Luke would have stepped between us without hesitation if he’d been here today. Instinct told me to leave. I stayed where I was.
He stopped a few feet away. “Ms. Callahan.” His voice carried calm precision.
I held his gaze as all the warnings from my mom and Luke about staying away from him swam through my mind. “Mr. Dunn.”
Up close, the resemblance between him and Elise appeared even more striking. The same dark eyes. The same controlled stillness. But where Elise’s composure had always carried arrogance, Dunn’s leaned colder.
“I wanted to speak with you briefly,” he continued. The tone remained perfectly civil.
Students continued passing around us, though the distance they kept suggested they understood instinctively that this conversation did not belong to them.
“I imagine the past few days have been… intense,” he added.
I kept enough distance between us. I didn’t trust him at all and had no idea why he was approaching me. “That’s one way to describe it.”
His lips curved into a faint, deceptively polite smile. “I’m sure you believe the hearing resolved the situation.”
I didn’t respond, just let the silence stretch between us.
“For what it’s worth,” he continued evenly, “I regret that the matter escalated to the degree it did. Misunderstandings among young people have a way of spiraling when emotions become involved.”
Misunderstandings—bullshit. What Elise had done to Avery made me want to launch myself at him, all teeth and nails.
“What she did wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was intimidation.”
His expression didn’t change. “Perhaps,” he agreed mildly. A small pause followed. “However,” he continued, “pursuing conflict often produces consequences beyond the original disagreement.”
He continued. “Families become involved. Reputations are torn apart, and opportunities change.”
The implication landed with quiet precision. He framed it as a general observation, but the warning was unmistakably directed at me.
“I would hope,” Dunn continued, “that everyone involved considers the broader implications before allowing matters to escalate further.” His tone remained almost conversational.
“Your daughter was responsible for what happened.”
“My daughter made poor decisions,” he acknowledged. “Which is why she will continue her education elsewhere.”
The solution had been simple for him, just remove the problem.
“Unfortunately, these situations rarely remain contained,” he continued, his eyes holding mine with quiet focus. “When conflicts escalate, the consequences rarely stop with the people standing in the room.”
The message didn’t require elaboration. So, no one would remain untouched for crossing him, not families or future plans. His influence reached far beyond this school. The fact that he hadn’t been able to twist the board’s arm this time was a testament to Luke’s threat—and to the evidence we had brought with us. But I had no doubt things would spiral further, unless we could stay ahead of him. The question was, could we?
He inclined his head slightly. “I hope the rest of your year proceeds more peacefully, Ms. Callahan.”
Then he turned and walked away. I stood in the courtyard for several seconds after he disappeared beyond the parking lot.
The conversation replayed in my mind with unsettling clarity. He hadn’t outright threatened me. But he hadn’t needed to.
That night, the house carried a tension I could not immediately explain.
Edwardo met me at the door when I came home from school. His usual relaxed demeanor had morphed into something more alert. His shoulders remained loose, but his eyes scanned my expression in a way that made it clear he was assessing more than my mood.
“Everything okay at school?” he asked.
“For the most part.”
He studied me for another moment. “Anything I should know about?”