“And what if something goes wrong?” Vic inserts, a muscle in his jaw working as his frustration builds. It doesn’t bother me. Actually, it sort of turns me on. He’s coming from a place of wanting to protect me. Shit, I wouldn’t mind if he dragged me to bed and ordered me around under the sheets, but right here, I’m the HBIC. He needs to back the fuck off. “We’re all trapped together inside a GMP-owned club with Mason Miller. Sounds like a really great way to end up dead. Only positive I can see is that we all go to the other side together.”
I glare at him across the surface of the table. Like I haven’t thought about this already? Asshole.
“Listen to me, Mr. Blackbird,” I snap back at him, shifting on Aaron’s lap and feeling the growing bulge between his thighs. Good boy. Get it up for me, Fadler. “And I’ll tell you my contingency plan.” With a tilt of my chin, I indicate the closed curtains and the police cruiser parked across the street. Half-surveillance, half-protective detail. Gotta hand it to Sara Young, that woman knows how to plot. “I have a contingency plan.”
“The feds?” Vic inquires, shaking his head and letting out a long sigh as he closes his eyes. “I know you’re not a snitch, so … color me intrigued.” He opens those obsidian eyes for me and smirks. “Lay it out, Mrs. Channing.”
Aaron makes a sound of annoyance, tightening the grip of his hand against my hip.
“When Hael and I went to Pussy Point,” I say, trying and failing to hide the smile in my voice. He chuckles as he glances my way and our gazes cross. It doesn’t take much imagining to remember the hot feel of his hands on my skin, his palm skimming my belly, his head between my thighs. That tongue, so explosive, so wicked. “It took the cruiser about seventeen minutes to catch up with us.”
Oscar is the first one to get where I’m going with this.
“We use that window of time to kill Mason,” he muses as I flick my attention his way. “And if something happens, we have the feds banging down the door to rescue us.” An arrogant twist of his lips belies the cool, detached tone of his words. He’s impressed with me. Can’t even deny it. “This could work, Bernadette.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” I say as I shift once again on Aaron’s lap. This time, he drags me back against him, his breath warm against the side of my neck. “Of course it’ll work.”
“This still involves putting you in harm’s way,” Aaron adds, and I glance back to find him watching me. He keeps saying he wants a haircut, but fuck if the sight of a chestnut curl flopping against his forehead doesn’t do my ass in. “What if Mason recognizes you? You’re not exactly … an every woman.”
I snort at that and shake my head.
“This is where we come back around to the original argument. I won’t be playing a call girl, but to get into that club, I’ll have to dress like one.”
“No.” Vic stands up from the counter and moves over to the table, standing beside Callum where he remains crouched and contemplative. “I’m not letting my wife dress to please Mason cocksucking Miller. You dress in a black hoodie and jeans like the rest of us.”
“Except—as we all know—white supremacist Nazi cocksuckers don’t let women into their ranks. The only women who will be at the club will be strippers and hookers. And Victor, come on, every Prescott girl knows how to don a wig and do some contouring. Nobody will recognize me.”
“Mason might,” Victor corrects, and I roll my eyes. I glance over at Cal for help. Out of all of them, he’s usually on my side.
“Mason will,” Callum says, standing up, still perched on top of the table. His head nearly hits the ceiling. If it were a regular eight-foot ceiling, he most definitely would have.
“You don’t know that,” I retort, but if Cal is saying it, he’s probably right. “Regardless, the plan is good, and it’s worth the risk. If we’re going to stay in Springfield … shit, if we’re going to stay in Oregon … then we need to move. Don’t you want your inheritance? You promised me gifts. And shoes. Lots of fucking shoes. And all the weed I could smoke.”
Of course, Victor knows that I barely care about shoes and pot. What I care about is changing things around here, giving Heather and the girls a strong future, and kicking some GMP ass. This pedo ring they’re running with Ophelia’s help, it stops on my watch. Even if running away would be the safest option for all of us, I can’t do it. I won’t. Not when girls like Alyssa or Penelope or Stacey are preyed on and destroyed, their beautiful and vibrant lights snuffed out by the scum of the earth.
