Page 124 of Crew Princess
Channing had been still, eerily still when I was led out, but now he turned his cold eyes her way.
“You don’t want to ask me the lengths I’ll go for my sister.” He shifted, deadly power radiating off of him.
There was another guy standing with him, but in that moment, no one could look away from Channing.
“You took SWAT in.SWAT.”
The cop in the back shifted. “We got a tip there was a shooter. That’s protocol—”
“Stop!” Another cop shut him down.
Channing’s eyes were slits now. “I can’t help but wonder, who really pays your salary? If something gets shaken up, who’ll fall out from the bottom of the bag.”
He wasn’t asking, and she wasn’t answering, but his message was received. Her eyes went flat, and she straightened, her hand falling from her hip.
The cop at the front desk finished with my paperwork, sliding the sheet over to me. “Signature, please.”
I lifted my wrists, zip-tied once again.
Channing snapped, “Are you serious? Even I didn’t have cuffs on when I was leaving.”
Broghers lifted a shoulder. “Just following protocol. You know us. Every rule of the book, we follow it.”
Well, in that case… I finished signing, waited for my zip-ties to be taken off, and looked at her. “You know there’s video of when you arrested only Roussou students and not the Fallen Crest students at that party. Was that protocol?”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “What are you saying to me?”
Fuck it. I stepped toward her. “I heard a rumor that someone was pushing drugs in Frisco. That someone didn’t like it when the Red Demons focused only there, so they burned down the Frisco school to send students to Roussou and Fallen Crest, and they had me assigned to that documentary to distract my crew from noticing a new leader stepping up in the Ryerson crew. I also heard Drake Ryerson was pulled in to set me up, that Alex was used as a pawn to arrest me, and that whoever is pulling all the strings is pulling yours too.”
And my last one. “I also heard a rumor that Alex Ryerson is completely fine. He’s just sleeping off his drunk in the tank.”
I waited. Watching. Studying.
Her eyes flared. Her mouth dropped, just a bit, but it was enough.
I swept my gaze over the rest of the station. Most were watching and listening, but only one reacted—a guy in the back. He snapped his eyes to mine, then disappeared into a side hallway.
I looked at Channing to see if he’d been watching him too. He had.
As we left, Channing said softly, “What was that about?”
“Pulling a string. You know who that cop was in the back?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“You think you could get his phone, see who he called?”
His eyes flashed. “Why?”
I stepped outside. “I want to see if I pulled the right string.”
His gaze didn’t move from me, only intensifying. “I’m thinking we need to have a long discussion tonight.”
That was a given, but a crowd had formed outside. Not around us or me, but around the two guys that had come with Channing. Or one of them, to be specific. And it wasn’t just Roussou people, but also Fallen Crusties. Zeke Allen looked like he was pissing himself.
“Bren!”
Cross.
