Hearing Zac's laughter, Dario's eyes widened as he looked at the blond and felt the urge to put him in his place.
But when he moved a little bit more than he should have, he didn't even get close to Zac and felt his whole body ache, and a look of great pain quickly formed on his face.
"Boss!"
Dario's cronies didn't pay any attention to Zac, but all the other students in the vicinity looked at the young blond nervously, including Mia and Sean, who couldn't help but look at him strangely.
"That's..."
"I thought the orientation was supposed to keep those two away from each other," Mia commented softly to Sean. "That provocation just now is far from what I consider staying out of trouble."
"Yeah, I know." Sean closed his eyes and sighed as he shook his head negatively. "Zac may be intelligent, but he proves to be a bigger and bigger fool when Dario is involved."
"You should talk to him. The way Dario is now, the situation between them could get worse very quickly." She commented with a certain amount of concern, catching Sean's eye.
"Sometimes I think you're more interested in helping Zac than you let on, Mia." He looked into her eyes a little more seriously. "Is it just me? Maybe your brother said nice things about him?"
The pretty blonde girl smiled when she heard that, imagining that Sean was finally showing some jealousy towards her.
"My brother and I don't talk as much as you might think. He's been away from our family a lot the last few years," she commented as the crowd of students watching Dario dispersed, making way for them to move on to their classrooms.
"Is that so?"
"Sigh! My interest isn't in Zac, but in the problems he might cause with Dario and The Vipers. Anyway, we'll talk later."
She went to her seat in the classroom while Sean watched her intently.
As much as Mia liked him and they bonded as man and woman, the fact was that he didn't know much about her, nor how she knew so much about The Vipers and how Dario's problems and that faction bothered her so much.
However, Mia had a much more complicated background than Sean, Zac, Dario, and everyone else in the class could imagine!
While sitting next to her friends, smiling and chatting about trivial things, Mia secretly worried about Dario, Zac, and The Vipers' current situation.
'I hope this latest incident with Dario doesn't alienate Benjamin from my father.' Mia thought to herself as she considered her family's recent dealings with Councillor Benjamin Murphy.
As she thought about it, Sean looked at her out of the corner of his eye while Zac looked in Sean's direction, having already put Dario aside to turn his attention to the traitor.
'You're next, Sean. You'll pay for betraying me. No matter the reason, you shouldn't have done what you did!' Zac's eyes blazed with hate.
What bothered him the most wasn't the fact that Sean had betrayed him. He didn't know what motivated the black-haired guy to do it. There may be a good reason. But going behind his back and pretending to be his friend while secretly hurting him was an attitude Zac couldn't help but despise.
If Sean had only betrayed him and then hadn't been such a fucking fake friend, Zac might have been able to overlook the situation and just forget about the traitor. He wouldn't be friends with Sean anymore but wouldn't seek revenge if the guy had a good motive.
But pretending to be his friend while betraying him was the worst, and he couldn't bear it without thinking about returning it somehow!
Zac clenched his fists and imagined the right moment to act. 'Your mother is in the middle of Alavista's bloody lockdown. As soon as any more negative news about Onyx Contagion comes out, I'll deal with you, you piece of shit!'
As he thought this, Zac felt something grow in the depths of his being, noticing that his hatred was stimulating his powers a little more.
He was very much at peace with himself and his meditations. So he didn't lose control of his powers and calmed them down before the teacher of the day's first lesson entered the classroom and started the lesson.
...
Meanwhile, Kai was sitting in a luxury car next to a white-haired man dressed as a butler with dark glasses covering the man's eyes.
As someone drove the vehicle through the most important part of Walney, the white-haired old man, who didn't look very good then, said to the red-haired man next to him.
"Kai, I want you to find out who is behind Dario's incident last night. We're at a critical point in our deal with The Roses. But if this is due to that family trying to pressure us in any way, we may have to rethink our plans." The Vipers' number two, Dario's godfather, said in a stern tone to Kai.
"Why would The Roses do that, Mr. Ewing?" Kai asked, not believing that this other criminal faction would be behind an attack on a young man like Dario just when these two forces were about to seal a big deal.
"Not everyone in The Roses sees this deal like we do. They want to finalize the alliance treaty, but they want to show us their superiority," the blind old man said as he clenched his fists, worried about the faction's situation but also angry about what someone had done to Dario.
Kai sighed and said. "I'll do my best to determine who's to blame for this. But I feel this could be a case of simple theft. Dario was robbed. That's standard for petty theft."
"It could be. But it could also have been done to hide the movements of an enemy targeting Dario," Sage Ewing commented. "In any case, do as I said with the description and take care of the matter regardless of its origin. I don't want any more Dario-related problems reaching our boss."
"All right. I'll take care of it quickly."
After Kai said this, the SUV he was in stopped. He got out of it at a large square in the city center, not far from the vehicle's destination.
He looked at the Walney Municipal Assembly and sighed before looking at the City Hall.
'If all goes well, we'll have the first member of our faction as mayor next year! I have to get things moving!'