Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,53

as he goes for the stairs and Aaron and Hael fan out to secure the house on either side of me. I decide to follow Vic up, past threadbare sofas and peeling wallpaper. There’s a TV at one end of the living room that looks like it was probably purchased in the late eighties.

I slide my hand up the banister, finding myself in a hallway that stretches out on either side. There are half a dozen doors up here, most of them shut tight. Vic is in the doorway to the bathroom, peering at the toilet and the shower with a frown.

“Fuck, this is rough—even for Prescott.” He snorts a laugh and steps into the room, testing the toilet to make sure it flushes. “We won’t stay here for long, don’t worry. Just a week or two.”

“You’re not actually considering sending us all to Oak Valley, are you?” I ask, because I’m having a hard time getting that out of my head. The rich are just as monstrous as the poor, only they have resources to fund their dark ambitions.

“Whatever it takes, wife,” Vic tells me, turning the tap in the shower on and standing up with a frown as the water spurts like a freshman during his first time and then craps out completely. The sound of old pipes echoes in the walls and then the shower coughs up some steamy water. Victor turns his head to look back at me, an apology resting somewhere in his face that I don’t quite understand. “You and Aaron will be able to see the girls, we’ll have round the clock security, and there is no way in fuck the GMP will storm Oak Valley. Too many risky politics involved. Half the students’ parents are paying customers with private militia.”

Victor turns back around to look at me, but it’s hard to argue with that logic.

“We broke in pretty goddamn easily,” I repeat, but I’ve already had this discussion with Aaron. I scrub both hands over my face as Vic approaches me, grabbing the water bottle from my pants and sliding it out in a way that’s far more intense and sexually charged than it ought to be.

“Look at me, Bernadette,” he says, putting both of his big hands on my neck, one on either side. His palms are warm, his touch bringing to life all the winter-dead parts of me, a searing summer day that chases away the cold. I keep my focus on his face, reaching up to place my hands over the tops of his. “If you don’t think the Oak Valley idea is a good one: tell me. I trust your judgement.”

“Do you?” I ask, and he smiles, but it’s a tad lopsided.

“On most things. When it comes to putting yourself in danger, nah, I don’t trust that at all. You’re the queen, but I’m still the boss.” He presses a kiss to my mouth that tastes like dangerous promises and violent heat, of all the horrible things he’d like to do to me in the dark of this abandoned house. “So, what do you think we should do, Bernie? What’s your next move?”

“I say we retaliate hard-and-fast—in the way we do best.” I wet my lips, thinking about all the things I suffered at the hands of the ones I loved the most. “Havoc’s specialty is inflicting pain without leaving any marks. When you locked me in that closet”—and here Vic at least has the common decency to cringe—“you tore me apart in ways that hurt to the very core of my soul. And yet, there was no evidence of it. Nobody would ever know by looking at me who put the darkness in my gaze and the vengeance in my smile, right?”

“Little poet princess,” Vic grumbles, giving my neck a slight squeeze before he drops his hands to his sides. “Go on.”

“We do the same here and now. We retaliate but in ways that make it looks like we’re not doing anything at all. Starting with Mason Miller.” I exhale as I lay my palms flat against Vic’s chest, the diamond ring on my finger catching a stray bit of sunlight from the leaky skylight above my head. “Let me talk to Stacey’s girls. They deserve to know they’re under our protection—whether they agree to this plan or not.”

Vic nods, watching as my hands creep up his chest and curl around his shoulders.

“That works for me, provided you meet with them someplace secure.” His jaw works a