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So much for putting Phoenix out of my mind. All thoughts of my old life, the new job, and what Crius wants me to do evaporate, and by Sunday evening, I’m lounging in the sun room of my villa, exchanging filthy photos with a woman I barely know.
By bedtime, I want to demand that she wears those Sunday school clothes all the time except in my presence. Because I don’t want anyone else admiring what’s mine.
Shit. There’s no way I’ll last the week. I resolve to call her tomorrow after work and move up our play date to Wednesday evening.
On Monday morning, I drive to the site of my mission, my jaw held so tight that my molars ache.
Marina University is a stark contrast to the London School of Finance. It’s a concrete, 1960’s monstrosity set within its own grounds on the outskirts of Marina Village.
It may as well be a prison for the armed guards, tall security walls, and ubiquitous cameras.
Academically, it’s a shit hole, but almost every underworld family in the United Kingdom sends their offspring there to study. Half the faculty is connected and the other half keeps their mouths shut.
I thought I had escaped this world when Crius let me study abroad—far from him, far from the underworld, and far from my tumultuous past. My decade in academia had been blissful, and I’d believed I had started anew.
Yet, here I am, back in the fold. Not exactly contract killing again, but what Crius wants from me is just as bad.
The time I’d spent away from the underworld had only primed me for this mission but it might get us all killed by the most powerful crime family in Great Britain.
Getting through security is an ordeal, even though the armed guards at the gate already have my details and are expecting my arrival. The campus beyond the tall walls mostly consists of lawn, a quartet of tower blocks and multiple four-story buildings.
I fire up the university’s app and use the map facility to navigate to my office. Its door still has the name of its previous incumbent on the door. Professor Arnold Eckhart, Director of Business Studies.
The poor bastard.
I’m surprised to find the room paneled in mahogany wood, with brown leather armchairs and a coffee table built for afternoon tiffin. A floor-to-ceiling window overlooks the expanse of lawn, and opposite a leather-topped desk is an entire wall of bookshelves.
It’s old world, genteel, exquisite. Not too dissimilar from the room I had in LSF.
I wouldn’t change a thing.
Someone knocks on the door. I walk around the desk and sink into a sumptuous leather desk chair. “Come in.”
A floppy-haired man in a tweed jacket strolls in, his hand outstretched. “I’m Carl Xander, Principal Lecturer in Macroeconomics and delighted to make your acquaintance.”
I stare at him until his smile falters, and the proffered hand drops to his side.
He exhales with a puzzled frown. “Professor Eckhart and I usually have a meeting each morning to discuss the students—”
“That won’t be necessary.” I rise from my seat and ignore the stab of guilt at the car accident Crius arranged for my predecessor so I could take his place.
“You realize that their backgrounds are unusual?” he asks.
“Yes, I am well aware that this is the mafia equivalent of Hogwarts,” I snap. “Now, excuse me.”
“Very well,” Xander says, his voice trailing. “Perhaps later?”
I check the time. 8:58. My lecture is about to start. That’s what happens when you spend the entire evening and half the night sexting and don’t leave time for overzealous security guards.
Irritated with myself, I rise from my seat and stride past the befuddled Dr. Xander and out into the hallway.
“If you’re looking for the small lecture hall, it’s on the left,” he says to my retreating back.
“Thanks.” I make a mental note to stop being such an asshole to Xander.
My anger would be best directed at Crius.
Crius the infamous pimp and sex trafficker, who treats people like marionettes to serve his whims. And to mother for returning from hiding and going back to him. Because once again, he’s using her as leverage to bring me back into the fold.
