Page 40 of Kings & Corruption

Rock straightened. “Come on, Willa, we said—”

“Answer the question,” I said, turning my attention on him and Oscar. “That goes for all of you, any of you. If you’re willing to help me now, why haven’t you been doing it all along? She’s been missing for two years. Why didn’t you do anything before now?”

“Who says we haven’t?”

The words came from Neo, but when I turned to look at him he was already walking out of the kitchen.

“What do you mean? Did you look for her?” I called after him. “Did you find anything?”

“Sounds like you already have it all figured out, Jezebel,” he said without looking back.

I exhaled my frustration and looked at Rock and Oscar. “What the fuck?”

Oscar walked toward me and tucked a loose piece of hair behind my ear. “We’ll do what we can. I promise.”

I watched him leave the room.

Rock’s giant arm dropped onto my shoulder. It should have been annoying, but the weight of it was oddly comforting.

“I’ll walk you up,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”

The force of it hit me all at once. It had been a long day.

A long fucking day.

I let him pull me against his side and walk me toward the stairs.

I was glad we didn’t talk on the way up. I was exhausted. I didn’t have the energy to banter with Rock, and I definitely didn’t have the energy to resist him if he made a move. Snuggling against him sounded like the nicest thing ever, which was just evidence of how totally fucked my head was at the moment.

“Everything will be okay,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle when we reached my door.

He gave me a quick hug and headed for his room down the hall.

I stepped into my room and took off the heels, sighing with relief when my bare feet hit the wood floors. I removed the dress carefully, not wanting to smear it with makeup, then padded into the bathroom in my bra and underwear to remove my earrings and makeup.

Except when I got to the mirror and reached for my earrings, I froze, my brain refusing to process what I was seeing.

It couldn’t be…

But the truth was right there, staring me in the face.

One of my earrings was gone, and less than two hours earlier, I’d been snooping in Dean Giordana’s office.

Chapter19

Willa

Iflipped my pillow to the cold side and turned over in bed for the thousandth time as moonlight streamed in through the wall of glass in my room. I’d been tossing and turning for hours, replaying the night in my mind.

I was a mess, my mind flitting from my missing earring to the things Neo had said in the dean’s office (you don’t know anything about Emma’s life here) to the fact that the guys had offered to help me find out what had happened to my sister.

I remembered the way they’d reacted when I asked why they hadn’t done anything to look for her before.

They’d beenuncomfortable.

Or had I imagined it?

Was it because they knew something? Or because they felt guilty fornotdoing something sooner?

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