by Eden O'Neill
“No problem.” It really wasn’t. “You got your car keys and your date book?”
She wrestled around in her bag for a minute. She raised a finger. “Yes, but I don’t have—”
I handed her cell phone to her. The one she’d apparently lost in the five seconds she’d been in the kitchen.
Upon taking it, she eyed me. “Who’s the parent in this situation?”
I shrugged and didn’t fight her when she brought me into a hug.
Nor did I let go.
My mom hugged me all the time. This was not unusual. But what was unusual was how she didn’t seem to want to let go these days. Like there was something there behind it while she attempted to meld herself into me.
I held her back, letting her stay as long as she needed to before letting go.
She kissed my cheek before squeezing it. “Have a good day, my love.”
“You too, Mom.” She gave me another quick kiss, then she was on her way. But I didn’t move until I heard her Mercedes pull out of the garage and she made it out of the driveway. She tended to forget things lately, come back.
She didn’t today.
I was right on her heels after that, finishing getting ready and all that. I strapped my bag on. Keys and smoothie in hand, I started for the garage too, but someone called my name down the hall. I assumed it was Ronald our butler, but when I doubled back and caught my dad in his office, my eyes flashed.
My father was behind his desk, working through papers on it. He waved me inside. “Come in, son. Just need two seconds from you.”
This was unusual. Dad was usually at work by now, and Mom had never mentioned him being here. Maybe she hadn’t known. She’d been running late too.
Pocketing my keys, I angled into the room, closing the door. “Yeah, Dad?”
He waved me to come deeper inside, and I took a sip of my smoothie while I waited for him to get off a call. He had his headset on, something I hadn’t noticed when I’d first seen him. Apparently, he was doing a little work from home before going into the office. My dad had many businesses, but I supposed what he and the Prinze name were known for was Prinze Financial. Our family name was tied to ninety percent of the banks in town.
My father paced behind his desk, shooting off commands. I heard the name Cliff a time or two, which let me know he was talking to his personal finance guy.
My finger tapped the pendulum on his desk while he spoke, and that used to piss him off when I’d been a kid. I broke the thing more times than I could count.
“Thank you, Heathcliff,” he said. “I’ll see you at the office.”
My gaze jerked up, as he told me to take a seat. I took my bag off.
He ruffled through some papers. “Just got off the phone with Cliff,” he said, flashing his green eyes at me. “Was just going over the household budgets. Credit card statements too.”
Well, fuck that wasn’t good. I laced my fingers on his desk. “I’m sorry if I’ve been spending too much…”
“You know, I don’t care how much money you spend, Dorian.” He propped his hands on his hips, his pants pleated and crisp. “I work hard so you can spend it.” His eyes narrowed. “Within reason.”
I nodded, relieved a little. But then, he tossed a statement toward me.
He pointed at it. “He’s alerted me to the fact that there’s been a lot of transactions upstate.” His eyes narrowed further, deeper creases in his eyes. My dad was in his forties, but he barely looked thirty. It was only the harsh lines around his eyes that gave him away. Mom had the opposite problem. The lines around her mouth were because she smiled so much. Dad’s were nonexistent. It wasn’t that he didn’t smile. He just didn’t do it often and probably even less than before I came around.
Hence the soft lines.
I took the credit card statement, swallowing as I read it. It didn’t take a scientist to know that the credit card in question was mine.
Or that these transactions were mine.
“Lots of gas stations upstate, son, and fast-food joints. I’m assuming since you stopped at some point to eat.”
I eased my head up. “Uh, yeah. Yes.”
“Yes.” His eyes narrowed harder, a confusion that I didn’t blame. It wasn’t just that I went upstate. It was the towns and cities I was passing through. It was the path.
It was the destination.
All that passed over my father’s green eyes as they stared at me, suddenly wild where they hadn’t been before. Out of all of us lately, he’d been the one keeping his shit together the most, always good for that. My father was an unmovable force.
But something like this would move him.
“Why in God’s name,” he stated, but then his fingers folded over his face. This was an action he often took to calm himself. People who shot off at the cuff disappointed him. Most especially when it came to himself. My dad liked control. He faced me. “What’s the meaning of these trips?”
I had one shot at this. My father could smell a lie a mile way and always had. I didn’t get away with shit as a kid. I wet my lips. “Football.”
“Football?” His eyes flashed. He directed a finger toward the statement. “You’ve been going upstate for football.”
“Yes, sir.” I nodded, hoping it didn’t give me away too much. I opened my hands. “Football. Camps and stuff.”
The lines around his eyes deepened. “I know your schedule, son. I know.” He paused, then lifted his head. “I knew your coach.”
Knew my coach.
A heavy breath escaped him, as he faced out of the window of our large home. All brick, we basically lived in an enchanted castle, and my dad had grown up here, him and his sister.
Now, he was the only Prinze to remain from that life long ago. Obviously, I was around and our extended family, but the other Prinzes who had lived in this house were long gone. We didn’t speak about my grandfather, his father.
The man was a curse in this house.
I’d found this out later in life, sitting here before my father now.
