Page 54 of Kings & Corruption

I slid into the passenger seat and inhaled the scent of expensive leather and men’s cologne. “Neo doesn’t like the Audi?”

“Neo doesn’t like little cars,” Oscar said, firing up the engine as the garage door slid silently open.

“Where is that ray of sunshine?” I asked.

“Driving separately,” Oscar’s tone made it clear that was all he was going to say on the subject.

He put the car in reverse and backed out of the garage. A second later we were careening down the driveway at what felt like warp speed.

We turned away from campus and headed into town where Oscar parked next to the curb outside a coffee shop called Cassie’s Cuppa. It was small and adorable, with a striped green awning and a handful of tables inside that were already packed with college students.

We ordered coffees and Rock introduced me to Cassie, the owner of the store. She was surprisingly young and extremely beautiful, with long red hair tied into a ponytail and sparkling hazel eyes.

We chatted for a bit while the barista made our coffee, then headed back to the car.

“She’s so young to have her own place,” I said as we took off toward campus.

“Yeah, well, it helps when you’re Bram Montgomery’s little sister,” Rock said.

“Who’s Bram Montgomery?” I asked.

Oscar glanced in the rearview mirror, and I was almost positive he gave Rock a metaphorical kick under the table.

“Townie,” Oscar said, a hint of warning in his voice. “One you don’t want to mess with.”

I sipped my coffee and chewed on that little tidbit.

“So how are we going to get that key?” Rock asked from the back seat.

Right. I was still on the hook for the game.

“How should I know? I have no idea how any of this works. I’ve never even seen these medals everyone’s talking about.” Maybe if I played dumb, they’d consider me a liability for the games and never, ever assign me to one again.

“We need to find out who has the key first,” Oscar said. “Neo’s making a list of all the possibilities. We’ll start there.”

Ugh. I’d been so busy avoiding the guys over the weekend that I’d allowed myself to slip into denial. Now the reality came crashing back. The guys had clearly been working out preliminary details over the weekend, and they weren’t going to give me a pass.

I was going to have to play their stupid game.

“What about Emma?” I asked. “You said you’d help me find out what happened to her.”

“And we will,” Oscar said without looking at me.

“Yeah? Well, it seems to me we’re doing a lot of talking about a pissing contest while my sister is still missing. I’m only here to find out what happened to her.”

“We’re working on it,” Rock said from the back seat.

I turned around to look at him. “You are?”

He nodded, meeting Oscar’s eyes in the rearview mirror again. “Yeah.”

They obviously had some kind of secret communication going on, communication that didn’t involve me. “What have you found out?”

“Nothing we can talk about yet,” Oscar said.

“Just trust us,” Rock said.

I looked out the window. “Trust you. Right.”

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