Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,169

as it is between Fuller and Prescott, half-normality and half-Havoc territory.

Hael gets his mother set up in the master bedroom as Aaron and I wait in the living room and the rest of the boys sweep the yard and the upstairs, just in case. You can never be too careful in a gang war.

“I miss this place,” Aaron tells me as we lean together, shoulder to shoulder.

“Me, too,” I say, but then I think about Marie living here and not being afraid and making pralines in the kitchen, and the feeling of missing the house doesn’t seem quite so strong anymore.

“She’s asleep,” Hael says as he comes out of the room, rubbing at his temple with two fingers. “We’ll leave some guys to watch over the house, but I’d feel better if she wasn’t alone.”

“You can’t stay,” I tell him, and it’s not just because I’m being selfish. It’s because Ophelia knows the truth now: it doesn’t matter which part of Havoc she gets ahold of. If she can capture a single one of us in her clawed fingers, then we have no choice but to serve her whims.

“Aww, missing me already?” Hael asks, giving my hair a tousle as Oscar comes down the stairs, Victor emerges from the direction of the laundry room/weed bathroom/and garage area, and Callum slips in from outside. “No, I’m not staying here, but I might call my aunt or something. She lives in New Orleans.” Hael pauses briefly and sighs, like this isn’t the outcome he wants but the outcome that might be necessary. “I think my mother should move back home. She’d be happier in Louisiana; she only ever came here for Martin.”

“If she’ll go, we’ll buy her a plane ticket,” Vic agrees, and then, with one, last look at the house, we leave out the front door and pile into the cars.

As we do, I text Sara Young and let her know what’s going on.

Just as I’d hoped, she agrees to send a car over here for at least a night or two which makes me feel better.

She isn’t so bad, after all, that doe-eyed VGTF agent.

In late May, Brittany Burr gives birth to a beautiful baby boy, eight pounds six ounces. I decide to pay her a visit just a few days later, when she’s resting at home and her father—the infamous Forrest Burr—is out of the house.

Hael knocks on the door to get her to open it, but it’s me who ends up pushing past to head inside.

“What …” Brittany starts, glancing back at Hael Harbin as he waves and gives a tight-lipped smile before yanking the front door closed without bothering to come in himself. I sweep down the hall as Brittany stumbles after me, growing more furious by the second. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she demands as I find the kitchen and start rummaging around for a vase, so I can put the flowers I bought her into it.

Conveniently, I find a lovely crystal vase in the cabinet above the kitchen sink

“I came here to congratulate you on your new arrival,” I say, spotting a baby monitor on the counter. Based on the image on the screen and the near perfect silence of the house, I take it to mean the kid is still asleep. “And to bring these flowers by.”

Brittany glares at me from dark brown eyes lined with purple circles underneath. Her face is drawn and tired and her pouty mouth is turned down in a vicious frown. Hael never came to the hospital to see her—which she knows. And maybe by now she’s already figured out that the kid isn’t his? That much, I’m not sure since most babies are born kind of looking the same anyway.

“Why are you inside my goddamn house and Hael isn’t?” Brittany tries again to get me to answer her, but I’m too busy fluffing flowers in the vase and stepping back to admire my handiwork. I cast her a knowing glance and her face flushes a funny purple-red color.

“Girl, you know why I’m here,” I say, but Brittany is still shaking her head at me, like she doesn’t want to believe it. But she knows. She fucking knows before I say a goddamn word.

“I want to see Hael,” she demands, turning on her heel and heading for the front door again. I cut her off and she comes up short, reaching out a hand to brace herself against the wall, her white nightgown fluttering around her