Page 60 of Break You

“I’m going to go ahead and ignore the way you just spoke to me, purely because I have way bigger fish to fry than your PMSing ass, but know that if you disrespect me like that again, I will personally gut you like a fucking fish. Okay?”

“Sure. I look forward to it.” If I didn’t have the whole thing with Pixie to worry about, I’d be on my way to the dorm to “talk” to him about his attitude. As it was, I could scarcely be bothered to be pissed.

“I’m sure. Call the other guys, then the cygnets. Emergency meeting at the club. Get the guys there in thirty, the cygnets in an hour.”

“But—”

“There is literally nothing you can say to me that is going to dissuade me from this, unless it’s that someone died... and when I say someone, I mean you, one of the other guys, or one of the cygnets—not their dog, or their grandmother, but them. Anyone who isn’t there at the allotted time is dead to me, and we all know that means the end of their careers at Heathcote.”

“Tell me this isn’t about that girl again.”

I said nothing.

“Xav.”

“I’m assuming you don’t want me to lie to you,” I deadpanned.

“Motherfucker. Really? Or, is this some kind of Punk’d shit? Of all the people I figured would let a chick get under their skin, you’re literally the last. Like, behind every one of the world’s worst despotic leaders and Kanye West. Tell me this is a joke.”

“Again, with the not lying thing.”

He sighed the sigh of ages then spoke again. “Okay, so as your best friend and Gamma Cygni, you know it’s my duty to ask you not to get all of our asses thrown in prison, just so you can chase tail.”

“Refer to her like that again and I’ll be in prison for breaking your tail.”

“Who are you and where the fuck is my cold-hearted best friend?”

“I’m still here, and still the same me, which is why if you don’t get your ass in gear and do what I’ve asked, as your Alpha Cygni, heads will roll. Yours first—best friend or not.”

I hung up knowing that he’d be about ready to kill me with his bare hands, and giving exactly zero fucks. Like I’d said to him, I had way bigger fish to fry.

Next I called Zed, my surrogate godfather, for want of a better word. I’d met him a few months before graduating high school, if you could call the way we came into each other’s lives meeting. It was disgust at first sight on both our parts, and we did nothing but clash for months, yet somewhere along the line that morphed into tolerating each other, then after the attack, went as far as liking each other.

Not that either of us could take credit for that. When it came to hard-headedness, we were evenly matched, but Vivi—my ex-lawyer-turned-pseudo-surrogate-godmother, and Zed’s now girlfriend—was the glue that had bound us together, even though neither of us wanted to admit it at the time.

The three of us were pretty solid these days, and given I’d cut all ties with my own father, and my mother was nothing to me but a few distant and fading memories, they were the closest thing to family in my life. They’d definitely shown me they had my back when I needed them.

“You’re interrupting my time in bed with my woman, kid, so this better be good.”

“First of all, hello to you too. Manners are a thing, you know. Second of all, please don’t ever refer to being in bed with Vivi again. I literally need brain bleach, or I’ll end up in a psych ward with PTSD. Third, you know I wouldn’t call you like this if there was any other option, so…yeah…”

“I’m listening. What do you need?” That was the thing about Zed. He came off as a total dick to most people, most of the time, but if you knew him for more than a nano-second, it became obvious that the angry-asshole shtick was about 1 percent of his true personality. In reality, he’d do anything for anyone, without thinking. Especially me.

“I need you to link me up with the data guy.”

Silence.

“And I’m gonna need more information before I put you in touch with Dillon, you know that.”

“Yeah, I figured that would be your response. I also figured you’d know I wouldn’t come to you unless it was critical. I can’t say too much—it’s best for you that way, but what I will say is that it will put this shit with Pixie to bed for good.”

There was an extended pause. I rode it out, knowing it was just Zed’s way. He was a quiet—and infuriatingly measured—thinker.

“Okay. I’m going to trust you on this, but if you fuck up, believe me when I say it’ll take a long time to rebuild that trust, if ever. Yeah?”

“Yeah, I get it.” And I did.

He was the total opposite of my father. His trust had to be earned, never bought. He was solid as a rock, and as much as that was an advantage a lot of the time, it was also a giant pain in the ass at others. The man didn’t budge from his morals for anybody or anything—his word was his bond.