Page 60 of Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 5)
Not sure if you can tell, but … I fucking hate billionaires. Despise ‘em actually. Pretty sure it’s impossible to be a billionaire and a good person at the same time. Definitely mutually exclusive concepts.
“He won’t be back in time to attend the funeral, will he?” I ask and Sara Young just stares at me. “We haven’t done anything wrong. Callum defended himself.”
“He brawled with an enforcer for the Grand Murder Party and then shot him in the forehead,” Sara explains, as if I haven’t heard the story from somebody that was actually there. She turns around and starts down the sidewalk, but I follow after her.
“Careful, Havoc Girl,” Vic murmurs, his deep voice rumbling through me, like thunder on the night of a summer storm. I glance back to find him with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, sweats slung low, shirtless and perfect. “Keep your temper.”
I turn back to find Sara waiting at the end of the walk with Constantine.
“It isn’t against the law to defend yourself against a school shooter.” I cross my arms over the front of my pajama top, the one covered in coffins and crosses. It’s appropriately morbid. Bought it at the Hellhole almost a year ago with money I stole from Pam. Figured I should support a local business run by an ex-Prescott student—especially since I’ve stolen way too much from that fucking place. “So, what is this about? A scare tactic? Are you putting pressure on me because of your stupid plea deal?”
Sara laughs. The sound is a little dry, a bit tired. I’m blurring her lines and this woman, she’s someone who loves to color inside of them.
“You know, Bernadette,” she tells me, raking her gaze down my outfit while Constantine scowls at me. Seems to be the only thing he’s good at now, sneering and scowling. He tried, at first, when he was pretending to be a detective investigating Danny’s death. But now? He considers us all useless Prescott trash, and he isn’t afraid to show it. “I get the GMP’s motivations. And … I get the Charter Crew’s. Hell, I even understand your mother’s to a certain extent.” She points at me with a perfectly manicured French tipped nail. “But it’s you that I don’t understand, you that I don’t get.”
I stare her down, my mouth pursed into a thin line. If one of my boys goes to prison, I will lose my shit trying to plan a jailbreak and an escape into a foreign country. I don’t want that. I don’t want to abandon Prescott and Springfield to the shadows.
“Maybe if you got to know us a little better, you would.” I’m looking at Sara’s petite face, even while Constantine snorts rude laughter from behind her. “Maybe, if you came to Stacey’s funeral today, that would go a ways in helping repair the relationship between the authorities and Prescott. Hell, you might learn something.”
“We have better things to do than attend the funeral of some teenage whore with a drug problem.” Constantine steps up beside Sara as she stiffens up and flicks an angry glance his way. She doesn’t share his sentiments perhaps?
My rage flares up so white and blinding that I almost throw a ring-studded punch at the federal agent’s face.
“Stacey did not have a drug problem,” I grind out, wondering why I’m so defensive of the girl now that she’s gone. In some strange way, I’d gotten attached to the idea of having a female friend, somebody who might actually understand me. I love my boys, don’t get me wrong, but I miss having a woman to talk to. There’s no substitute for a strong feminine bond like that. “And she wasn’t a whore. Her girls cleaned up the sex trade around here.”
“By being their own whores?” Constantine asks with another laugh. “Believe it or not: that’s not exactly a revolutionary act.”
“Isn’t it?” I retort as Sara turns her attention back to me. “There’s always going to be an underground, Constantine. There’s always going to be a dark side. Stacey and her girls had sex workers collecting their own money, choosing their own clients.”
“And robbing them blind,” he interjects, looking me over with dark brown eyes.
“That’s enough, John,” Sara says, reaching out to put a hand on his arm. He shakes her off as footsteps sound on the walk behind me. Cal. You can only hear Callum Park coming when he wants you to. And when he does, it almost sounds like he’s standing on his tiptoes—ready to move at a moment’s notice.
“Until the world stops favoring the wealthy and corrupt, until there are opportunities for girls like Stacey Langford, you have to accept that they’ll do whatever it takes to survive. They shouldn’t have to sell their bodies, but the world you’ve created gives them few choices. But go ahead, mansplain to me what a revolution looks like. I’ll wait.”
