Page 123 of Kings & Corruption

Chapter56

Willa

“Good afternoon, Miss Russo,” Dean Giordana said when the older woman escorted me into his office on the second floor.

“Good afternoon,” I said.

It was weird being back in the office during the day. Everything looked a little different, like I’d fallen down the rabbit hole the night of the ball and gotten a glimpse of something that only existed in a slightly parallel universe.

He gestured at one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Please have a seat.”

The woman left the room and closed the door behind her. The noise of the building receded.

Dean Giordana clasped his hands in front of him on the big wood desk and peered at me from behind wire-rimmed glasses I’d never seen him wear. His brown hair was mousy and thinning up close, his pale eyes a little watery.

I clasped my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking, every rule-following nerve in my body humming.

“As you may have heard, someone stole the achievement medals from the case in the teachers’ lounge last week,” he said.

I nodded. “I heard they were returned?”

Rock and I had returned them to the statue in front of the admin building the night after the party at the quarry, placing them around the neck of the ancient founder who’d been carved out of stone.

“That is true,” the dean said, “but their return doesn’t lessen the crime of their theft.”

The logic sounded stupid to me. If something was returned, it was no longer stolen. Technically, you could say it had been borrowed.

But this didn’t seem like the time for semantics.

“Which brings me to your presence in my office this afternoon,” he said. “The cameras—”

He was stopped short by the ringing of the phone on his desk.

He sighed and picked it up. “I’m in a meeting. Yes… yes.” Another sigh. “I’ll be right there.” He hung up the phone and stood. “Please excuse me for a moment.”

“Sure.”

He beat a hasty retreat, leaving the door open on his way out, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

It was one thing to play the game in secret, to break into Dean Giordana’s office when no one was around. It was something else to lie to his face.

I was not an experienced liar. Just the thought of being grilled by the dean of Aventine made my palms sweat. There was too much at stake for me to get expelled. I had some credibility with the other students at Aventine now, and I knew from Nikki that something weird was going on.

Beyond the usual, I mean.

I needed to be here, on campus, to find out what had happened to Emma, and I silently cursed the Kings and the stupid game for putting me in this position.

I looked around the office, trying to talk myself down. My face was hot, which meant I was probably flushed, and sweat was breaking out on my brow. One look at me, and Dean Giordana wouldn’t have to ask questions — my guilt would be staring him right in the face.

I looked at the books lining the shelves and the framed pictures, sinking into the normalcy of it, the sound of students talking and laughing a soothing backdrop beyond the open door.

This was fine. I knew the story I had to tell, had rehearsed it more than once with the guys: I’d been in the admin building because I had a question about the charges for my tuition, but I’d gotten a text reminding me of an appointment and had to leave before I got the chance to go to the bursar’s office.

Short, simple. So why did my pulse feel like a freight train barreling through my body? I hadn’t even felt this way when we’d stolen the medals.

Because Rock was with you.

I hated the voice in my head, and hated even more that it was right.

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