Page 58 of Carry Your Debt

“I know, but he wanted my report from Sunday. Like, yesterday.”

“Jesus,” he mutters under his breath. “Those lists take months to put together.”

“I know! I told him I would try and at least get the bigger players done once we knew more about the contenders,” I continue, my gaze following a rather large crack that’s spidering through one of the bricks at my eye level.

“Sabe—” Zeus starts, almost hesitantly.

My skin prickles in warning. “What?”

He sighs. “There won’t be an official roster until Sunday when the seven days are up...but Dominic has informed me Sinclair was nominated to enter on behalf of the Gray Men. As one of two formally sanctioned heirs.”

“What?” I suck in a breath. Foreign wisps of protectiveness lick around my ribs. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Wait, Dominic informed you?”

“Dominic,” he confirms, a bitterness creeping into the fringes of his voice. “I’ve not heard a single word from Sebastian since Sunday’s dinner. Apparently, informing your only known heir that you fathered a secret child eighteen years ago was a task so beneath the Gray Man that it was best left to his Second.”

I rub a knuckle across my sternum, feeling a sudden kinship with the fissured wall in front of me.

Because what do you even say to that?

“I’m…sorry, Jax. He didn’t mention anything just now.”

“Probably figured you’d just hear it from me,” he grouses. “Didn’t offer any proof either, just informed me that we’d be expected to work together and that my Crew had to cover him like we would the Codex.”

Wow. I love that’s what we’ve both been reduced to: the disposable son and a useful tool. Whose worth only extends as far as their submission.

“Always such an ego boost,” I mutter, some of the same bitterness threatening to ruin the sharp lines of my sarcasm. “Does Apollo know yet?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. Did Miller say anything to you?”

“Miller?” I choke out.

Fuck, did D⁠—

“He tells me everything. You should really know that by now,” comes Zeus’s terse reply. I can’t read that particular tone of his, though.

Is he disappointed?

“Go and find him. We need to prepare for Sunday.”

Room assignments for the upcoming academic year aren’t locked in until the very night before the September semester begins. That meant starting my first day at Rox Academy with a few small holes in my student data, and so when I passed Apollo in the hallway that first morning, I’d mistakenly assumed it was because he was one of my new neighbors.

When we did get a hold of the finalized dorm numbers, and I was able to update each of the student dossiers with their assigned rooms, I discovered that Tristan Sinclair did, in fact, not live on that floor.

He didn’t even live in the building.

Turns out the Rox Boys all share a communal apartment only available in the cluster of carefully restored buildings across campus. One of the larger buildings that Foster had unfortunately been unable to work his magic on and have me assigned to.

But I’m totally, completely not green-eyed over the gorgeous Gothic mansion in which they get to lay their heads at night—or the fact the doorframe I’d seen him leaning against had actually belonged to one Sloane Walker.

Jealousy?

Nope.

Never met her.