Page 33 of Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 5)
No lies, no secrets, right? That’s Havoc policy.
My stomach churns with nerves. Two guys down, three to go … Only, I’m pretty sure these three are going to make a way bigger deal out of it than necessary. Vic with his possessive desire to impregnant me (fucking gross), Oscar with his emotional intimacy issues, and Hael with all his previous baby mama drama.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
I take another drag on the joint and attempt to avoid staring at Cal’s tight ass.
“Oh, don’t worry about asking for dick, princess. You’ll get plenty of it.” Vic lights up a cigarette and smirks at me. “If I were you, I’d be asking for get out of jail free cards instead.”
I flip him off, but my mind is already spinning with possibilities.
Ophelia made a deal with Trinity—likely by blackmailing her about being a brother-fucker—to marry Vic. This would, if she could pull it off, effectively give her a portion of the inheritance. She clearly has some connection with the GMP as well, likely also in regard to her mother’s money. So why send goons after us if they were already winning?
“They weren’t there to hurt Vic,” I muse, thinking on it for a moment as I taste the bitter tang of marijuana smoke on my tongue. The THC tingles as I pull in another hit, savoring the fruity flavor of it. Swear to fuck, whatever the strain of weed is, be it Pineapple Express or Pink Cookies or what the hell ever, it tastes exactly the way it’s named. “The GMP, I mean. I bet they were going to leave Victor alive.”
“You think they just wanted to clean house?” Vic clarifies, and I nod, struggling to find all the pieces and put them together in some kind of order that makes sense. In order to fight an enemy that’s stronger than you, you have to understand them. Subterfuge over brute strength.
And this, this is why Havoc needed a Havoc Girl.
I look over at Vic and see that he’s waiting with his cigarette halfway to his mouth, like he actually cares what I have to say. I appreciate that. When he put that crown on my head, he wasn’t just posturing. He meant the gesture with the entirety of his inky black heart.
“Ophelia would never let them kill you because the money then defaults to charity, yes?” Vic gives a curt nod, and it occurs to me that his grandmother must’ve really seen something awful in her daughter to think up a stipulation like that. Likely, the reason she wanted him to live with his alcoholic father was to keep him away from Ophelia as well. Because even a drunk is better than a devil. “And they didn’t kill me when they had the chance either. There’s something to that.”
I remember James’ rage when he finally caught up to me. “Find the little bitch and put a bullet in her. I’m done playing games.” The question is: what game, exactly, were they playing to begin with?
Victor just stares back at me as Cal shuts the water off and I scramble to get him a towel. He takes it and then throws an arm around my shoulders to keep himself upright while he dries off, getting me wet in the process—just not in the way I’d normally like.
A rush of hot heat between my thighs is not the welcoming signal that it usually is. I look down to find blood on my shorts. Again.
“Bernadette Channing,” Vic warns, and I close my eyes for a moment against the penetrating depth of his stare.
Motherfucker.
I can’t hold onto this any longer, so I just … don’t.
I open my eyes.
“The hospital called to tell me I was pregnant,” I say, and I swear on the devil’s tits, you could hear a pin drop in that bathroom. Hael glances back at me from his place in the hallway as Aaron offers up a melancholic but encouraging smile from behind him. “Also … I’m … not pregnant anymore.” I gesture at my bloodied shorts for emphasis, forcing myself to meet Vic’s gaze.
“What?” Victor’s voice is so sharp that I almost cringe at the sound of it. Instead, I just keep staring down those obsidian eyes of his, watching as he tries to keep control of his temper and almost fails. Vic. The master of control. He’s fucking seething.
“Do we need to go to the hospital?” Oscar asks, his voice strangely calm, almost inflectionless. His emotions are locked away in a vault right now.
Hael, on the other hand, has braced his palm against the wall and is currently bent over, eyes squeezed shut. When he lifts his head and stares at me over Oscar’s shoulder, I feel a wave of exhaustion crash over me. I need sleep. Desperately so.
“No,” I say, because I’m not totally ignorant. Once, in tenth grade—just before she called Havoc on me, coincidentally—Kali thought she might be having a miscarriage. She’d slept with this boy, ugh, what was his name? That’s right Clarence. I remember thinking that no kid born after 1945 would be named Clarence. Anyway, she thought she was pregnant, and then she thought she was having a miscarriage. We looked it up. “There’s nothing they can do.”
