Page 103 of Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 5)
“Son, do not test me right now.” Ophelia stops her pacing. I can almost see her in my mind’s eye, torn between being pleased at the development of the annulment and furious over Mason’s and Tom’s deaths—both of which she’s going to blame us for, regardless of what actually happened. “How is your new school? You know, I have a lot of regrets in my life and not sending you through the Oak Private School System is one of them. You belong there, Victor. Your blood is as blue as any other student there.”
“Mm, it’s almost like you think I give a shit about any of that. I’m not a golden retriever, Ophelia, a dog that you bred for its curly coat and pretty eyes. I’m your son, a son that you paraded in front of perverted men when Ruby stopped giving you money.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Victor,” Ophelia says, and that’s when I see it. For the very first time. A real and true and genuine crack in Vic’s self-control. He grabs the phone from the table, his knuckles turning white as he squeezes it too hard, hard enough to crack the screen.
“Dramatic?” he whispers back, his voice so low and dark that I actually shiver in response. Oscar pauses in his sorting of the uniforms to look back at Vic, exchanging a brief look with Callum as he does. “You’re calling me dramatic because I didn’t like grown men touching me when I was a child? You think this is funny?”
“Don’t think I don’t know that you’ve been living outside of your father’s place,” Ophelia continues, throwing the rules of the trust into her son’s face. “And what’s this I hear about an apartment on campus? Do you want to lose this thing so easily, Vic?”
“You filthy bitch,” Victor snarls back, rising to his feet, still clutching the phone. His left hand clenches and unclenches at his side as he grinds his teeth together. “Do you really think you can peg me on a technicality? You know as well as I do that Ruby’s trust allows me to live on the campus of an educational facility. I’m going to win this game, and I’m going to win it with my hands wrapped around your motherfucking throat.”
Vic throws his phone as hard as he can against the far wall, shattering it to pieces as he storms away from the couch and I scramble to take off after him.
“Vic,” I start as he yanks open the front door like he’s going to leave the apartment.
I move up behind him, unsure if I should actually touch him or not. He’s bristling now. He’s on fire. He’s … coming apart in a way that’s probably healthy but also a little bit scary. Wield it like a weapon. It’s like, all these years of holding back that temper, of saving it, of collecting those flames into an inferno, and Victor is getting ready to unleash it.
“I need to take a walk,” he says, his dark eyes sliding briefly over to me. His expression softens enough that I know today isn’t the day he breaks. Not today. Not yet. But soon.
“Do you need me?” I ask, and Victor gives a visible shudder at the words, swiping a hand down his face. I want nothing more right now than to help him through this, the way he’s helped me time and again deal with my own over-the-top temper.
His obsidian gaze starts at my feet and rakes up my body, making me shiver and crackle like my skin is made of coals and his eyes are the flame that finally ignites the blaze. I didn’t know about the exceptions in his trust, the ones that allowed him to withdraw money for education, the ones that allow him to live here without breaking the stipulation that he lives with his father until graduation.
That means … all along … Victor could’ve left Prescott High and his drunk father and all of that bullshit behind. He has the grades to get in here, the connections. Even Ophelia claimed she always wanted him to go to school here (not totally sure I believe that, but I guess it might’ve helped her maintain the failing image of an aristocrat).
Anyway, I don’t have to ask why Vic didn’t leave.
It’s pretty goddamn obvious: me.
His love is far from selfish. Or, if it is, then it’s much more than that, too.
Victor very carefully closes the front door and turns around to look at me, dark gaze blazing in such a way that I can’t seem to help the soft gasp that falls from my lips. I’m not such a badass now, am I? Faced with the unrelenting magnanimity of his stare.
“Get your uniform on,” he tells me, and I can’t help the shudder that takes over me, making my skin ripple and ache from my head down to the very tips of my toes. Victor stalks off down the short hallway toward the bathroom before disappearing inside, and I let out a long breath that I didn’t even mean to hold.
