Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,146

up on one elbow, panting, staring at him with vision clouded by sex.

“Do it,” Oscar commands, and I glance back to see him staring down at me like an imperious prince. “Do it, Bernadette.”

I reach out with my left hand and give Cal three small, delicate strokes with loose fingers. He comes so hard, all over his stomach and chest, bound with the rope and unable to do anything but experience the rush. After, he slumps in his bondage, panting and shaking, and Oscar moves over, untying him with a few, deft strokes.

“Jesus motherfucking Christ,” Cal murmurs, shaking as he snatches the half-drank Pepsi bottle from the nightstand. “Holy shit.”

“Holy shit is right,” I murmur back, and then I know that I’m going to need to try it again soon, Oscar tying me up. Last time, he left. This time, he isn’t allowed to. “Oscar …”

“Do you feel better now?” he asks me, genuinely serious. All I can do is nod my head as I crawl up to lie beside him, letting him rest his hand on the side of my head. Callum crowds close behind me, throwing an arm around my waist.

I snuggle them both for a minute, my two, dark, precious monsters.

“I feel better,” I say, because I’m happy, but I’m not over it. So, I decide to tell the truth, too. “But only a little.”

“Little by little, a little becomes a lot.” Oscar trails off and I close my eyes. It’s not exactly a Shakespearean creation, but it works. And within just a few minutes, I’m asleep and dreaming.

It takes about three weeks to set my mother’s fate in stone, to sit down with Vera over coffee—not cat shit coffee either—and talk about what needs to be done. Callum doesn’t think I should keep chasing loose ends, but I need Pamela off my list for good. At first, I thought that by sending her to jail, that I could accomplish that feeling.

But it isn’t enough.

Not after what she did to Penelope.

Frankly, it wouldn’t be enough if I put an upside-down bucket with starving rats in it on her belly and watched as they slowly and agonizingly ate their way through her insides. For what she did to Pen, to me, to Heather, she deserves to burn at the stake.

So, as Vera makes the arrangements—finding the right girl for the job, paying off whatever guards need to be paid to make this happen, waiting for a moment when my bitch mother isn’t in solitary for mouthing off—I wait. I sit in my fancy classes with my fancy iPad while my fancy teachers try to teach me things that I can’t understand because my public school wasn’t appropriately funded. Because, somehow, giving equal money to all schools regardless of where they’re located and educating the children of our country is controversial to some people.

Oak Valley Prep and me, that’s a wash. I struggle through it though as best as I can, even as I know that the only person in Havoc whose diploma matters is Victor. Getting straight C’s at this point is all that I want. Because graduating to me is still important, because being the first woman on Pamela’s side of the family to actually accomplish that goal is important.

Sometimes, I follow Trinity around just to see her squirm. Sometimes, I make out with Victor in front of her fancy friends or murmur brother-fucker under my breath when I pass her in the halls. But honestly, as much as I want to hate the school and all of the people in it, it’s actually … kind of nice living here.

Sharing an apartment with the boys is amazing, being able to see my sisters (let’s be fair and just start calling all of them what they really are) is incredible, and the food isn’t halfway bad. Although once, they actually served fucking snails in the cafeteria and I thought I might puke the way Charli and Dixie D’Amelio did when they botched that TikTok video after finding a snail in their paella. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, thank god for you. Don’t bother Googling it; it isn’t worth your time.

After school, when I get up to the apartment with Oscar as my escort to find the other four boys waiting for me, I know that something is wrong.

“The girls,” I start, but Victor is already shaking his head and standing up, holding his big palms out to placate me.

“The girls are fine,” he explains quickly,