“Your schedule doesn’t have any trips upstate, Dorian.” Dad would know since he loathed football. He and his friends, my god dads Knight, Jaxen, Ramses, and LJ had all played lacrosse when they’d been in school. My dad had learned to endure football for me. Dad lifted his head. “Dorian.”
“The trips weren’t with the team,” I said quickly. “Ares, the other guys, and I signed up for our own day trips and scrimmage weekends. You know how we like to perfect our game.”
He knew how I liked to perfect my game. I didn’t do anything in my life half-assed. I worked hard, getting that from my dad.
Dad stared at me then, real long and hard. He wet his lips. “I do.” The words arrived on a breath, as his hand rose. “Lord knows you eat all that cardboard with your mother.”
Dad was a meat eater through and through. I nodded. “Yeah.”
My father’s visible relief at what I said was evident. He believed me. He did when he shouldn’t have, and that told me something. It said that he wanted to believe me, and that when it came to an alternative, well, there wasn’t one. I was going upstate for football.
That was why I went.
I could imagine this was something his brain could compute, and I was grateful for that. He faced me. “I’m assuming the trips are done, then?”
This wasn’t a negotiation, not the way he said it. I bobbed my head once in acknowledgment.
“You don’t go upstate,” he finalized, then sat in his chair. “You don’t, Dorian. And if you need to, you talk to me first.”
My stomach twisted up, adrenaline raised to hell. “Yes, sir.”
He sat back. “You can go now. Have a good day at school.”
I didn’t give him a chance to question me more. I just grabbed my smoothie, my school bag, and got out of there. I went to close his door and noticed his hand rubbing his brow. He was tense, but I noted something else.
He’d believed a lie when he never ever did.
&nb
sp; Chapter Ten
Dorian
I arrived on time to school, but didn’t get out of my car right away. I texted the guys I’d be in later, then parked in a random spot in the lot.
I lit up a joint.
I just needed a moment to fucking think, and I did that for a while. After taking the seconds I needed, I eventually parked my car with the rest of the guys, then hit the halls of the school. First period was most people’s homerooms, but usually the guys and I just dicked around. Really, we did whatever the fuck we wanted to do, but today, Wells said he needed to talk to us. When we all needed to meet, we met in the computer lab only the tech kids had access to. Thatch was one of those since he was a tech boy genius. He had keys to the lab, then made us dupes.
The lab was basically Legacy’s personal fucking room, a place where we brought chicks and smoked weed. We usually didn’t fuck girls together in there, but there’d been a time or two where things had gotten crazy.
I didn’t go out of my way to see my buddies’ dicks no matter how close we were, though. So if I needed the space, I usually texted ahead. The other guys didn’t give a shit, but there were plenty of places to take girls on campus where we didn’t have to smell each other’s fucking cum.
Today, we were just meeting to talk and shit. We’d, um, acquired all the other tech kids’ keys so only Legacy had access to the place now.
I unlocked my way in, and Wells passed me a bag of food from Jax’s Burgers. His dad owned several burger joints around town, and Wells knew I liked the tots from there since they were vegan. I usually only ate the shit when I wasn’t training, but I’d had a hell of a morning and texted him to get me some since he always stopped. Anything he got at his dad’s franchises was free, so why the fuck not.
I devoured the tots after barely bumping Wells’s fist for the grub, throwing myself in a swivel chair. Wells and Thatcher already sat around a computer screen, playing video games, and Wolf sat beside them with an empty wrapper. No doubt from those egg sandwiches he liked to eat in the morning. He crumpled it, tossing it at me. “You all right?”
The others swiveled in my direction, and I hoped to fuck my face wasn’t telling shit. I didn’t need any of them on my back either, their suspicions and shit. Especially Wolf. He also hadn’t known I’d been going upstate. None of them did.
They wouldn’t agree.
None of my buddies would, but Wolf? He’d kick my fucking ass. It’d be World War III in this motherfucker if my best friend found out what I’d been doing behind his back. Behind everyone’s backs. I shrugged. “Just got a late start.”
“You don’t get late starts.” Wolf frowned, then looked at the other guys. “We get late starts.”
“You do.” Thatcher slapped Wolf’s chest, and Wolf brought him under his arm. This worked for all of the two seconds it took for Thatcher to strong-arm him back. Wolf may have the height, but Thatcher Reed was a fucking tank. Thatch threw him off him. “I’ll kill you. I swear to shit.”
“Haven’t yet, kiddo,” Wolf chuckled, and I smiled. I enjoyed easy times like this where we could just sit around. No drama or women. We’d been having a lot of drama.
“I got bad news,” Wells rolled in, sitting back and crossing his legs. He lifted a hand. “We can’t get a van for a while.”
“What the fuck?” I shot forward. “Why?”
Wells popped his big shoulders. “My dad’s piece-of-shit employees have been stealing stuff off them recently.” Wells frowned. “Because of that, Dad’s monitoring his delivery vans. They’re completely locked up, and I’m not sure when I can get another.”
Wells had been able to get a van from one of his dad’s restaurants, and without it, that made shit real fucking difficult.
It made a lot of things difficult.
