“One more second and I was gonna stab my fork into that walking skeleton,” Chay says, gripping said fork in her fist.
Anna shakes her head, slow and angry.
“I hate sitting by like that,” she says. “But I don’t want to make things harder for you, Zoe.”
She knows as well as I do that antagonizing Rocco could have long-term consequences for me. It’s not like I can irritate him into canceling our engagement. He thrives on my resistance—it only fuels him to worse behavior.
Anna doesn’t stop frowning until Leo Gallo drops down next to her, throwing his arm around her shoulders. Anna and Leo are indeed cousins, as Rocco snidely pointed out, but it’s only by marriage, not by blood. After a tumultuous first year at school together, the two of them have apparently decided to be lovers as well as best friends, and they’re now openly dating. Or at least, as open as you can be at Kingmakers where we’re not technically supposed to date.
Watching Anna with Leo is like watching a flower open under the light of the sun. She instantly relaxes against him, the stress leaving her body like a sigh. Her face brightens, and she becomes twice as talkative.
I could be jealous of Leo and Anna. Leo is everything that Rocco isn’t—handsome, warm, decent, genuinely affectionate . . . But it’s impossible to see the two of them together with anything but a sense of rightness. They so clearly belong with each other, like salt and pepper, or sea and sand. Besides, I never expected to have anything like that myself.
Miles Griffin and Ozzy Duncan deposit their heavily-laden trays next to Leo’s. Miles is likewise Anna’s cousin, and Ozzy is his best friend. The two of them are the biggest troublemakers at school. Ozzy loves to get in fights, and Miles is the prime procurer of contraband for anyone who needs it.
Miles makes me distinctly uncomfortable, since my goal in life has always been to follow the rules as carefully as possible, while he seems to break every single one for fun.
He has the privilege of that type of behavior since he’s the son of an Irish mafia boss turned mayor of Chicago. I expect he’s been able to get away with pretty much whatever he likes all his life.
I don’t particularly like him. There’s something amoral in the way he’ll sell anything to anyone—like an arms dealer, with no questions asked.
Not to mention the fact that he applies his particular brand of sarcasm like a switchblade. If he sees the opportunity to make a joke at your expense, he’ll cut you without warning.
That being said, there’s a marked difference in the mood at the table with these three boys as our dining companions instead of the three that just left. Chay and Ozzy cheerfully trade bacon for a fried egg, and Leo says, “Was that Rocco Prince that just left? He’s a creepy fucker, isn’t he? No offense, Zoe.”
“You could only offend me by complimenting him,” I tell him.
“Then consider us on permanent good terms,” Leo says, grinning.
“I don’t know,” Miles says, taking a swig of orange juice. “He’s got his charm. If you ever wondered what it was like to meet Ted Bundy.”
“I never wondered that,” Cat says quietly.
“Holy shit!” Miles says, doing an exaggerated double-take and pretending to peer over the top of the table at her. “There’s a kid there! Is it ‘bring your daughter to school’ day, Zoe?”
“That’s my sister, Cat,” I say coolly. “She’s a Freshman.”
“They get tinier every year,” Ozzy says, shaking his head in wonder.
Cat’s face is flaming. This is a joke that’s gonna get real old, real fast for her.
“Alright, knock it off,” I say, “she doesn’t want to hear it.”
“It’s okay,” Cat mumbles.
She looks so beaten down already, just from one encounter with Rocco and some mild teasing from friends. My stomach sinks lower than ever. I really don’t know how Cat’s going to survive here. It’s her first day of classes, and things are about to get a whole lot worse. She’s got Stealth and Infiltration, Counterintelligence, and Combat, and that‘s all before dinner.
I put my arm around her to give her a sideways hug.
“You’re gonna do great today,” I tell her. “I better get going—I don’t want to be late for Professor Graves, or he’ll slam the door in my face.”
“Tell him I said hi,” Miles says.
“No thanks,” I reply. “Out of the whole student body, you’re at the top of the list of the ones he hates, and I think I might be in that tiny minority he can actually tolerate.”
“That’s because you’re a good girl, aren’t you?” Miles says, with that insulting edge to his voice. “You’d never upset that pompous piece of shit, would you? You just keep smiling and being polite, no matter how big an asshole he is.”
I look Miles in the face, really look at him, which is difficult to do, because his steel-gray eyes have a way of fixing on you like he’s stripping you bare. It’s a nakedness of the soul, not the body. Miles Griffin can look right inside you and see all your insecurities, all your flaws and weaknesses. You can tell he’s tallying them up, finding the most vulnerable spot to hit you next.
“Not all of us get to be a rebel without a cause,” I say to him.
Miles keeps his eyes locked on mine, his face unsmiling.
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of causes,” he says.
I stand up from the table. As I do, the bruised flesh of my upper thigh gives a painful twitch. My knee buckles under me and my first step is more like a limp.
I recover quickly, straightening up and pretending like nothing happened. But I know Miles saw it. His eyes narrow for just a second before his face smooths out again in placid indifference.
“See you in Psych,” I say to Anna and Chay.
I spend the morning in Finance, a class mostly full of Accountants. Last year we focused on international banking, this year we’re delving into domestic money laundering.
Professor Graves stands at the front of the class in his typical lecturer’s stance, hands clasped behind his back, belly thrust toward us, straining the buttons of his tweed vest. He’s had his silver beard freshly trimmed for the start of school, and he’s looking especially pleased and pompous.
Professor Graves is one of the less-popular teachers at the school, because he lacks the humor of someone like Professor Howell or the fascinating lecture style of Professor Thorn. Graves is strict and fastidious. He hates being interrupted even by valid questions.
On the other hand, no professor at Kingmakers is anything less than an expert, so there’s still plenty to be learned in his class. I’ve managed to stay off his bad side. So all in all, I’m in good spirits as I take notes on the three stages of washing money.
“Placement, Layering, Integration . . .” Professor Graves intones, pacing back and forth in front of our neat rows of desks. “Placement comes first. You take your illegal earnings, and you introduce them to a legitimate financial institution, perhaps through a shell company, smurfing, or trade-based laundering.”
“What do you mean by trade-based laundering?” Coraline Paquet inquires from behind me. She’s a slim, dark-haired French girl, friends with the Paris Bratva.