Because I Killed Him The wrong ally is deadlier than an enemy

The wrong ally is deadlier than an enemy. In the Civilized World, everyone is rich, yet money doesn’t buy safety. It only buys a gold coffin. The real currency is having the right allies. Low-citizens survive by joining high-citizens’ exclusive inner circles, trading loyalty for protection from laws that govern speech, dress, and posture—and punish mistakes with public beheading. Low-citizen Loredana Waldsten already knows the cost of breaking the rules. Once a rising fencing prodigy, she lost the right to carry weapons after killing a high-citizen in a brutal locker-room attack. The courts erased his death to preserve his family’s honor. Now she’s unarmed, legally defenseless, and enrolled at the elite Grandmaster University, where champagne spills into the gutters and reputations are built on death duels. When Loredana’s father, a low-citizen politician, publicly challenges the high-citizens, she becomes a target. Some classmates demand her execution. Others hunt her for sport. And by law, she’s forbidden to fight back.