Page 32 of Brutal Prince

“Gimme a cheeseburger,” he said flatly.

“Still haven’t managed to find your manners?” she crowed.

“Please,” Cody added, smirking. “You been speaking to Luca?”

“No,” Fontaine answered. I suspected she was playing dumb, but it was hard to tell.

“Luca’s always hounding me about my manners,” Cody added.

“I have nothing to do with your Luca,” Fontaine argued before she left.

Cody grunted and glanced behind him at the counter where Gretta stood taking orders and Jace’s girl was at the dessert counter. The skillet was in full sizzle with the cook bent over frying up burgers and onions to place on toasted buns. They served good burgers at Stads, although not as good as what my aunt makes. If I marry a girl like my aunt, I’ll be a very happy man.

“Where’s Darryn?” Cody asked.

“Ain’t seen much of him lately.”

“Did you tell him to meet here?”

“I messaged him and…” I checked my phone, “still haven’t heard back.”

“Fine. Gobal broke into Vanderbilt’s laptop,” Cody spoke as softly as his deep voice could go.

“Are you serious?” I asked him. I honestly thought it would never fly. I thought that she’d either chicken out or have a technical obstacle such as not getting the password right.

“I already told you she was sneaking into his little lair while he was at the S and C meeting.”

“You got some juice then?” I asked speaking Cody’s language.

“Next,” using his fingers and quotation marks, “‘group meeting’ is Wednesday night,” he murmured. I had to lean in to hear him over the noise of the diners and the kitchen. “I’m guessing that’s a fuckfest.”

“No shit, man.”

Cody explained, “I’ve already arranged for Fisher and the math geek to erect cameras into the chamber.” He pointed his thumb behind him and I assumed it was to Lise Fontaine, since the bald headed spitfire was Fisher’s girlfriend.

I tipped my head back and laughed. Jeez, I’m glad I hadn’t been summoned to participate in the orgy. My eyes drifted to Gretta, mostly because I like looking at her, and wondered if she had been ‘chosen’ for it. What a mess we’d gotten ourselves into.

“I bet Becca Gobal is glad she dumped Vanderbilt after seeing what’s on his laptop,” I said, shoving fries into my gob.

“Yeah…” he stalled midsentence and I peered up from my burger to read his face. “She said there were a lot of names on there, but they looked like pseudonyms. She didn’t have time to go through them all.”

“Did she see the names of the students involved in the orgy?”

“Nah, but she said the name Izzard was mentioned a few times.”

“In what context?”

He shook his blond head. “Dunno.”

I wiped my hands on my jeans and entered the name ‘Izzard’ into my phone. An ‘Eddie Izzard’ came up, comedian, actor etc, and completely unrelated to this school.

“Already did that,” Cody stated. “You honestly think the ringleader would use his real name?”

“Nah, but you never know. And is this so-called ‘Izzard’ the ringleader?”

“How would I know? Anyway, she said that Vanderbilt’s got a spreadsheet of incoming and outgoing payments. As you know, each student is strung into doing certain jobs for some sort payment. Take that fucker, Josh, for example, he had his drug charges dropped in exchange of beating up Lux.”

“I know how our side works. I’m curious to know how the other side is organized.”

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