Page 83 of Bleed the Shadows

I grinned. “I would never.”

“I’m glad you like the tree,” he said.

I could feel his restraint, like a jet engine idling before takeoff, my body vibrating with the power of it.

Finally I stepped toward him in the glow of the Christmas lights.

And this time, I kissed his cheek, letting my lips linger on the scratchy scruff of his facial hair before turning for the hall.

“Night, Bram.”

I was almost to the stairs when he spoke. “Night, Maeve.”

51

POE

Neo and Dragowere waiting outside Aventine University’s administration building when we got there. Their dark hair gleamed under the old-fashioned lamps that dotted the campus, and Drago’s facial piercings caught the light.

It was after 10 p.m., the campus quiet, probably because most of the students had gone home for Christmas. It was also cold as fuck, and I stuffed my hands in my leather jacket as Bram, Remy and I headed up the pathway with Maeve between us.

“Sorry we’re late,” Remy said. “Didn’t realize the parking lot was so far from the main building.”

We had no reason to be familiar with Aventine’s campus. The Kings dealt with the drug trade between the school and Blackwell Falls, and we’d never had a reason to get in their business.

It was a perfect arrangement: the on-campus dealers bought from our wholesalers and cut the Kings in, the Kings cut us in, and we got another cut from our wholesalers.

The end.

“Hi,” Maeve said, greeting the Kings.

They said hello and Bram looked up at the old building’s stone facade. With its tall arched windows and the landscape lighting, it looked like a castle.

“This is fancy as fuck,” Bram said.

Neo shrugged. “Let’s go.”

He was wearing trousers and a button-down shirt under a sweater, an expensive leather jacket over that. Drago wore jeans at least, although they were dark wash, the kind I’d wear out to dinner, not to sift through a bunch of dusty old records.

They looked like what they were: rich kids with one foot in the criminal underworld and the other in the good life.

“Where’s Rock?” I asked as we made our way toward the doors.

“Home with Willa and the baby,” Neo grumbled. “Lucky bastard.”

Two years ago I would have been surprised to hear Neo wax poetic about staying in. Back then, the Kings had run Aventine, and it had been all partying, all the time.

Now they had a reason to be home. It was a reason I understood, because even though I’d never been a big partier, I’d enjoyed my share of nights at Syd’s and now all I wanted to do was stay home and watch movies with Maeve, preferably before fucking her brains out.

Neo removed a set of keys from the pocket of his jacket and unlocked the doors and we stepped into an expansive triple-height vestibule. A staircase curved to the second floor, like it was somebody’s mansion instead of a school building.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. The school was funded by deep-pocketed alumni with their hands in every criminal enterprise known to man. They weren’t going to send their kids to some shabby public school.

“This way.” Neo led the way down a long hall. The main lights were off, but smaller lights remained lit near the floors, probably for the cleaning staff who must have come at night.

Nothing about the place was generic. The doors were carved, the floors gleaming hardwood. Gallery lights hung over the artwork that was interspersed on the walls — and not the cheap artwork you usually saw in a school or a hotel.

The real deal.