Page 27 of Kings & Corruption

I glanced back and saw Alexa staring after us, her face murderous.

“Yeah, uh, that might not have been the best way to call off the dogs,” I said nervously.

He bent down and kissed me right on the mouth. I widened my eyes in surprise before he pulled away.

“Relax, tiger. Lex is the biggest gossip on campus. She’ll tell everyone and their mother that if they fuck with you, they’ll be fucking with us. It won’t stop them from fucking with you, but they’ll have to be more careful, and at least they can’t say we didn’t warn them.”

I was still in shock over basically everything when it was our turn to pay. Drago slapped down his credit card over my protests, paid for all the makeup, then took my hand to lead me out the door.

“Hungry?” he asked, slipping on a pair of shades as we stepped onto the busy sidewalk.

I thought about the altercation with Alexa Petrov and suppressed a shudder. “Yeah, but I’ll just grab something back at the house.”

“Come on,” he said. “I got you.”

Chapter13

Willa

We walked a couple blocks to a cute little deli where Drago ordered sandwiches, salt and vinegar kettle chips, and a couple of bougie-ass sodas. Then we stopped at the car so he could get his camera.

“Is that a hobby of yours?” I asked. “Taking pictures?”

“You could say that,” he said cryptically.

He slung the camera around his neck and led me off Main Street and down one of the side streets. He pointed things out as we went: an old-fashioned barber shop with one of those red-and-white twirly things out front, a smoothie shop he liked where the graffiti changed every month, a used bookstore with a quaint brick storefront and a green awning. His expression darkened when I pointed to the side of town I’d never visited.

“What’s down there?” I asked.

“Nothing you need to see. Just don’t go past the deli on this side of town.”

My brain was telling me to protest. I’d been traveling the world alone for a whole year, and I had been as indoctrinated into our world of violence as he was.

Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. Organized crime was a world still ruled by men. Daughters were raised to live with the dangerous men they married, not become like them.

But still. Ihadtraveled alone. I’d fended off my share of unwelcome advances from men, not to mention one near assault at a hostel on the outskirts of Vienna, which I’d evaded by stabbing the offender in the hand with my metal nail file.

In any case, I didn’t have time to register a protest. The next thing I knew, we were at the edge of town, standing at a trailhead leading into Blackwell National Park, which bordered the town on one side.

“I didn’t wear shoes for hiking,” I said, looking down at my sandals.

“No hiking required,” he said. “There’s a good picnic spot right off the trail. It’s not too far.”

We started down the trail, the trees thick and tall on either side of us. I felt my shoulders drop, and a sense of calm drifted over me as we left town behind. Maybe the trail was more crowded on the weekend, but it was a Thursday, and most of the student arrivals were busy stocking their dorms and meeting up with old friends.

Here there was no one to stare and whisper about me or my family. There was just the rush of wind in the trees, the sound of birds chirping overhead, and the rustle of small animals in the forest beyond the trail.

We didn’t speak while we walked and I was surprised by how comfortable the silence was between us. Oscar Drago was turning out to be not at all what ‘d expected, and I still wasn’t sure what to do with that.

Then again, maybe he planned to murder me, cut me into a million pieces, and bury me in the forest.

Who knew?

After about fifteen minutes, Drago stopped at a narrow offshoot of the trail. He shifted the takeout bag in one hand and reached for me with the other. “Come on, just a couple minutes this way.”

Taking his hand felt way too natural, but I did, because I obviously wasn’t nearly as immune to his quiet charm as I wanted to be.

The trail ended at a small clearing of long grass and wildflowers on the bank of a rushing river. We stood there for a second, taking it in. Sunlight glinted off the water and made the meadow look like a field of gold.

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