“How do we get Vera into the club in the first place?” Oscar asks, but I just smile. I’ve already figured that out, too. I take the crown that’s sitting on the table, the one that Vic dropped on my bloodied head back at the school, and slip it on.
Of all the things the cops took from me as evidence, I was allowed to keep only this.
Must be fate.
“Guess what I learned from Vera this morning?” I ask, shifting once more until Aaron grabs me and presses his mouth against the throbbing pulse in the side of my throat. Never underestimate how fun it is to get a man to nut in his fucking pants. Best part is: you can help him strip down and clean up after—then invite his mouth between your thighs.
“Clever little Blackbird,” Hael chuckles, shaking his head. “No need to be so coy. What did you learn from your little hooker friend?”
“For years, one man’s been responsible for supplying Mason with girls, ones that nobody cares about, with no family, ones that society doesn’t care if they live or die.” I exhale and adjust the crown so that it’s sitting straight. I glance back at Aaron again, because I wonder if this might shake him more than the other boys, considering everything he went through.
“Yes?” Oscar prompts, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Tom Muller,” I say, and Aaron goes completely stiff beneath me—just not in the way I was enjoying a few seconds prior. His hands go still on my hips, his grip tightening until it’s almost painful. Tom threatened to sell him into the sex trade not all that long ago. He’s understandably wary of the guy. “And I know just how to get ahold of him.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” David says, his casual stroll across the Oak Valley Prep campus turning into something of a half-jog as the boys and I close in on him. His brown eyes are wide with fear, a bit of sweat pooling on his upper lip. He’s not bad looking; I can see why I chose him out of a crowd for a one-night stand. But now, having been with all five Havoc Boys, he may as well be a flashlight next to the brilliance of the sun.
“David,” I start, his name both a warning and a placation escaping my red-painted lips. “Slow down, okay? We just want to talk.”
He turns the corner only to run into Aaron.
“Oh, fuck,” David groans, face paling considerably as he slumps back against the brick wall of some fancy-ass building with the name of a rich dead cis-het white guy on the plaque outside the door. “Not you again. I already went out on a limb helping you.”
“Which is why, despite everything your father has done, you are not on our radar,” Aaron tells him, his face darkened with the shadow of ugly memories. It might only have been a few days that he was missing, but it’s left a mark on him. The threat of rape and death will that to ya. I wonder briefly if we shouldn’t get out the handcuffs again and work our way through it as a family … “But we need your help.”
“Look,” David starts, wetting his lips, his eyes darting past me as the other boys catch up to us and form a half-circle around the frightened prep school boy. Money can buy a lot of things, but dignity and bravery are not anywhere on the list. “I don’t think you quite understand what you’re dealing with.”
“We know that your father supplies girls for a man named Mason Miller,” I retort, and David goes ghost pale. I mean, like me after I spent seven days in the darkness of a closet. Ashen. Sallow. Desperate. He doesn’t like this, and I don’t blame him. Even by talking to us, he’s risking a lot.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” David murmurs, reaching up t
o adjust his blue tie. He’s wearing the gray Oak Valley Prep uniform—jacket, slacks, tie. Looks like something from a Japanese anime if you ask me. Or, like this one book I read back in freshman year—Filthy Rich Boys. Swear to fuck the author of that was an anime junkie. Bet that’s where she got the idea for the uniforms. “You don’t want to be messing with Mason Miller, Bernadette.”
David and I stare at each other, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s recalling our relatively basic one-night stand. Kissing, groping, condom on cock, penetration. Bam. That was about it. It was nice, but nothing to write home about.
“Can you not look at her like that?” Aaron growls, his possessive streak making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. He’s sweet and he has a good soul, but I can see it in the way his jaw clenches, the way his eyes narrow … he wants to kick David’s ass for having touched me once upon a time. “Don’t think we don’t know you once slept with our girl.”
