Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys Book 5)

by C. M. Stunich

  “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, glancing over at Aaron, like he trusts him to deliver whatever news this is in the most … tranquil and pacifying manner possible.

  “What?” I ask, looking between Vic and Aaron, back to Hael, over to Cal. Oscar seems unsurprised to see the boys here, his phone in his hand, fingers clenched tight. Whatever this is, he’s known about it. For how long, I’m not sure, maybe just long enough to walk me up here, but he waited to tell me until now so it must be bad. “Jesus, you guys, what the fuck is it?”

  “Your mother,” Aaron begins, and I quirk a brow. There’s not really much else that bitch could do that would surprise me. There is literally nothing she could do that would hurt me worse than what she did to Penelope. “Bernadette, she killed herself.”

  I just stand there, staring at Aaron like he’s lost the fucking plot.

  Killed herself? No, she didn’t kill herself. Stacey and Vera’s girl, she was going to do it. We’ve been working on this for weeks. Pamela is the last name on my list, and it’s my right to decide what happens to her and when. She doesn’t get to just kill herself.

  “What?” I ask, setting my book bag on the counter and trying to blink my way through this. “I don’t understand. We were going to have her … dealt with. We were …”

  “She took her own life,” Victor repeats, crossing his arms over his massive chest and exhaling. His gaze is not unsympathetic. “We thought at first that maybe the GMP had gotten to her, but she was in solitary again this week, so …” He trails off, waiting for me to have some sort of reaction. “We figured it might’ve been one of the guards, but we managed to grease some palms and talk to someone who saw the security footage.”

  “How.” It’s not even a question. It’s a goddamn statement. I’m so fucking pissed off right now that I’m quivering. How dare she?! is the first thought that comes to mind. You wouldn’t think, considering I was already planning on having the bitch killed, that I would care she was dead.

  Only … I do.

  I do so much that it feels suddenly hard to stand up, and I slump into one of the stools at the breakfast bar. Oscar moves up beside me, stroking long, careful fingers across the back of my neck. My gaze shifts his direction, and our eyes meet. Casual touching is hard for him, so this is kind of a big deal to me, even in the light of the Pam stuff.

  “She purchased some drugs off a fellow inmate,” Victor explains as Hael moves into the kitchen and gets me something to drink. He places the brandy in front of me, and I don’t even have to ask where he got it from. He and Cal have been breaking into some of the staff apartments for fun, just to see if they can do it without getting caught. Sometimes, they take an item or two, nothing noticeable, but just because they can.

  This is where the brandy comes from.

  And you know how much I love the taste of stolen things.

  I down the whole of it in one go and then slam the glass back down so that Hael can refill it.

  “Bernadette,” Victor hazards as Oscar stays close on my left side, Aaron just behind me, and Cal climbs up onto the counter to crouch the way he likes to do. “What are your thoughts?”

  My thoughts … I down the second glass of alcohol and let the warm fire of it percolate up through me, cutting through the storm of feelings that are swirling around inside my chest.

  Pamela is dead.

  I wanted her dead, but … my mother is dead. And I was supposed to kill her. And now she’s taken away the last bit of power I held over her, the only shred of vengeance. A small noise escapes me, and my palm itches, right on that thin, white scar where Victor cut me and we shared blood.

  Havoc.

  Blood in, blood out.

  I look around at the five of them, hands clenching and unclenching at my sides.

  “I want to go out,” I say, but I don’t tell them where or why. I’m not entirely certain that even I know the answers to those questions just yet. “Call the fucking valet.”

  Sara’s protective detail follows us to the store to grab supplies where the boys look at me like I’m nuts for purchasing several dozen white candles. In addition to that, I grab some blankets, a new tube of pink lipstick called Finish Lines, and a chocolate cake.

  Afterwards, we drive over to this Thai food place that I’m obsessed with to pick up takeout. While I’m waiting for the order to be filled, I pretend that I need to use the bathroom, slip out the back door of the restaurant, and sneak around to the front of the liquor store that’s next door.

  I’m in and out in a jiffy with two bottles of stolen Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey. The tagline for this brand is Tastes Like Heaven, Burns Like Hell. And if that isn’t the most apt slogan for my life right now then I’m not sure what is.

  Sounds diffi
cult to steal something as large as a one-point-seven-five-liter bottle, right? Let alone two of them. The thing about thievery is, most stores have little to no security. And even when they do, their security officers are usually neutered to the point where they can only ask for you to return said merchandise and take a seat in their office. They can’t even fucking touch you. So, the answer to how it is that we manage to steal shit is twofold. One, it’s far easier to steal things than anybody thinks. More often than not, you can waltz right out of a store with an entire cart worth of crap and nobody can or will stop you. Second, Havoc is exceptionally good at what we do.

  “I want to go somewhere quiet, somewhere remote,” I say, after I slip back in the Eldorado where Oscar, Aaron, and Victor are waiting. For once, Vic didn’t bring his Harley. I think he knew that I needed to drive, and I also think he couldn’t bear to be separated from me. Not today. Not today when … I don’t let myself think about it.

