiliation of that night was a fresh, open wound. He had destroyed her family with a few casual words. But as she stared at his face, a new, desperate idea began to form. What if she could force him to see her differently?

The competition was the key. Kaelen Blackwood respected strength, intelligence, and power. If she could win his prize, if she could dominate the very competition he had created, he would have no choice but to respect her. It was a path to redemption, a way to reclaim her honor and force her way back into his world. Her desperation began to morph into a new, ferocious wave of determination.

She opened a new browser tab and started researching the top students in Sterling's computer science department. She wasn't a coder, but she had something more powerful than skill: money. Or at least, what was left of it. Her first target was Mark Chen, the undisputed king of Sterling's computer science department. His profile was a laundry list of achievements: perfect GPA, president of the coding club, winner of the last three campus hackathons. He was a campus legend, and he knew it.

Aria planned her approach meticulously. She didn't text or call. She found his class schedule and waited for him outside the main engineering building, leaning against her Porsche like a predator waiting for its prey. When he emerged, buried in his phone, she stepped into his path.

Verify captcha to read the contentVerify