“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” David murmurs, eyes darting from Aaron to Victor, Callum to Oscar, pausing at Hael before flicking back to me. “Look, I’m like … a five on the Kinsey scale. I swear, I barely even like girls. I was drunk, and I … What do you even want from me?”
“We just want to talk to your dad,” I tell him, pausing and glancing over my shoulder at the sound of footsteps. Mack Holdman, boyfriend extraordinaire, to the rescue.
“Pardon me, boys,” Mack says, shoving his way through the cluster of Havoc Boys like they aren’t all at least six inches taller than him and imposing as fuck. “Are you harassing my man, Bernadette Blackbird? Because I like you, but I won’t if you’re back for another round.” He gives me a look and then pauses to flip off a passing student. “That’s right you homophobic piece of shit, keep walking.”
I follow his gaze over to where a very familiar figure waits beneath a tree.
Trinity Jade.
“She’s a homophobe and a royal cunt?” I ask, shaking my head as the emerald green snake of jealousy wraps itself around my throat. If she touches Vic, she’s a dead woman. But … we do also sort of need her help, so the royal ass beating that I owe her will have to wait. “Good to know.”
“Her father only donates to political campaigns that emphasize the dismantling of human rights for the LGBT community.” Mack pushes some dark hair back from his forehead as he looks from David’s sweaty face over to Aaron’s deep-set frown. None of the other boys say anything which is probably good. I don’t trust Vic to deal with David without trying to kill him. And … well, let’s just say nobody here is a fan of using my hookup as, well, a hookup in a different sense. “Anyway, what can I help you folks with?”
“We need to see Tom,” I tell Mack, remembering what Aaron told me about his brief interaction with the couple. Honestly, there’s a chance that by giving him a ride against Tom’s and Ophelia’s wishes, Mack and David inadvertently saved both Aaron’s life and my own. No need to tell them that though. Don’t need them to think we owe them or anything. “Could you set up a meeting for us? That’s all we want.”
“Trust me: Blackbird has more than enough dick now. She don’t need yours.” Hael chuckles and finds the closest No Smoking sign before lighting up in a glorious display of irony.
“You want to talk to my dad about Mason Miller?” David clarifies, giving Mack a look. They both—according to them—work for Tom. What, exactly, they do for him I don’t want to know. Probably procure girls. If they do, and I find out about it, I’ll wish their names were on my list. Instead, I just focus on cutting the head off the zombie, as Hael Harbin might say.
“That’s it,” Aaron promises, drawing David’s attention back toward him. Their gazes meet and something passes between them, a private memory that I can only guess has to do with Tom putting a fucking shotgun to the back of his son’s head. “We just want to meet with him. We know he’s short on money, too, so we’ll make it worth his while.”
David adjusts his tie again, clearly uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. I catch onto his nervousness and take a step forward, reaching out to put my hand on his upper arm. He flinches, but he lets me touch him.
“How close are you to losing your place here?” I ask, and David’s face pales even further. “What if we made it worth your while, too? Gave you some tuition money?”
“I’m almost twenty-thousand short,” David murmurs as Mack frowns and then drops his attention to where my hand rests on his boyfriend’s arm. He clearly isn’t a fan of me and David sleeping together either. I make sure to drop my hand by my side. “Can you do that?”
Last I checked with Oscar, Havoc had fifty grand in our account. What we have left now, I’m not sure, but probably not a lot. Nobody else is feeding us or buying gas for our cars or paying rent. Nobody else is paying for Heather and Kara and Ashley to enroll here or buying them their expensive uniforms.
“We can do it,” Vic replies easily, no hesitation. I wonder if there are other assets to be liquidated? Or if Havoc, like always, is just good at playing on so many levels that they’ve got extra cash squirreled away in other places. “Twenty for you, twenty for your dad. All you have to do is get us a meeting in a public place and make sure he shows up.”
“Done,” David says, eagerness coloring his voice as he looks back at Mack in a way that says he’d do anything to stay here with his man. Hey, I get it. I’d do the same: attend this horrid prep school for Vic just so he can get his diploma. Love is never easy, is it? There’s a bit of a pause before he adds, “are you planning on killing him?”
