His distribution network for contraband is shockingly complex. It’s not as easy as bribing the fishermen and the shoremen to smuggle things in on the supply ships. He’s got an entire interlocking web of barter, including contacts in Dubrovnik, Tirana, and Bari, who source the items and handle payment to the hundred-odd people involved.
“How do you keep track of all this?” I demand.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Miles says. “It’s the way my brain works. I can see the system as a whole, with all the little junction points. Each of those points is one person, each with a problem and a solution. When you interconnect them all perfectly, the system feeds itself.”
What I find fascinating about Miles’ methods is how powerful it makes him. Without threats or violence or an army of followers, Miles is one of the most influential people on the island. Everyone knows him. Everyone owes him favors. Nobody wants to fuck with him because they’d risk access to the things that only he can supply.
Everyone except Rocco, of course.
He’s the one person uninterested in what Miles has to offer. What Rocco wants, Miles refuses to give him.
The skirmishes of Rocco, Wade Dyer, Jasper Webb, and Dax Volker, versus Miles and Ozzy, are ongoing and escalating. Hardly a day goes by without some kind of altercation. It frightens me because it feels like it’s building to something worse. Eventually these fights will burst the bounds of what can be hidden from the teachers, and then there will be consequences of an entirely different sort.
That’s not the only conflict we’re dealing with.
Leo and his cousin Dean are still on bad terms.
There was a short armistice at the beginning of the school year. I thought maybe Dean realized he had gone too far trying to drown Leo. I even thought he might feel some sense of gratitude that Leo hadn’t told the school authorities.
If Dean felt any obligation in that regard, it melted away as soon as he had to watch Anna and Leo openly dating.
He’s fallen into a darker mood by the week, and he’s been lashing out at everyone around him. His little clique of friends, including Bram Van Der Berg and Valon Hoxha, have become almost as feared as Rocco and his friends. They’re vicious without reason. They bully anyone they dislike. Since that mostly includes anybody friendly to Leo, it’s brought Dean and Leo into near-constant conflict.
This afternoon we’re in Combat class in the Armory. It’s mostly Heirs and Enforcers, but Matteo Ragusa is here too.
The trouble starts when Dean deliberately pairs up with Matteo for sparring, ordering Matteo’s friend Paulie White to partner with Bram instead.
“Sorry,” Paulie mouths to Matteo, too scared to refuse.
Matteo faces off against Dean, his wrapped fists awkward on the end of his skinny arms. He’s hunched and already flinching, knowing that Dean has no intention of taking it easy on him.
Dean stalks him with an easy grace that would be beautiful if it weren’t so cruel. It has always struck me how alike Dean and Anna look, both pale and fair with the finesse of a dancer. Dean is what Anna would be if she were born male, stripped of all her kindness and humor.
Anna might be thinking the same thing. She watches Dean uneasily, forgetting that she and I are supposed to be sparring.
Dean toys with Matteo, throwing light feints in his direction, making Matteo stumble over his own feet trying to get away from him. Then, without warning, Dean sweeps Matteo’s leg out from under him, grabbing Matteo’s arm on the way down and wrenching it viciously up behind his back until Matteo shrieks.
Dean lets go of him, but Matteo is cradling his arm, tears standing out in his eyes. His round face is bright pink, and I can tell he’s embarrassed as much as hurt, trying not to succumb to the pain.
It doesn’t satisfy Dean in the slightest.
“Get up,” he barks at Matteo. “Let’s go again.”
“No!” Leo snaps, striding across the mats. “Leave him alone.”
“Here comes the Doberman to protect his little puppy,” Dean sneers. “Do you wipe his ass for him too, Leo?”
“He’s here to learn how to fight,” Leo says. “Not to be your punching bag.”
“He isn’t, though,” Dean hisses. “He hasn’t learned a fucking thing. Look at him. He’s just as pathetic as he was on the first day of school.”
“He’s doing fine,” Leo says, grabbing Matteo’s good arm and helping him back to his feet.
“We’re not finished,” Dean snaps at Matteo, eyes narrowed. “We’ve got two more rounds.”
“I’ll spar you then,” Leo says, glaring right back at him.
“Wish I could,” Dean sneers. “But we sparred yesterday. Professor Howell says we need to go through all the partners.”
“I’ll do it, then,” Ares says.
Ares was paired up with Leo and had thus far been watching the confrontation silently. His low voice cuts across Dean in a way that makes everyone fall silent.
Dean smirks, unintimidated by Ares’ size.
“Even better,” he says.
They face off against each other, Dean bouncing lightly on his feet, and Ares standing still with the mats deeply indented under his weight. Dean is a little shorter than Ares, but we all know how fast he is, and how savage. He was a bare-knuckle boxer in Moscow, fighting in the abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city. According to him, he never lost a fight. When he and Leo come to blows, as they have on several occasions, it’s inevitably messy and bloody, with no clear victor.
Ares is no pacifist—he got in a brawl with Bram and Valon last year. But he doesn’t like to fight, and even in Combat class he’s careful and restrained, never losing his temper.
Dean clearly views this as another opportunity to stick it to Leo by beating the shit out of one of his friends. He circles Ares with obvious intent to injure.
He goes in hard, raining down a relentless onslaught of punches almost too fast for my eye to follow. Ares keeps his fists up, but the hail of blows hits him hard in the ribs, the shoulders, and the side of his head. He blocks the worst of it, though I’m sure it still hurts.
Most of the other students have stopped sparring so they can watch. Even Professor Howell shifts position around the edge of the mat, his whistle raised to his lips to stop the fight if necessary, but his dark eyes fixed on the boys with watchful interest.
Unsatisfied by his initial onslaught, Dean attacks even harder, swinging his fist like hammers directly at Ares’ head. He lands one hard blow under Ares’ eye. Ares responds with a right-cross that knocks Dean backward on his heels. I can see the surprise in Dean’s face, and the new level of caution as he circles around, trying to catch Ares off balance.
Dean hits Ares in the body again and again, each thud loud and distinct in the near-silent gym. Ares’ jaw is tight, his face stiff. With each blow that strikes him, the patches of color on Ares’ cheeks get darker and darker. I get the strangest feeling that he’s allowing Dean to hit him. But every time Dean obliges, something builds inside of Ares. Something very like fury.
Dean attacks his head again, buffeting Ares with punches that are both fast and hard, coming at him in a flurry from all directions. It’s relentless, furious, far beyond the level of aggression we’re supposed to show in sparring.