Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,66

since I’ve stolen way too much from that fucking place. “So, what is this about? A scare tactic? Are you putting pressure on me because of your stupid plea deal?”

Sara laughs. The sound is a little dry, a bit tired. I’m blurring her lines and this woman, she’s someone who loves to color inside of them.

“You know, Bernadette,” she tells me, raking her gaze down my outfit while Constantine scowls at me. Seems to be the only thing he’s good at now, sneering and scowling. He tried, at first, when he was pretending to be a detective investigating Danny’s death. But now? He considers us all useless Prescott trash, and he isn’t afraid to show it. “I get the GMP’s motivations. And … I get the Charter Crew’s. Hell, I even understand your mother’s to a certain extent.” She points at me with a perfectly manicured French tipped nail. “But it’s you that I don’t understand, you that I don’t get.”

I stare her down, my mouth pursed into a thin line. If one of my boys goes to prison, I will lose my shit trying to plan a jailbreak and an escape into a foreign country. I don’t want that. I don’t want to abandon Prescott and Springfield to the shadows.

“Maybe if you got to know us a little better, you would.” I’m looking at Sara’s petite face, even while Constantine snorts rude laughter from behind her. “Maybe, if you came to Stacey’s funeral today, that would go a ways in helping repair the relationship between the authorities and Prescott. Hell, you might learn something.”

“We have better things to do than attend the funeral of some teenage whore with a drug problem.” Constantine steps up beside Sara as she stiffens up and flicks an angry glance his way. She doesn’t share his sentiments perhaps?

My rage flares up so white and blinding that I almost throw a ring-studded punch at the federal agent’s face.

“Stacey did not have a drug problem,” I grind out, wondering why I’m so defensive of the girl now that she’s gone. In some strange way, I’d gotten attached to the idea of having a female friend, somebody who might actually understand me. I love my boys, don’t get me wrong, but I miss having a woman to talk to. There’s no substitute for a strong feminine bond like that. “And she wasn’t a whore. Her girls cleaned up the sex trade around here.”

“By being their own whores?” Constantine asks with another laugh. “Believe it or not: that’s not exactly a revolutionary act.”

“Isn’t it?” I retort as Sara turns her attention back to me. “There’s always going to be an underground, Constantine. There’s always going to be a dark side. Stacey and her girls had sex workers collecting their own money, choosing their own clients.”

“And robbing them blind,” he interjects, looking me over with dark brown eyes.

“That’s enough, John,” Sara says, reaching out to put a hand on his arm. He shakes her off as footsteps sound on the walk behind me. Cal. You can only hear Callum Park coming when he wants you to. And when he does, it almost sounds like he’s standing on his tiptoes—ready to move at a moment’s notice.

“Until the world stops favoring the wealthy and corrupt, until there are opportunities for girls like Stacey Langford, you have to accept that they’ll do whatever it takes to survive. They shouldn’t have to sell their bodies, but the world you’ve created gives them few choices. But go ahead, mansplain to me what a revolution looks like. I’ll wait.”

I cross my arms over my chest as Constantine works his jaw in frustration. Unlike Sara, he has no desire to take my filthy tainted soul and wipe it clean. Luckily, it seems like Sara’s the senior partner in their pairing; he defers to her.

“I’m ready,” Cal says, pausing beside me in a pair of boots. He’s clearly been ready for a while, hanging back and watching me verbally flay two FBI agents. “But I’d like to attend the funeral. This won’t take long, will it?”

Sara looks at him for a moment before dropping her gaze back to mine. Her eyes are contemplative, swirling with ideas and theories. She knows we’re dirty somehow, but she doesn’t want to believe it. Strange circumstances are coming together, giving her reasons to give into her naivety and let us off the hook. There are bodies, but we didn’t bury them. There are bad things happening in this town, but we’re