Page 92 of The Sound of Us

“She’s learned to let her bad girl free. I’m about to expose the university for covering up a sexual assault involving one of their star basketball players. I’m not worried about a little trespassing.”

Dante frowned. “What about Derek?”

“I don’t want anyone else involved if I’m breaking the rules,” I said. “I know what to do. I just need to believe in myself. This is my story and I want to stand behind it.”

“They’ll probably send campus security to the station once someone hears the broadcast,” Siobhan warned us. “They might try to shut Skye down before she can finish.”

“They’ll have to get through me,” Dante said, as he worked the lock with the same small tool he’d used when we played hide-and-seek. “I might not be able to help inside, but I can do a hell of a lot out here.”

“We could all help,” Haley offered. “It will be like another game of hide-and-seek, except we’ll make ourselves visible to the security guards and then hide to keep them distracted.”

“If they do make it to the station, they’ll have to deal with me,” Dante said, as the lock fell open.

“Since when is the Lord of Darkness a team player?” Siobhan asked, one eyebrow raised in query.

Dante shrugged. “Since I realized I was part of a team.”

“You know what this means?” Nick had an arm around Isla. “We need to sing our team song.”

“Yes, we do.” I pulled open the door. “But first, let’s show this city what indie radio is all about.”

My first solo show wasn’t perfect. I stumbled over words, mumbled through a few sentences, and talked too quickly. But from the number of messages that popped up on the screen, and the stream of notifications on WJPK’s social media, I got the message through.

Even if the university kicked me out, I was proud of what I had accomplished, and for the first time I wasn’t afraid of the consequences. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and if it wasn’t at Havencrest, it would be somewhere else. No one was going to stop me.

I had just turned off all the equipment when I heard a rattle at the front door. Moments later it opened and Dante rushed in, followed by a security guard and a custodian.

“Are you okay?” He feigned concern, holding my shoulders and then pulling me close. “I got your message about being locked in.”

“Thanks for rescuing me.” I twisted my face into a combination of terror and utter relief. “Someone must have locked the door when I was taking a nap in the lounge before my show. I didn’t know what was going on.”

“I walked through the station before we locked it up.” The security guard glared at me. “I didn’t see you.”

“I was under a blanket.” I gave him my sweetest, most innocent smile as he led us back out into the hallway.

“Why was the station closed?” I asked the custodian as he relocked the door.

“The university partnered with a real estate developer to turn thebuilding into student residences,” he said. “I heard a condition of the offer was that the radio station had to be shut down immediately.”

“Did anything else in the building have to shut down?” Dante asked. “Any of the businesses in the food court? Copy shop? Spirit store? Bookshop?”

“Nope.” He followed us up the stairs while the security guard reported to someone on his walkie-talkie. “It’s a shame. The station has been around as long as I have.”

“Noah saw it coming,” I said on our way to the campus bar where our friends were already celebrating. The air outside was crisp and icy and stung my cheeks. “I wish I’d put more time into that story. Maybe I could have done something to save the station.”

Dante shook his head, his face creased in a puzzled frown. “It doesn’t make sense. Why shut down the station and nothing else?”

“What are you thinking?”

“My dad said he would destroy everything I cared about if I didn’t come to work for him and return the inheritance money. I didn’t take him seriously because he’s basically left me alone for the last seven years, but he’s a real estate developer. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that he partnered with the university so he could shut the station down out of spite.”

I slid my mittened hand into his. “Does he have the money to buy an entire building?”

“He owns Rossi Holdings,” Dante said. “They are one of the biggest real estate developers in the state. He could buy multiple buildings, and now that he’s moved into waste management and tied up some of the biggest contracts in the city, he could buy the whole campus if he wanted.”

“Rossi? Was that your last name?”

“It was before I changed it.”

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