Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,10

shivers before turning my attention back to the egg donor.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I start, a sarcastic laugh snapping out of me like the crack of a whip. Sliding a borrowed phone out of my pocket, I pull up a news site and toss it onto the table. Low-Income School Devastated by Shooting. Don’t ya just love that? How they had to mention how poor we are in Prescott? As if that fucking matters. “Maybe the fact that the GMP sent more than a dozen men to my fucking high school this morning.”

“We didn’t know about this,” Trinity says, glancing over at Ophelia. Based on her expression, I don’t think she knows that James Barrasso is dead yet. That, or she’s as much of a psychopath as my mother and doesn’t care. “This wasn’t part of our plan either; James was responsible. His father is going to have a talk—”

“James is dead,” I say, because I want the news to sting. I want to see this girl’s reaction. She just stares at me like I’ve spoken in another language. If Hael were here, I’d ask him to translate it into French for me. Maybe this highbrow bitch would understand that?

“Sir, I need to insist you put on a jacket …” the maître d' says, approaching me the way you might a vicious dog, one that’s foaming at the mouth and straining against a chain. But, you know, I’m not an animal—even if Bernadette makes me feel like one. Fuck, I need to be inside of her. That’s what I need to do, go home and bury myself in her heat. That’ll calm me down. She’s the only person that can.

Ehh, but I’m a reasonable monster.

I take the jacket and slip it on. After all, the employees here are basically slaves to the wealthy. They’re paid a pittance that doesn’t even cover their fucking bills to wait on these people hand and foot. Why is it so much to ask, to just give people a living wage? How the fuck is this shit controversial and politically polarizing?

I sit down at the table, grab the bottle of wine by the neck—I hope it’s expensive—and chug the rest of it in one go. On the outside, I look calm. I know I do. On the inside, I’m fucking seething. One mantra repeats over and over in my mind: rein in your temper Vic; wield it like a weapon.

Ophelia just stares at me, her body tense, like she’s afraid I might finally do it, kill her right here and now.

But I’m also a careful monster.

Going to jail means no Bernadette. No protecting her. No fucking her. No holding her in my arms and kissing away her tears. She means everything to me. Everything. And I’d do anything for her … even that.

I won’t let myself put words to whatever ‘that’ is, but it sits there in the back of my mind, crouched like Callum in the shadows. Callum. Where is Callum? Where is Hael? Aaron? Oscar? I can’t get ahold of anyone.

At least I know Bernadette is safe.

For now.

But we have a serious mare’s nest that needs untangling, don’t we?

“James is dead?” Trinity asks, her voice hollow but her porcelain expression schooled into one of polite disinterest.

“He’s dead,” I reconfirm, sitting there in that awful restaurant with the stone walls and the low ceiling, live music in the corner, bottles of thousand-dollar wine on every table. That’s why this place is called the Bordeaux, because they serve exclusive bottles of wine worth upwards of twenty-grand. “Killed him myself.” Lie. But I can’t let Trinity or—via whatever social grapevine they have going on—Maxwell know that it was my wife that delivered the final blow. If anyone is going to receive retribution for that, it should be me.

Being the leader fucking blows sometimes.

I tap my fingers on the surface of the table. I’m so agitated right now, it’s tempting to just kill both women right here, right now. But that won’t solve our problems with the GMP. Or the police. Reasonable monster, careful monster, neat monster. Don’t make any messes you can’t clean up, Victor Channing.

“Excuse me,” Trinity says, standing up so suddenly that the attendant rushing over to help with her chair doesn’t quite make it in time. With small, neat steps, she makes her way to the restroom, leaving me alone with Ophelia Mars.

I look over at her.

“This changes everything. You know that, right?”

She sips her wine, eyes focused ahead on all the curious,