Leo’s brow knits. “Look, man, you know I’m good with whatever. But I’m starting feel a little…” He shrugs. “Uneasyabout this being so off the books. With your dad, I mean.” He glances at Lochlan. “Yours too, I assume?”
“Bingo,” Lochlan grunts. “Sorry, it’s gonna stay that way.”
Obviously, we’ve both had conversations with our families in the last two days about these twenty potential fucking stories rising over Ya-ya’s goddamn house. But both my dad and Lochlan’s want to “play it cool” and take the diplomatic route in trying to talk sense into both Angelo and the De Luca family.
Lochlan and I see things a bit differently. To us, this isn’t a time for diplomacy.
This is an act ofwar, and wars have casualties.
The two dumb fucks down in the hidden dungeon under this very cabin…which I bought during my sophomore year forreasons…were caught snooping around Kingsward Hall the night of the Para Bellum party.
They’re in their thirties, which outs them as not being Knightsblood students. And they were both taking a bunch of pictures on phones that they’ve yet to give us the passwords for, which outs them as being guilty of…well, I don't know yet.
But it’s the burner phone one of them had, with just a single contact, that really sealed their fate.
The contact is a dummy office used by the Santoro family.
Since this is war, even if my father and uncle don't want to admit it, that makes themspies. And being caught during war has, historically,notbeen pleasant for spies.
Lochlan follows me down to the root cellar. I punch the code into the keypad next to the metal door set into rock wall, and calmly reach for the nine-iron golf club leaning against the wall as the door unlocks.
“Good evening, gentlemen.”
The two men tied to metal chairs bolted to the floor in the windowless stone room have barely looked up before I’m swinging the golf club as hard as I can at the guy on the right’s head. Blood explodes from the dent I put in his skull. His little buddy is screaming bloody murder as I hit the first guy again, then again. The third time, the light goes out of his eyes, giving me the second guy’scompleteand undivided attention.
“Okay!” he blurts, looking in horror as his dead friend. “I’ll unlock the phone!”
I smile coldly as I clean the gory golf club off on the dead guy’s shirt. “Masterfulnegotiating skills this one has, wouldn’t you say, Loch?”
“A true statesman,” Lochlan chuckles as he walks over and picks up the two phones we took off these idiots from a side table. “Password, and you’d better have your little fucking buddy’s, too.”
“One-two-three-four-five!!” the guy sobs. “Both of ‘em!”
I glance at Lochlan, who lookspissed.
“Fucking hell," he sighs. "You made us brain your friend forthat?”
He opens the first phone and hands it to me before unlocking the other one.
Lochlan frowns. “What the fuck is this, you little perv?” He shows me the phone’s camera roll, which is atonof grainy zoomed-in shots of various female Knightsblood students dancing and partying the other night.
Lochlan turns back to the weeping guy tied to the chair. “Did you seriously sneak into our fucking mansion to take bad upskirt pics of college girls, you dumb prick?” He scoffs. “Fucking hell. Achilles, can you believe—hey, Achilles?”
I barely hear him. Not over the dull roar in my ears as I look at the camera roll of the second phone.
…It'sentirelyphotos of Yelena.
The man in the chair whimpers when I lift his chin with the golf club.
“Why thefuckis Angelo Santoro so interested in this girl?”
Confusion furrows his blood-splattered brow. “W-what??” he snivels.
“Yourboss,” I growl. “Why is he?—”
“Who the fuck is Angelo Santoro?!”
“The guy who paid you to slip into our party, fuck-face,” Lochlan snarls. “You had his office number on your fucking burner.”