“Have you seen the boy?” he asks.
I grunt. “He lives on campus in a separate and more secure building to the other students, and there are cameras everywhere. Taking him won’t be easy.”
“We have time,” Crius says, already sounding distracted. “Was there anything else?”
“No.” I hang up before the bastard can dismiss me.
I swivel my seat toward the window and gaze out onto the lawn. Knowing Crius, he wants to use Veer Bestlasson as leverage for Odin to either reveal Seacroft’s location or to secure the freedom of one of its inmates.
Hostages are my father’s modus operandi and the reason I’m here. Crius has hidden Mother, either in one of his many brothels or with an equally as depraved associate.
The only way I can secure her freedom is to replace her with an innocent young man.
If Gordon Gofannon is the new warden of a criminal-run penitentiary, it’s no wonder he didn’t pass that information onto his daughter. People would do worse than kill for knowledge about the prison. If I told Crius that Gofannon had a daughter, and a beautiful one at that, he would find a way to use her as leverage.
There’s no sign of Phoenix at the university on Friday, and by the end of the day, I’m already back in the student records, looking up her studio apartment.
Phoenix lives on campus in one of four apartment blocks that house the students. I don’t know why her lack of contact carves a hole inside my chest that only her presence can fill.
I should be pleased that she’s off my back, but I can’t help wondering if she’s returned to the Red Room, making coquettish glances at other men. My jaw tightens at the thought of her swapping numbers with that sales clerk.
“What am I thinking?”
I run a hand through my hair and turn my attention back to the Bestlasson boy’s records. There’s a note on his security card that says he’s not allowed outside the campus, which makes my job a thousand times more difficult.
Phoenix, on the other hand, leaves every Saturday morning and returns late the following night. My jaw tightens. I should be thinking of ways to extract him from the university, not obsessing over a little blackmailer.
I can’t stop thinking about Phoenix. Not while I’m taking notes on Odin’s nephew, not while I’m giving Dr. Xander the brush off, and not on Saturday evening, when I’m sitting with a glass of Chablis on the roof garden, gazing at the horizon.
But at the faint ring of the doorbell, the sound goes straight to my dick.
She’s here.
ChapterSeven
PHOENIX
My heels click-clack on the paving stones as I step off the 210 bus with a bottle ofTesco FinestSancerre clutched to my chest. It’s the best I could afford, given the state of my overdraft, and I hope Professor Segul finds it palatable.
I stroll down Marina Promenade, my heart fluttering. Sydney Crescent is a mere block away, and so is my future as a sugar baby.
Blackmailer, whispers a little voice in the back of my mind.
I tell my conscience to mind its own damned business. Professor Segul had ample opportunity between Tuesday and now to uninvite me to our play date on Saturday.
University Treasury already sent a reminder letter that my tuition fees are a month overdue, and so is my rent. I didn’t hear the meddlesome voice produce a single solution when my banking app messaged me about my unauthorized overdraft.
Nope, she remained silent, even as I choked down instant ramen for the sixth day running.
Bitch.
Saturday night traffic rumbles down the long stretch of road that separates the white, five-story townhouses from the pristine lawns that border the beach.
A sea breeze swirls in from the ocean and cools my fevered skin. It’s too warm for a long raincoat but I don’t have the guts to walk around Marina Village dressed like a female gimp.
Sydney Crescent looks even more majestic in real life than it appears on Google Maps. It’s a huge garden square, large enough to host five-hundred, with luxury cars parked around its perimeter.
No professor should be able to afford to live in such a place, let alone the largest house. But then again, the average academic doesn’t throw chairs at students as well-connected as Veer.