Page 121 of Anarchy at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 4)
Callum doesn’t want me to fight with Pam in front of her? Why? I need to know, and I need to know tonight.
“What is all of this about?” Pamela asks as Sara moves up to stand beside Constantine, the box of Penelope’s things under her arm.
“Why don’t you take a seat, and we’ll talk,” Sara says, and I find my feet slowing at the door. She guides Pam into the living room and then kneels down in front of her, putting her hand on my mother’s knee. “I regret to inform you that we’ve discovered Neil Pence’s body …”
I stumble, but Cal keeps my arm and pushes me forward, even when I try to stop and listen.
“You … what?” Pam asks, and then she starts to wail, in a way she never did for my father or her own fucking daughter.
“Keep walking,” Cal whispers as I stumble down the sidewalk, my mind white with fear. If they’ve found Neil’s body then it’s only a matter of time before our house of cards comes tumbling down.
“I’m freaking out,” I whisper, choking on my own breath as we pause at the curb and Cal takes my heavy duffel bag from me, swinging it over his shoulder like it weighs nothing. “Why are you not freaking out?”
Callum smiles back at me, softly, almost sweetly.
“Because,” he begins as I glance back at the nightmare that is Pamela Pence’s house. “We always intended for him to be dug up.”
I look back at Cal in bewilderment, but he takes my hand and pulls me along beside him.
Well, fuck me. I did not see that one coming.Victor Channing“Good morning, son,” Ophelia says, dressed for tennis and smiling at me like she thinks she’s winning our little coup d'état. She has no idea how close I am to killing her. If she did, she wouldn’t look so triumphant in the face the way she does right now, like she’s finally done it, shown me how small and insignificant I am.
See, that’s the thing about my mother that makes a relationship between us difficult. We have different fundamental principles. She thinks money and clout make up a person’s worth; I think it’s about honesty and respect.
And love.
Oh, it’s all about that, isn’t it?
“Good morning,” I reply, knowing she’d only call me to the club for good news. She wants to parade me around here like a son she actually cares about, instead of some old sweater she shucked as soon as it went out of style. I start lighting a cigarette, and Ophelia panics, dragging me outside by the arm with a smile plastered on her face.
“You could try to be a little less … you in public,” she suggests, but then, she’s the one who made me live alone with my alcoholic father my whole life. Where was I supposed to learn fancy blueblood manners? I blow smoke in her face and smile when she frowns.
I’m standing on a razor-thin fucking edge here, my eyes narrowed, my thoughts spread thin. Bernadette isn’t happy about any of this, and I don’t blame her. If I were a real man, I’d have spit in Ophelia’s face at the suggestion of an annulment.
Instead, I’m playing a general in a war. If I do that, if I can step aside from Bernie for just long enough, I’ll have a kingdom to give her.
She shouldn’t have even been in the position she was with Kali. If she’d listened to me, she wouldn’t have been, I think, but I have to be honest with myself that her disobedience turns me the fuck on. Even now, I can feel blood rushing to my cock.
I don’t blame Bernadette for not finishing Kali. She hired us for the names on that list for a reason.
“Sorry. It’s in the blood,” I reply belatedly, giving a loose shrug. My mind strays to Bernadette and sticks there. Seeing her with James Barrasso made me so murderous it was impossible to breathe. I’m glad she fucked up her mission to flirt some info out of him. Trinity, on the other hand, is a strange nut to crack. “What do you want? Checking up on me after my date last night?”
Ophelia tsks under her breath, plucking the cigarette from my mouth and stubbing it out on the side of a pot. She hides the evidence in the dirt and then stands up, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s a beautiful woman with dark hair, eyes like pitch, and a mean mouth. I look just like her, even as I struggle every day to be different from her.
“Whatever you’ve done to Miss Jade, she’s smitten,” Ophelia tells me, smiling in the same way I do when I think I’ve trapped a fly in a web. Why does she think that? I wonder, lighting up a new cigarette as she sighs in exasperation. If I killed her, right here and now, would I be able to drag the body across the golf course before anybody saw me?
