her away because we had to. We put on a damn good show, because it was necessary. We despised her, tormented her, let everyone beat her down, because it was safer that way. We hardened ourselves against her. Made ourselves hate her. Sometimes, we even believed it. And I was such a twisted fucker that I even grew to like it.
Instead of looking at me adoringly, with those annoyingly innocent eyes of hers, she started looking at me with hurt, dread, and then with challenge. The first two made me want to chase her around like she was my prey—see just how far I could push her. The last made my dick hard. This new Scarlett, the one who fought back, the one who looked at me with lust and hate—that’s the Scarlett that I kept thinking might just stick with me when she realized who I really was.
If Johnny Jack or any of his Macon Mob lowlifes hurt her, I’d fucking burn this whole city to the ground. It was exactly what we’d been working so hard to avoid all this time. Johnny Jack was known for more than just his crimes. He was also notorious for kidnapping loved ones of the people who crossed him, and we had crossed him. And the only common denominator between the four us? Scarlett Livingston. We knew we had to cut ties with her as soon as things went down.
And now she was fucking missing. Which meant that Johnny Jack might have finally been tipped off about what we did.
I turned around and punched the lockers, my knuckles instantly splitting open and my fist leaving a dent in the metal. The sound made several chicks shriek in alarm, but I ignored them and swung again and again.
Luis was the one to step in and stop me. Not by force, because he knew better than that, but by putting a hand on my shoulder. “Alright, I think you taught the metal a lesson,” he said, trying to break up some of my tension. “Leave some blood in your knuckles, and let’s go find her.”
He said it quietly enough that no one else but us would’ve been able to hear, but it got through to me. I turned, ignoring the pain in my hand as I flexed my fingers. The guys nodded at me, because even though it was me publicly losing my shit, they felt it, too.
“Let’s go.”
The four of us stalked down the hall, and everyone parted to let us pass by. That was the thing about being known as the Heirs. A stupid fucking nickname that we’d been tagged with when the local paper had printed a story about us when we were kids. The article, The Heirs of Savannah, highlighted just how prominent our four families were. We were already friends back then, but our friendship solidified into more like brotherhood from that point on.
Our families had more money than we knew what to do with, and our names opened any door we wanted. Savannah was ours, and everyone knew it. But our names and our money weren’t enough to go up against the Macon Mob. It was the first time our status as the Heirs had failed us.
Once we made it outside, the four of us split off. I lifted my chin at Luis and Godfrey, watching as they got in Godfrey’s convertible and sped off.
Bonham slipped into the passenger seat of my car, and I raced down the street, flipping off anyone who honked at me as I cut them all off to get out of the school’s main parking lot.
I swung around the lot to check out the gym first, but she wasn’t there. When we got to Clayton Hammond’s apartment twenty minutes later, Bonham and I went up together. There were hanging beads attached to the doorframe of Clay’s apartment like he was some fucking hippie, and there was a sign hanging there that said, “I trained my Rottweiler to bite boobs and balls if you try to come in and steal my shit. PS—if you’re a hot chick, feel free to enter.”
I rolled my eyes. Clearly, my money hadn’t gone to fixing his door.
Bonham snorted under his breath and went to knock on the doorframe, but I Just flung the beads aside and walked in. Clay was sitting on the couch with two other guys playing video games and smoking pot.
He looked over his shoulder when he saw me come in, and then rolled his