Page 81 of Slashed Bonds

In unison.

Ansel and Aurel Vasquez. Second-line wingers, third floor, Greenie’s pack since juniors. I’ve had both their names for two months, and I’ve been using them interchangeably, and now I understand why nobody corrected me.

They were enjoying it.

Fucking hell.

Greenie whistles, low, delighted.

“That’s a rarity for you to notice, Nik. They work at it. Same haircut, same ink, same everything. Most people go a whole season without clocking it.”

Mori nods, a small movement against my arm.

“I get it,” she says. “Wouldn’t fly with an observant Omega, though. Maddie would have clocked that in the first ten minutes.”

“Maddie?” Greenie tilts his head.

“Ah. Right.” She pauses. “My friend.”

Then she looks at Roz, and her tone shifts, and I feel it happen through my forearm.

Business.

“I know you were saying something about needing social media help. I could ask her. She’s good at that shit. She wouldn’t charge, either. She does it as a hobby.”

Roz arches an eyebrow.

“We need someone who can be on the ice, Crowe. Not a phone.”

“Oh, she can play.”

Flat certainty.

No sell in it.

“She’s not as cynical as me. But she doesn’t like to show her cards, so you’ll see what I mean when I invite her.”

Roz looks at her for a long second.

Then at Cash. Then at me.

“How much cynical is she?”

“Enough to survive the third floor of a designation ward,” Mori says. “Not enough to have stopped wearing pink.”

I don’t know what that means. I know I’m going to find out.

There’s a second one.

I file it in the folder marked things I’m going to need to be careful about, next to the fact that the woman in my arm has a friend she’d walk into a den of Alphas without a second thought.

“Invite her.” Roz is already turning toward the stairs, keys jingling. “We can’t delay this shit any longer. The preliminary games are next week.”

“Shit. Seriously?”

Cash. From the wall, where he’s been leaning with his arms folded, watching all of this with the expression of a man doing long division.

Roz nods.