Page 58 of Kings & Corruption

I emerged onto the familiar landing still clutching my drop form in case someone asked what I was doing. Then I remembered that the best way to avoid being asked questions when you were somewhere you didn’t belong was to act like you do.

I marched down the hall like I knew where I was going, trying to take it slow enough that I could get a handle on all the different offices. There were a couple of people I’d never seen before at desks in the smaller offices, but Dean Giordana’s office door was closed.

I hooked a left at the end of the hall, and the top of the main staircase came into view. It was busier here, with a handful of people coming and going on the wide curved staircase that started in the grand entry hall of the ground floor.

Note to self: use the back staircase unless you want to be seen.

I passed the staircase and made another left. This hall was almost empty, with a closed door labeledSupply Closetand two restrooms with signs that readStaff. I was reaching the end of the hall when murmuring voices caught my ear. They grew louder as I came closer to the place where I would either have to turn back or make another left, which would take me to the back staircase where the loop would start all over again.

I slowed my steps as I came to the open door that was the source of the noise.

It was a large room with several sofas and a couple tables surrounded by chairs. Light shone in from the windows on one wall, casting the room in a cozy afternoon glow that made it look like a nice place for teachers to relax between classes.

Which made sense, because this was obviously the professors’ lounge.

The handful of people congregated in the room were too old to be students at Aventine, and I spotted my philosophy professor talking to an older woman near a coffee bar and refrigerator.

I did a quick scan of the room, practically slowing to a stop when I spotted Professor Ryan leaning forward in an oversized lounge chair, studying his iPad like it held the secrets to the universe.

And behind him? Well, behind him was a glass case, a row of gold medals lined up and on display.

I stepped into the room almost without thinking, then regretted it a second later when it grew silent.

“Thank god! I’m so glad you’re here!” I said. Professor Ryan looked up from his iPad, and I started going through my bag as I came toward him, trying to act the part of flustered first-year student. “I just had a question about the syllabus.”

“Young lady, you are not supposed to be in here,” said the older woman who’d been talking to my philosophy professor.

“Oh… I’m sorry!” I said. “Dean Giordana told my stepfather, Roberto Alinari, that I shouldn’t hesitate to ask the administration if I needed help.”

The Alinari name worked like magic. The room grew even more quiet, the tension as thick as pea soup.

Professor Ryan jumped to his feet. He really was attractive for a professor, his dark eyes earnest, that stubble on his jawline bringing to mind rumpled sheets and breakfast in bed.

“This will only take a minute, I’m sure,” he said to the older woman before turning to me. “What can I do for you Ms. Russo?”

I scrolled through the syllabus on my iPad, scrambling for something that represented a valid question.

“Um… this says that class participation will be worth a third of our grade.” I pointed to the screen. “But I’m not sure what that means exactly? Is that asking questions? Or just, like, listening?”

I hated myself for sounding stupid, but this was an emergency. The way to keep the Kings on my side was to play their game, and to play their game, I needed to help with the first challenge.

I’d been given a golden opportunity to do recon. No way was I passing it up.

I shoved my iPad at Professor Ryan and tapped at the place where it described the breakdown for grades, counting on the human inclination to look at something when someone pointed even when you knew what you’d see.

It worked. He leaned in, his gaze trailing over the screen to my index finger.

I used the time to look at the glass case, willing my mind to calculate every detail in the short amount of time I had in the lounge. I couldn’t make out the words on the medals, but there were six of them, each with a photograph of two people shaking hands handing behind it.

My mind snagged on the other details, including the fact that there were no cameras. Then Professor Ryan was looking up at me and I realized his lips were moving and he was answering my question about class participation.

“Okay, got it,” I said, registering the answer, which was basically the answer any person of average intelligence would have guessed: an informal calculation of how engaged you are in class.

God, he must have thought I was a massive dipshit.

I wanted to die of embarrassment, but I was still glad I’d made the move. Now I knew where the medals were, and I knew something else about them too, something the Kings would want to know.

I thanked Professor Ryan profusely for taking the time to talk to me — noting the way he stared at me super hard, the way guys stare when they’re willing themselves not to look at your boobs — and apologized to the other professors for barging into their lounge.

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