Page 131 of Chaos at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 2)
Plus, I knew it would piss Pamela off. She’ll recognize this dress as designer, recognize the value of the ring on my hand, recognize that I’ve moved past her and her shit.
“There she is,” Hael says, pointing across the street at a curvy blond in a short, red dress.
Hah.
That’s Pamela for you, trying to outshine me, even on a day like this.
She notices the Havoc Boys before she even finishes crossing the street. No surprise there. You’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to miss these assholes. Not only are they handsome, but they’re covered in tattoos, and they look at the whole world like they’re on the verge of taking control of it.
“Bernadette,” Pamela says as she pauses near the courthouse steps. The wind tousles her hair around her pretty face. Her green eyes scan me from head to toe, evaluating, sizing me up, judging me. I can tell the moment she decides I’m prettier because she scowls. Everything is a competition to this woman. “Do you have the money?”
Callum tosses the Burberry bag full of cash at my mother’s face, smiling as she scrambles like a rat to catch it and checks inside to verify its contents.
“Don’t worry, Mother, my dowry is all there.” I clench my teeth together as she pretends to count the bills inside. There are far too many, and she’s far too dumb to count to a high enough number to actually verify that there’s ten grand worth of bills there.
She looks up at me again, like she’s never seen me before, like she has no idea who I am.
I don’t suppose that she ever has though, so it’s not surprising.
“Let’s get this over with. I have a luncheon to attend.” Pamela waltzes up the steps like she’s important, sauntering past the Havoc Boys and failing to notice the way all five of them turn their heads, stalking her like prey.
Name number seven on my list.
I only know that I don’t want her dead. I can’t explain why, but I feel strongly about it. I should probably tell the guys before they get an idea in their heads that I can’t scrub lean.
“You heard the woman,” Victor says, nodding with his chin in the direction of the front entrance. We head inside together, and thank fuck we find out that the marriage office is down the righthand hallway and not the left. To go down that one, toward the courtrooms, you have to pass through a metal detector.
The boys consistently fail those at Prescott High five days a week, but they just pay off the security guards, so it doesn’t matter. Might be a bit harder to do that here.
Once we get to the office, Victor and I use one of the ancient computers in the room to fill out our information. When we get to the final screen that asks how we’d like our names written out, he clicks the option that reads Bernadette Channing before I get a chance to stop him.
“You goddamn prick,” I snap, and the woman behind the counter looks up at us with wide eyes. Her look very clearly says, How can you get married if you talk to each other like that? She doesn’t understand the sort of passion we have though.
It’s … explosive, but in the best possible way.
To pay Victor back, I click Victor Blackbird on the second screen and hit submit.
“You cheeky cunt,” he snaps right back at me, and then we end up sitting in silence with Pamela until our number is called.
She does what she has to do, flashing her ID and signing the papers with sharp, angry movements. When she’s finished, she doesn’t say goodbye. Shit, she doesn’t even ask about Heather. Instead, she just clutches her Burberry bag in tight fingers, her red nails digging into the handle the way they used to dig into my arm.
Pamela leaves the way we came in, and she doesn’t look back, not once.
“She isn’t invited to the actual wedding,” Vic tells me, putting his big hands on my shoulders and giving them a squeeze. “She knows that, right?”
“You could only get her to come if you paid her,” I tell him, closing my eyes as he kneads the tightness from my muscles.
There’s only one thing that’s worrying me.
Pamela usually likes to make a scene. Even with all the money Victor paid her—which came right out of our wedding budget—she should’ve been more … well, more of a bitch.
It makes me wonder if she isn’t up to something. Or at the very least, if she knows that her husband is.
“Do you know what you eventually want to see?” Vic asks me mildly. I open my eyes, watching the other four boys smoke in the breezeway outside as people walk by and gawk at their brazenness. My boys in black. I smile.
