Page 13 of Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 5)
The FBI doesn’t know where Cal is.
“Can you please leave?” I ask. “I’d like to be alone with my husband.”
“Husband …” Sara begins, exhaling sharply. There’s something in the way she’s looking at me that tells me she knows about the annulment. I don’t care. It’s not official by any means. We’ve only filled out the paperwork to start the process; there’s still a decree of annulment. There’s still a court date.
I’m not going through with any of it.
Victor wanted to keep me safe. I understand that. Shit, I’d have done the same thing for him.
Circumstances have changed.
That, and I feel like I’ve finally grown a pair of ovaries.
“I’ll be in touch,” Sara says finally, heading down the stairs as I turn away. Victor and I ignore her, too intent on one another to pay much attention. My heart thunders in my chest and my nostrils flare with Vic’s scent. His breath hitches, as if he can sense that I’m scenting him. Preparing myself. He shifts that big body of his, steam rising from his inked flesh.
I glance briefly toward the stairs as Sara pauses in the living room to speak with Constantine. Then, finally, they both leave. The sound of the front door closing is as ominous as the careful, shuttered clasp of a casket lid ending the legacy of a life.
I turn back to Vic.
Our eyes meet.
My hands find his towel.
The fabric falls to the floor as he lifts me up and parks me on the bathroom counter. His lips are a hot slash of menace, as they always are, but there’s something softer underneath, something that speaks to me as both a primal, sexual being and a spiritual entity. I feel him on every level. He’s a beautiful masculine specimen, the perfect complement to my femininity. He’s also my soul mate in every way that matters.
Victor growls as he claws at my borrowed sweatpants, wrenching the seam down the center of the crotch, like he can’t even be bothered to take them off. I’m not wearing panties—mine were covered in blood and thanks but no thanks on wearing borrowed underwear from police girl.
“Fuck, you taste like blood,” Vic says, but not like it’s a bad thing. His mouth moves from my lips to my neck, so he can bite down at the same time that he thrusts, owning me, claiming me, just the way I need in this moment. We need to reconnect, readjust, reevaluate. Connecting our bodies this way brings up a firestorm that burns away the confusion and the fear, the frustration and the worry.
We will find Callum.
We will win this city.
We will not let them win.
My arms twine around Victor’s neck as he drives into me, hands cupping my ass, hips driving forward until he hits the end of me, and I cry out. He smells like that fancy peach soap from France that I jacked out of the glitzy Oak Park boutique, and his skin is vibrant and hot from the spray of the shower. I dig my nails into his muscles, absorbing his strength through my fingertips, stealing his essence like a dark witch with a pointed hat, a cottage in the woods, and nails tipped with poison.
Vic comes when I tell him to, whispering horrible things in his ear that cause him to shudder and grip me like he’s falling. This time, it’s my turn to catch him. And I do. And I’m okay with that.
I do not see Kali’s ghost.
I don’t think I ever will again.
No, I know that I won’t.
Because I’m done letting other people get in my head. I’m done consenting to the act of feeling inferior.
Fuck all of that.
I am queen of Havoc, and we are just getting started.“Do you think the GMP took Cal with them when they left?” I ask Victor, sitting at a stool in the kitchen in the dark and waiting for the other boys to come back. It’s just after six in the evening, and they’re still not here.
Our crew—what’s left of it anyway—is crawling the city, sticking to shadows but keeping an eye on the comings and goings of the cops and the GMP.
Vic puts his palms on the counter and looks at me across the surface of it. Every once in a while, there’s a knock at one of the doors and a crew member waiting. Victor speaks to them in low, hushed tones, and then returns back to the counter.
So far, no further activity from the GMP.
They’d have to be stupid to come here right now, with all of those fucking cops outside. Not that a gang like the GMP cares about the police, but with the VGTF involved, that means FBI. That means media coverage.
In a day and age where corruption runs so rampant that it taints every aspect of daily life, attention is the true nightmare of the underground. Shine a light on something and see the people rise.