“If we were …?” Aaron starts as Vic makes a choking laugh that causes goose bumps to rise on both of my arms.
“I’d say … karma?” David suggests, face darkening as I think about what Aaron told me, how David basically admitted to being abused by his father. And then Victor with Ophelia. Penelope and the Kushners via Pam and Neil. Everything is connected. My list, my revenge, my boys, this city. The world is nothing if not a dangerous web. Pluck the wrong strand and the spider finds you before you get a chance to untangle yourself. “Anyway, just … be cautious. Ophelia broke up with him and moved out last week. He’d been planning on marrying her, too, so … he’s a little salty.” David swallows a lump in his throat, letting me know that Tom’s idea of saltiness is a bit more extreme than some bitter remarks and a deep-set frown.
“Ophelia broke up with him, huh?” Vic asks, rubbing at his chin. “Interesting. That must mean she has a much better prospect in mind. Say, Maxwell Barrasso?”
“Oh, they’re fucking for sure,” Mack agrees, giving Vic an appreciative once-over and then flicking his eyes over to me as if to say just lookin’, girl. “Ophelia met Maxwell through Tom and it’s been downhill ever since.”
“Aw, poor baby,” Vic murmurs, lighting up another cigarette. “So, he’s broke and dumped both, huh? You think he’ll agree to meet with us—even with the risk of the GMP?”
“He’ll do it,” David says, eyeing me skeptically, like he wonders what the hell I’m up to with this crew. Or maybe he’s just wondering why he ever agreed to hook up with me, considering I’ve been a Havoc Girl in my heart all along. “He needs the money too badly to say no.”
Victor nods again and then digs a card out of his pocket that he passes over to David.
“He meets us here, or it’s no deal. He’s also got a three-minute window of time in which to show up. If he’s late, we’ll kill him. Understood?”
David nods at Vic’s harsh words, plastering his body against the wall as Mack strokes his arm in solidarity.
“Boys,” Vic says, nodding with his head in Trinity’s direction. “Wife?” Victor offers me his arm, and I take it, allowing him to lead me away from David and Mack and toward his faux fiancée—a spot that I once held before becoming his wife. But Trinity will be nothing near what I was to Victor. The closest she’ll ever come to him touching her is if he’s forced to wrap his hands around her throat.
Trinity stays where she is, watching us from beneath
the leafless limbs of a maple tree, her arms crossed over the front of her jacket, her gold hair billowing in the breeze. Victor and I approach her together, like a couple. Like it always should’ve been. Her eyes spot the ring on my finger right away.
“Well, looks like you really are stupid enough to decline your mother’s offer.”
“Bitch, listen up,” I start, swinging right out the gate as Victor laughs beside me, his chuckles low and sensuous and dark. “We know about you and James. Namely, the fact that you and James are half-siblings through Maxwell Barrasso. Oh, and the fact that your shared lineage didn’t stop you from riding his dick.”
Trinity blinks at me, maintaining that ineffable calm of hers. According to Vic, she seemed pretty shaken up about James’ death. Looking at her now, you’d never know.
“Do you have a point?” she asks, rearing back slightly to look me over with a sneer building on her lips. It’s like … Trinity is Kali without the rachet, but with an extra helping of smug superiority. But where Kali had a rotten soul, at least she had one. Pretty sure Trinity Jade is an empty trinket on the inside. “Why are you even here?”
“We came here to enroll, of course,” Victor says, and I shiver in pleasure as Trinity’s face pales, going ashen beneath the pretty layer of makeup she’s caked on her doll-like features. “Oh? You seem shocked,” he continues, reaching out a single finger to lift her tie. There’s a cruelty to his movements, to the set of his gaze, that I’ve never seen directed at me. It’s the look that promises the Vic who strangled Logan Charter to death in the hallways of Prescott High still exists.
Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys Book 5) Page 21