Page 49 of Kings & Corruption

“Let’s go!” Neo clapped his hands and the crowd quieted. “House leaders, come up here and pick your team of two.”

“Two?” someone protested from the crowd.

Neo’s eyes turned hard as he sought the offending voice in the crowd.

“Damn,” Quinn said.

“Is that bad?” I asked.

“It’s not good,” Claire said.

“The more people, the better for a challenge like this,” Quinn explained. “Two people means only one person to stand watch while someone else breaks into the lounge, and that’s after you find the key.”

She was obviously thinking out loud, but I was starting to see what she meant, even if I didn’t know what the medals were or how hard they’d be to steal.

Four people joined Neo around the fire, including Alexa. Because of course Alexa was house leader of the Queens.

“Fuck,” Claire said next to me.

“What?”

“She hates me,” Claire explained.

I laughed. “You don’t try very hard to get her to like you.”

Claire sighed and went back to chewing her thumbnail. “I know. She’s justsucha bitch. I can’t help myself.”

Quinn laughed. “You’re your own worst enemy.”

“Don’t I know it,” Claire said.

The Russians went first, and a guy I’d never seen before chose himself and the guy who’d been making the rounds with Alexa.

“A hundred bucks says Alexa appoints herself observer for the Queens to get some face time with George,” Claire said, her eyes on Alexa’s drinking buddy.

“No way am I taking that bet,” Quinn said. “She’s been dying to get into George’s pants since he showed up on Wednesday. It’d be a waste of time anyway. No one actually watches the game go down. They just lie and say they did.”

“Poor George,” Claire murmured. “He has no idea what’s coming for him.”

“They don’t know each other?” I asked. George was obviously the guy Alexa had been dragging around all night. They’d seemed so friendly when they’d made the rounds with their bottle of vodka.

“He’s a freshman,” Claire said, her eyes on George as he made his way back into the crowd.

Right. I kept forgetting that our ages were all mixed up at Aventine. George looked too… manly to be a freshman in college, but he could have been anywhere from nineteen to twenty-five.

How much time the Mafia kids took off before going to Aventine was dependent on a lot of things. Some of them took a year to work with their dads. Others took more time and worked in different cities, and sometimes even different countries, which was what I’d heard Neo, Rock, and Oscar had done by working with one of the Sicilian families.

George might have been new to Aventine, but he was all man, and I couldn’t help wondering (hoping?) if Alexa had bitten off more than she could chew.

I watched nervously as the Saints chose two beautiful men with dark hair and eyes, followed by the Knights, whose leader chose twins from their ranks.

The Queens and Kings were all that was left, and I wasn’t surprised when Neo called Alexa up to appoint the participants for the Queens' house.

The bastard was an attention whore. He would save himself for last.

“Here we go,” Claire muttered as Alexa took her place next to Neo by the fire.

Alexa paused dramatically, firelight flickering over her perfect features.

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