Chapter 33
JAGGER
Aventine’s campus was buzzing with activity as we made our way past the frat houses toward the admin building, the old-school street lamps casting light over the walkways while excited students traveled in packs.
It took me a minute to understand why it was packed when it was almost midnight: it was September.
That explained why music thumped from the frat houses, girls tottering past in heels and short skirts, guys laughing too loud and smelling like expensive cologne as they headed out for a night of partying at the start of the school year.
“You do all this shit?” Hawk asked as we walked. “In college?”
“Believe it or not, I was too much of a nerd.”
He barked out a laugh. “I believe it.”
“Fuck off.” I edged to the side of the walkway as a group of giggling girls moved past us, intent on their next party destination. “I take it you were a party animal?”
“Until I got kicked out,” Hawk said. “But only because school was boring as fuck.”
I knew he’d gotten kicked out of college in his third year, knew the FBI had taken him as an exception to their usual requirements on account of his giant IQ and penchant for trouble.
They’d thought they could use him — all that brain power and fearlessness — but even they couldn’t tame him and it had ended badly for everyone.
We passed an arguing couple — the guy like a deer in headlights, the girl crying — and continued toward the administration building. I had to admit it was a nice campus, the manicured grounds surrounded by the Blackwell preserve, the forest a dark and silent fortress around the university.
We continued around a curve and the brick administration building came into view, Neo Alinari and Rock Barone standing in front of the stairs like designer gargoyles.
The building was stately, with two stories, columns out front, and darkened windows that said the cleaning crew was either already gone or had yet to arrive.
“You’re late,” Neo said as we approached.
In spite of the heat — Blackwell falls wouldn’t start cooling off until the end of the month — he wore trousers and a button-down shirt open to reveal a tattoo on his chest I couldn’t quite make out.
He looked like what he was: the rich heir to a mafia throne.
“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t realize this building was such a hike from the parking lot.”
Rock — in jeans and T-shirt I clocked as expensive — ran his hands through his platinum-blond hair. “Let’s get this over with.”
“I thought we were breaking into the Rooks’ house?” I asked as Hawk and I followed them to the glass doors of the building.
“We are,” Rock said.
I’d hoped for a simple answer when I’d called Neo for an update on the wire transfer that had been sent from Kensington Trust to Aventine, one of the transfers Cassie’s parents had flagged before their murder.
But it hadn’t been that easy.
The Kings had located the transfer in Aventine’s archives, but the name of the intended recipient had been scrubbed from the records. All they’d been able to see was that it had been disbursed to a fund used by the Rooks, the frat run by kids of the bratva.
In other words, the Russian mafia.
To figure out what had happened to the money from there, we had to access the Rooks’ records.
And that meant getting into their headquarters and frat house.
“Walking up to the Rooks and asking to see their records room is a bad idea.” Neo removed a key from his jeans and unlocked one of the glass doors to the administration building. “Unless you want to be tortured by a bunch of Russian thug babies?”
“We’ll pass,” Hawk said.
He looked forbidding in the shadows, his long dark hair partially obscuring his face, his posture like an animal preparing to pounce at the first sign of danger.
“That’s what I thought,” Neo said
We stepped into a cavernous foyer with soaring ceilings and a grand staircase curving to the second floor. The floor was travertine, and above us, the crystals on the chandelier winked even in the shadows.
It was typical for a private university for the elite, although in this case the elite referred not to old-money trust fund babies or the kids of new-money tech billionaires but to the most powerful criminal families in the world.
Neo tossed Rock the keys. “Lock it up.”
Rock locked the door while we followed Neo down a long hall.
We passed a large event space, its doors open to reveal a banner that read Welcome, Freshman.
And if the chandelier and staircase hadn’t made it obvious that this was no state university, the hallway beyond the event space would have: the closed doors on either side were solid wood, carved into intricate designs, the artwork framed in gold.
Neo stopped at a door near the end of the hall. A gold plaque on the wall read Chess Room.
Because of course Aventine would have a fucking chess room.
“You guys a bunch of undercover chess nerds?” Hawk asked.
“Used to be part of the curriculum,” Rock said. “Before phones and computers rotted our brains.”
It made sense. All the frats at the school were named after chess pieces: the Kings, the Knights, the Saints, the Rooks.
Even the Queens had a house where the women from all the crime families lived and studied. Apparently organized crime apparently hadn’t caught up to the twenty-first century.
Rock unlocked the door and we stepped inside a wood-paneled room that looked like a gentleman’s club from an old movie. Carved tables sat in front of leather chairs and books lined the floor-to-ceiling shelves that ran along three of the four walls.
There was even a bar at one end of the room, although the glass bottles behind it were dusty, the mirror silvering.
I was about to ask what the fuck we were doing in the defunct chess room in Aventine’s administration building when Neo walked over to one of the bookshelves, searched the titles, and removed the one of the books.
He stuck his hand inside the space left behind and a low beep sounded from inside the walls.
The bookshelf clicked, popping out from the wall until it protruded a couple of inches past the shelves next to it, and Neo slid the bookcase to the side to reveal a door.
“Un-fucking-believable,” Hawk muttered.
Rock threw Neo the ring of keys and Neo used one of the keys to unlock the door.
He opened it and the chess room was hit with a blast of cool air.
The smell was familiar, a hint of stone and damp that I recognized from the Hunt in the tunnels under Blackwell Falls.
Neo pocketed the keys and stepped into the yawning darkness beyond the open door.
I don’t know why I looked at Rock. Neo obviously expected us to follow him.
Rock lifted a hand toward the open door. “After you.”