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CHAPTER III
Eva
“I can’t meet you at the Vanguard anymore,” I whisper into the burner phone while swiping over my notes for tomorrow’s classes on my Ultrabook. “I’m pretty sure your son is having me watched. So how about you tell me when and where to do the job, and leave the necessary items in my car or something? I park it underground, so you can slip in at night.”
A cold shudder runs down my spine as I think about Romano Royales slipping into my building for whatever reason, but there’s no other way. I can’t risk Micah seeing me with him again. I know it’s a long shot but maybe, just maybe, if I don’t meet his stepfather again he’ll get off my case.
The idea puts a heavy feeling in my chest.
Romano’s lack of a response beyond the breathing in my ear puts me on edge, too, so there’s that. But even if this whole thing does go away—as far-fetched a possibility as that is—how am I ever going to face Micah with any semblance of dignity again? He’s a student who fingered me right outside my apartment, and Santi caught us.
Romano kills the call, and my heart rate picks up its pace. Blood rushes into my head, and I can barely concentrate on these damn notes.
The pressure is just too fucking much. I’d get out of here right now, leaving it all behind, if Romano didn’t have me in the chokehold of the fucking century.
The burner phone rings again half an hour later, startling me. I look down at it as if the devil himself were calling. I pick up with trembling fingers, a tiny voice inside telling me that whatever suggestion Romano is going to make, it won’t be anything good.
I put the device at my ear.
“I’m right outside. Come meet me in the car.”
I walk to the window, staring out at the dark, gravel driveway at the bottom of my tower. A pair of headlights shine in the foggy night.
“Meeting in person is risky,” I say through my teeth. At least I manage to sound like I have my shit together.
“It’s dark out here. There are only a few people left on campus, and we’re meeting at the back of a tower surrounded by nothing but the woods. I’ve got people securing the perimeter. No one will see us.” The headlights go out, and the driveway is again cast into complete darkness. “The lights have been on long enough for you to map your way to me. Now move.”
Then the line goes dead.
I pull back my shoulders, straighten my jacket, and smooth out my hair before I start down the spiraling stairs toward the library and farther down into the hallway. Only a few lights are still on, and a single group of students hunch over tablets in the lounge, looking as if they haven’t slept in weeks. They probably have an exam early in the morning, and they’re too groggy to even notice me. I keep my steps light as I slip through the back and then hurry down the narrow gravel path along the university wall, my ankles twisting in my heels.
The university and its surroundings seem haunted at night, and the building transforms into a Gothic castle forgotten by time. The front hall, the lounges and the cafeteria have been renovated, receiving state-of-the-art equipment and designer furniture that the Kings’ shameless fortunes paid for, but the back of the building kept its history.
The only thing that separates the backyard of my faculty tower from the vast forests behind it is an old iron fence, some abandoned shrubbery and overgrowth, and this damned gravel driveway. The only light that glows faintly from the tower is the light from my office window, which I left on to make it look like I’m still in there, but it doesn’t do much to illuminate where I’m walking. The fact that Romano only ever drives black cars isn’t helping, but I guess it does make discovery almost impossible.
This should be safe, no one should be able to spy on us, but the smallest hairs at the back of my nape still rise. I look left and right, then throw a look behind me.
Nothing.
No one.
When I’m close enough to the car, a door clicks open. I slide in, and Romano’s sickening scent of dead flowers and expensive booze slips into my flaring nostrils.
“I’d prefer it if we stopped doing this,” I say through my teeth, trying to keep my breathing even. “As I said, your youngest son is on to us.”
