RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,54

single student at these schools is rolling in paper. Some schools do have scholarship students. Some students at places like Wolf Hall even have jobs and need to work the weekends to help support themselves. I feel like a grade-A asshole for completely disremembering people whose fathers haven’t squirrelled away millions and are required to pick up the slack.

I sit up straight, pushing my food away. “How much?”

“A hundred if it’s just the screen. Including parts. If it’s one of the newer phones, I should have what I need here on campus. If not, I’ll have to order the stuff online, which usually takes about a week to arrive.”

“It’s last year’s model.”

“So, yeah. I should have you covered.”

“And if the phone’s fucked and you need to pull the data?”

“That’s an extra thirty. It’s not super hard. I could show you how to do it if you wanted to save money, but most people have me do it to save themselves some time.”

The data on my phone is minimal. No photos. No huge text strings that I’m sentimental over. It was clean when Colonel Stillwater gave it to me, so I’m not really concerned about that. Going radio silent, after my friends have only just discovered I’m not dead, though? I’m fairly concerned about that. “How quick could you get it back to me?”

Tom jerks. He looks surprised that I might actually be considering hiring him. “Uh, oh, well usually three days or so, but since you’re new I figure I could try and put a rush on it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I can’t get to Albany this weekend. I’d prefer not to have to wait until next weekend to get this taken care of, so…sure. Take it.” I dig around in my bag until I locate the busted phone, and then I hold it out to Tom across the table. He swallows, relief dominating his features. Damn, the poor bastard must be really hard up for cash.

He puts the phone in his pocket, backing away from the table. “Okay. Okay. Well, uh, thanks. If I can get it back to you any quicker, I’ll let you know.”

13

WREN

Breathing. Blinking. Swallowing.

Some skills are innate. We’re born with them. Without them, we’d die the moment we come screaming into the world, vulnerable and covered in viscera. I feel like I was spat out of my mother’s womb capable of tying a half-Windsor knot. It feels like a skill I came equipped with at birth. Because when you’re born into a family like mine and you’re landed with the kind of father I was landed with, such talents are required if you hope to survive.

I twist the black silk around on itself, tucking it up through the loop, feeding the length of material through the gap between the front of the knot, fiddling with it until it sits perfectly at the base of my throat. Who needs a fucking mirror for this shit?

“They’re gonna think you’re the waitstaff again,” Dashiell states, holding the door to the ballroom open for me.

“They always do.”

“A white shirt. That’s all you’d need to differentiate yourself. White’s totally acceptable, Wren. A white button-down wouldn’t put a dent in the whole bad guy fa?ade you’ve got going on in the slightest.”

I follow him into the politely seething crowd, flattening down my collar with a smooth flick of my wrist. “I’m fine with what I’m wearing.” Actually, I’m far from fine. This is only the second set of clothes I’ve been able to wear since my punishment ended, and some ripped jeans and my favorite, ratty sweater would be much more preferable. This monkey suit is a fucking torture device.

Dashiell’s suit is classically cut and perfectly tailored. Pax’s suit is a Tom Ford, and retails for twenty grand. Both of them look so content in their luxuriously fitted finery that I hate them a little for it; I’m happy as a pig in shit during the most awkward, miserable, wretched situations, but being restrained by a suit is something I’ve never handled well. If my father could see me now, he’d laugh his fucking ass off.

“Don’t suppose any of the women at this thing are fair game,” Pax observes. Though it’s more of a sly enquiry than a true observation. There’s just enough of a lilt at the end of his statement to suggest that he’s open to Dashiell correcting his assumption.

Wise to his tricks, Dashiell snags a glass of champagne from a passing waiter holding a silver tray aloft in the air,