OPERATION WINTERSPINE (Strings Between Us Book 2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: OF VANISHING PRESIDENTS, PEACEFUL MORNINGS,

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: OF VANISHING PRESIDENTS, PEACEFUL MORNINGS, AND ONE VERY OBVIOUS CRIMINAL

Riyee's POV

My phone wouldn't shut up.

It was the third time it rang this morning, vibrating violently on the nightstand like it had something urgent to say.

I peeled open one eye. The sunlight was already spilling across the bed, golden and damning.

Crap.

I sat up too fast—then flinched. My body reminded me I was still in last night's clothes. Except I wasn't alone.

KD was still asleep beside me. Or pretending to be.

And damn it, he looked too peaceful. Soft breath, hair a little mussed from sleep, that dangerous mouth slack from dreams. You'd think he was just another guy catching up on sleep—not the untouchable Ice President of Supreme Allievo Academy with a thousand secrets stitched into his spine.

If only people knew. My head snapped toward the clock.

11:02 AM.
Cue mental panic.

My classes. Gone. Vaporized into thin air. And KD? I didn't even know what his schedule looked like today—but something told me he was missing at least three back-to-back meetings and a minor crisis or two.

I leaned over to nudge him. "Hey. Wake up. We overslept."

KD only groaned, pulled me into his arms like a heat-seeking missile, and mumbled, "Five more minutes, love."

I squirmed. "KD. It's 11. Eleven. That's not five minutes late—that's scandal-level late."

"Mm. Let them miss me," he muttered, voice hoarse and scratchy, like morning fog in his throat.

God. He was ridiculous.

But fine. One minute more. Just one.

Then my phone screamed again, and this time I checked the caller: Jodie.

I picked up and didn't even get a hello in before her voice exploded through the speaker.

"RIELLE! THE PRESIDENT WAS KIDNAPPED!!"

I jerked so hard I nearly dropped the phone on KD's face.

"What?!"

"KHAIZER DYLAN DELA VEGA IS MISSING!!"

I stared at the boy in question, still asleep—or pretending—with the softest expression on his face. As if he were dreaming of beaches or bloody battlefields. Knowing him, probably both.

Act normal. Don't laugh. Don't smirk. Don't scream I KNOW WHERE HE IS.

"What do you mean missing?" I asked, trying for innocent.

"His room was empty this morning when the council checked," Xylia chimed in. "He's not answering any calls. And he's supposed to be overseeing three campus audits today."

"He was literally gone, Rielle," Errol added. "No CCTVs, no movement logs, nothing. It's like he disappeared. After that chandelier incident, people are freaking out. Some are saying—" he lowered his voice dramatically, "—that he was abducted."

Great. Now he's gone from Ice President to Missing Person Case No. 001.

"By the way," Mico said, trying to sound concerned, "how's your head? Thres said you weren't feeling well, that's why you didn't show up to class."

I nearly facepalmed. Now it made sense.

Seb. Tofer. Thres.

The Three Idiots had done something with the footage. They probably wiped KD's entire existence from the school network like this was a damn spy movie.