We’d had a window the other night, a short one, and we’d had the van then. I huffed. “When are you thinking something will open up?”
“Hard to say.” Wells opened his hands. “I’m sorry, man.”
Thatcher fell into silence too beside him, both of them looking guilty. Had they done things right, we wouldn’t need to get a van for a second time.
Shit would have been done.
But I’d be lying if I said I had no fault in what had happened. Wolf and I had been at the drop-off location, preparing shit.
I should have been there.
This was my responsibly, my cross to bear.
My burden to settle.
The rest of these guys had just been there with me. They had a stake in this too but not like me. Thatcher tapped his knees. “This sucks, D. This is our fucking fault.”
He gestured to Wells, my other buddy nodding. Wolf waved them off.
“It’s not about whose fault it is,” Wolf said. “It’s about what we’re going to do about it.”
Wells shook his head. “I’m going to keep watch, and I’ll let you know the moment I hear something.”
“We can’t mess this up again,” I told them. “We’re not going to.”
I had my dad on my back now. We were running out of time, and there were no do-overs. No time to muck shit up.
“And there’s something else,” Thatcher said. Reaching back, he got something off the computer table. “Noa Sloane’s records and everything finally got put into the computer system. Her schedule too.”
I didn’t know what the fuck that had to do with anything. Noa Sloane had obviously been a pain in my ass. She’d gotten in the way that fucking night with Mayberry, which was why I’d brought her brother into our circle. I wanted him close to fuck with her.
But now…
I saw it right in front of me, my eyes blazing at the schedule Thatcher gave me. He nodded.
“She’s student assisting for Principal Mayberry during the headmaster’s free period,” he said. “Which means the one hour we might have had access to the bitch, new girl is going to be in there with her.”
“You’re fucking kidding.” Wolf ripped the schedule away. He scanned the page, his eyes darkening. He tossed it. “Can that little shit not get in the way for once?”
The answer seemed no in this case.
We didn’t have a lot of time to get to Principal Mayberry, but one of those was the period the bitch used to do coke. The woman had a chronic drug habit, and catching her in a moment of vulnerability was our next chance to do what we needed to do.
We could get her then, make her pay then. Since we’d missed our first window on the street that night, the headmaster’s free period was a second option. The layout of the office made it easy to get to her through the janitor’s access. The Windsor Prep’s campus was laced with secret hallways the janitorial staff used to get somewhere quickly.
My buddies and I had memorized it all, knew the academy like the back of our hands. If we wanted to get someone out of the place without anyone noticing, we could.
The other night an opportunity had snuck up on us when Principal Mayberry had chosen to take a late run. She had Reed Security Systems in her home, so we knew where she was at all times. Thatcher could hack into the security feed, but his father’s security system was too good. The feed and knowing her location was all we had. We couldn’t override any of the systems, and Principal Mayberry didn’t normally leave her house. Locked up like Fort Knox.
Something told me what had happened last year had something to do with that.
The woman was a paranoid coke whore since she’d returned to town, her life clearly fucked.
But we could do more.
We would do more. I rubbed my jaw, staring at the schedule on the floor. Up until this point, Noa Sloane had just been a fucking nuisance.
But now, she was in the way.
Chapter Eleven
Sloane
Yeah, sports and me?
Really fucking sucked.
I was last on pool day. In fact, I sucked at laps so bad my gym teacher left me in the pool to finish after everyone concluded theirs. Apparently, this place was full of Olympic s
wimmers.
That shouldn’t have surprised me.
I’d looked into the Court after Bow had told me about it. The affiliation had bred celebrities in the past, CEOs and even presidents.
I’d poked into Legacy too, and the Legacy boys were apparently the snot-nosed kids of some of the big dogs in that Court group back in the day. Because of that, Dorian Prinze, Ares “Wolf” Mallick, Thatcher Reed, and Wells Ambrose walked around this place like they were the shit.
Bow appeared to be immune to the toxicity of her brother and his friends, cheery and personable. She always stopped to say hi to folks when she walked me around school, but there was always a hesitance from others when interacting with her. Something told me a little fear might have to do with that, her brother and his friends hovering over her like a goddamn Legacy cloud of privilege and clout.
That fucker Dorian Prinze drew first blood.
My brother was actually hanging out with those tools, and I couldn’t do anything about it. He was eating lunch with them, walking with them and their Court group in the halls, and I’d definitely noticed. If he was going out for the football team, I suppose he would need to be around them.
But that didn’t mean I had to like it.
I kept an eye on Bru and them every time I saw their pack at lunch, but any other time, their interactions were out of my hands. My brother had his own life, and I had to have my own as well. Even if that did mean I spent most nights in my art studio or doing homework to stay busy.
I should use the time to practice swimming.
Our place had an indoor pool, but hell if I’d used it.
Struggling in the academy’s pool now, I had to pause in the middle of a stroke just to catch my breath. I still had two laps before I could get out and shower like the other girls.
Better get this shit over with.
I glided through the water, grateful I actually had been taught to swim. When Bru and I were kids, Dad had taken us to the lake sometimes. That’d been when Mom was still around, but those memories were pretty fuzzy.