“Considering we’ve been surrounded by a bunch of corrupt dickbags since it happened—yeah, I’m just telling you now.”
“Okay. Fuck. Okay. What is it?”
“He gave me two numbers. He said if shit went sideways, ask for Lucien or Cain, and they’d know what to do.”
Lianna sets the phone down and hits the speaker button. It rings twice before the call connects.
Silence.
“Hello?” Lianna says, irritated as hell.
“Who is this?”
“Is this Cain or Lucien?”
The silence stretches so long I think he might’ve hung up.
“Well, whichever one of you it is, Phoenix told me to call you, and it’s pretty fucking serious, so?—”
“It’s Lucien. Is he okay?”
Lianna meets my eyes. “No. We don’t know. We’ve been told he’s in jail, but that’s all we know.”
“Lawson… I fucking warned him.”
“Yeah, well, your pep talk clearly didn’t work, considering he snapped that asshole in half in the middle of a fucking ball full of elitist shitlickers.”
I hear theFuckunder his breath, and if this guy is worried, then I’m scared that Phoenix is really in trouble.
“Look, he gave me your number and told me to call you if anything happened. He said you’d know what to do.”
“Is Shannen there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Are you okay?”
“Am I okay? Yeah, I’m fucking fantastic… I need you to find him so I can bail him out.”
“That won’t work. There’s too much power behind James Lawson. You’ll never get Phoenix out that way.”
“Don’t say that to me.”
“I’m serious. There’s nothing you can do here. Your money won’t fix this.”
“So what? I’m just supposed to leave him?”
“No, you’re supposed to leave it to us. We’ll handle it.”
“When?” I’m practically shouting now. “When will you handle it? Will he be okay?”
“Right now, the priority is you. That’s all he’s going to be thinking about.”
I want to scream at this stranger on the phone and demand answers he clearly isn’t going to give me.
“We’ll fix this. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but we’ll get it done. But you need to trust me, and you need to stay where you are, or it’ll only make things worse.”
“Listen, asshole, the love of her life is probably looking at ten to fifteen years in a cell that smells like piss, so forgive me if your vague reassurance isn’t doing it for me. Now you and your brother need to pull your fingers out of each other’s asses and go get him, because if I have to come find you, I’ll take a page from Phoenix’s book and snap your legs like twigs.”
