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“Luna.” That was all he needed to say. I heard the warning loud and clear.
“It’s okay.” I gazed down at my hands, palms stained with Annika’s blood. “It’s the perfect recipe. Everything will be done right and it will turn out exactly the way we expect. No surprises. No mistakes. No wrong turns.
“No Annikas,” I stated. “Let’s go inside. We’ve got to wake up the boys.”
THE NEXT MORNING, WILDER and I headed to the campus bookstore. We spoke in low tones as I searched the shelves for replacement textbooks.
“She’s in the hospital,” he said under his breath. “Unconscious, but in stable condition.”
“That’s something at least. She’ll pull through this, right?”
Wilder glared at a guy coming down our aisle. He caught the look and turned back around.
“Regalia General Hospital has a good record. Below average number of malpractice-related deaths in the country. There’s an underground organ-harvesting ring operating out of three nearby hospitals. Far as I can dig up, RGH has kept out of it. I’d go there if I was hurt,” he said. “That should tell you something.”
“It does,” I admitted. “If you trust those doctors, everyone can. But what about Giovanni?”
“The police roped off the beach house and closed down the bluffs. It’s officially a crime scene.”
I nodded, chewing my lip. “They can’t ignore that both of their cars were there, burning side by side.”
“They haven’t ignored it. I hacked the RPD server this morning.” Wilder lifted my English book off a high shelf and handed it to me. “They pulled Giovanni’s file. Next stop is bringing him in for questioning.”
“He won’t go down for this.” We drifted along the stacks, me lazily scanning for Introduction to Psychology. “Between the high-priced lawyers and the fact he didn’t touch her, Giovanni will find a way out of this. The only question is will he throw Gabriella under the bus.”
“Whether he does or doesn’t, once Annika wakes up and tells her side of the story, Gabriella is screwed. I’m more interested in the lengths she’ll go to cover her ass. She’s got a lot more to lose.”
I inclined my head. That was a good point. “Do you think there’s any chance he’ll do the right thing and tell the truth about what happened at the beach house?”
“That someone lured Annika out there to catch him in the act, blew up his car, and caused the circumstances that led to his girlfriend thrown off a cliff? This after his bank account got drained and he was trapped in his room and tormented all night.” Wilder dropped that without inflection. “I don’t know if he’ll tell the cops all that, but he’ll tell someone. His next step is personal security tailing him whenever he leaves the house.”
Nodding, I replied, “Then, it is good that I changed the plan. Less full-frontal assault, and more underhanded tricks. They won’t know what’s happening until it’s done.”
Wilder walked back, picked up the psych book that I passed, and added it to my pile. My eagle-eye companion missed nothing. “Your plan is good, but Owen and Levi are out of the hospital. I still say the two of them along with Giovanni, Wesley, and bastard number five would benefit from a swing on the ceiling.”
“I say that too, but we have to do this another way now. I wanted Annika to see Giovanni gives as much a shit about her as he did Winter, but I didn’t want her to find out by way of accidental homicide and abandoning the scene of the crime. No collateral damage from here on.”
“I need to tell you”—Wilder slipped around my waist, spinning me to face him—“you’re showing more restraint for the Royals than they would show toward you. Girls you didn’t know attacked you on the quad. You said you understand the game now. Start playing,” he tossed over his shoulder, walking off.
I was quick behind him, falling in step. “This is a phrase you hear a lot and ignore every time, but this time fight your natural urge and trust me. Just because I don’t want to hold another girl’s hand while she bleeds out in the sand, doesn’t mean I’m going soft. If you guys do exactly what I say, we can take out all five of Winter’s killers in one move—and only them.
“As for Saylor, Iris, and others who jumped me, they won’t get away with it. Most importantly, they won’t put their hands on me again. A fact I intend to make clear to Saylor tomorrow night.”
“I could tell you again why accepting that invitation is worse than a terrible mistake, but you weren’t listening last night and I doubt you will now.”
“Thank you for handling both sides of that argument. Now we can move past it.”
He narrowed on me as I stepped to the checkout counter. I paid for my stuff and headed out, expecting my muscled companion to follow.
