Page 67 of Savage Surrender

I nodded. “And it was closed off at one point.” Finding a loose piece of particle board stapled at the back, I pried it off soundlessly.

We snuck along the hallway, sticking to the wall, and I wondered who was talking. In a twisted maze, we were lured down another hallway.

“It’s probably just a couple of teachers talking,” I whispered.

“No. We should listen in.”

“Are you ever going to be able to stop the instinct to be his spy?”

She shot me a dirty look. “Yes. I’m not being his spy right now. I’m being an independent agent to understand who the real bad guy is around here.”

“Easy. Your father is.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because every time there is a complicated drug trade and turf war, only one person is trying to get ahead.”

That’s true.Even though a slight worry entered my mind at the thought she could be loyal to Igor before she could ever consider herself loyal to me, I had to respect her tenacity to find the truth.

“It almost sounded like someone saidIlyin,” I whispered.

“And I think I recognize that voice,” she replied, almost mouthing only and not whispering.

I didn’t, but the time to ask her about it was gone. We’d come upon the door to another office, likely boarded off as a formerhallway route. This room hadn’t formed the small entrance into an office closet but the back of a bookcase. Through a slit, we saw the occupants inside.

“I don’t care how many more drugs you bring in,” a young man said, smiling charmingly despite his sinister tone, “but you have to tone down the women being raped.”

Irina picked the pen out of my breast pocket—I was still in my suit with a button up and tie on—then flipped her hand over.

Writing on her hand, she inked outMarcus James. She pointed, indicating the man inside.

I shrugged and mouthedno clue.

She wrote again.He’s a politician.

I nodded as they argued about drugs and women being raped. It seemed there was a difference in opinions of what was a tolerable amount to get away with.

“I don’t care, man. Like, I’m just doing what I’m told,” a younger man said from the opposite side of the room. “Y’all can figure out who gets what cut and shit. I just know what cut I want, and ’til that happens, I’m staying out of all this administrative red tape.”

“There’s no red tape,” Jessica argued. “Don’t be a dumbass, Jerome.”

Irina looked at me after writing on her hand again.Who’s he?

I shrugged, unsure. We couldn’t get a good view of him either, cut to seeing only from his chest down, not his face. He seemed young, both in his slang and way of speaking, but that was guesswork at best.

“Look, we’ll talk about this later.” Marcus smiled at Jessica before sliding his hand over her ass and pulling her close for a kiss. “You talk to your people, and I’ll talk to mine.”

But whose people were whose?

They left together, and Irina and I turned back to go the way we’d come.

“Who—” We’d said it in unison, stopping at the same time.

“I don’t know,” I answered, regardless of what she would ask. Confused and clueless, I tried to understand what we’d heard.

“This isn’t just about Mafia families competing for turf rights around the campus,” Irina whispered.

I had a strong hunch it wasn’t. Even before Irina would give us an expose on what Igor planned, it was obvious that politics were getting involved.

“Things are never as simple as they seem,” she muttered.

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