  Not yet.

  I think, if they’d had the choice, Hael and Callum would be in here, too. But even though the Caddy can technically seat six, it wasn’t meant for five beefy boys with rippling muscles and attitudes the size of Alaska. Plus, it’s sort of a safety thing with us. What if one of the cars breaks down and we’re in a sticky situation? It’s always best to have two, at least.

  “Let’s go to my grandmother’s house,” Victor says, and I glance over at him, sitting in the front seat with Aaron between us. “It meets all of your requirements.”

  I think about that for a moment because, ultimately, this is my decision to make.

  Today is a monumental day in so many ways.

  It’s my day.

  The day my mother died.

  Something strange catches inside of me as I start the car and send us screeching out of the parking lot. The Camaro follows and so do the cops, but I don’t really care if they know where we’re going. Even if we did outrun them again, they’ll catch up to us. And if we remove the trackers, well, that’ll just rouse Sara’s suspicions even further.

  “Should we really trespass with the cops on our asses?” I ask, and Vic gives me a small, secretive little smile. It’s Oscar, however, that’s the one to answer from the backseat.

  “We’re in escrow,” he tells me, folding his arms on the front seat and watching me as I drive, fuzzy pink dice swaying in such a way that they catch his attention and cause him to scowl in feigned annoyance. He pretends like Hael’s cuteness and quirks bother him, but that’s a total heap of crap. He loves the guy just as much as I do. “When we inquired with Ophelia about holding the wedding there, we discovered that the property was in the process of transferring hands to the city.”

  “Unpaid property taxes,” Vic explains as Aaron snorts. “We agreed to pay those off in exchange for the city offering us a onetime use permit.” Victor leans back in the seat, crammed up against Aaron and me. “And now, yeah, we’re in escrow. The city liked our offer.”

  “Where are we getting the money for this?” I ask, because I imagine that fifty-grand we had in our account is nearly gone. I haven’t much had the head for finances as of late. And anyway, that isn’t the king and queen’s job: it’s the accountant’s.

  “Let me worry about the finances,” Oscar purrs, reaching out to stroke some hair back from my face. “You have noticed we haven’t been giving out weekly allowances? We’ve sold off the rest of the weed and the cars from the garage; money is tight, but a dilapidated house on the edge of the city doesn’t cost much.”

  “What they’re both trying to say in so many words,” Aaron continues, letting his fingers trail up my thigh. “Is that you don’t have to worry about anything tonight.”

  I nod, but there’s something strange in my throat, something breaking up the melancholy that’s creeping through me like evening shadows. Happiness? Pretty sure that’s what this thing is. We’re buying Victor’s grandmother’s house? It seems surreal. Also, it seems very Havoc. It’s a very Havoc thing to do.

  Once we get to the property, the police pull off at the end of the long drive, leaving us to trundle down it and park by the sagging front steps.

  I climb out, slamming the door behind me, and look up at the imposing Gothic Revival structure in front of me. It’s bathed in shadows, its dark windows like the empty eyes of a wicked spirit, haunting this quiet, dusty place on the edge of nowhere. The only reason I actually know what sort of house it is, is because Oscar told us the first time we arrived. Otherwise, like I said, Prescott High and architecture … ehh.

  My mind shifts from the image of the soaring three-story house and right back toward Pamela again. Like, I hated the bitch. Like, she killed my sister. Also, she’s dead.

  She’s dead.

  My mother is dead?

  And she killed my sister.

  My brain fucking hurts when I try to stop and make sense of it. Maybe some things aren’t meant to be parceled and pulled apart and overly examined? Can I just feel sad about it without understanding why? Can I just mourn for the sake of mourning?

  “Bernie.”

  The soft sound of Aaron’s voice draws me away from a nightmare and into the impenetrable darkness of the countryside. We’re not ten minutes outside of town, and you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face.

  What I can see, however, is Aaron. He’s standing beside me with a candle in his hand, the dancing white glow illuminating all the beautifully masculine lines of his face. He smiles at me and hands it over, taking another one off the hood of the car and lighting that, too.

  “Let’s go inside?” he suggests, and I nod, listening to the distant rustle of tree branches and the haunting call of an owl from somewhere beyond the small circle of light cast by the Camaro’s headlights. Hael leaves them on while he and the boys gather up our things, carrying them inside the house for me.

  Best part of dating five strong dudes: I don’t have to do any heavy lifting. It’s a tad sexist, I know, but I figure after centuries of patriarchal domination, it’s the least they can do for me.

  The steps creak as Aaron and I walk up them, using our candles for light. We could use our phones, but that’s boring as fuck, isn’t it? There’s nothing magical about the glowing face of a Samsung or an iPhone. Technology, in its own way, is sort of tragic. I’d much rather exist in the sorcery of candlelight.

  I find that the boys have set up our blankets in the parlor, the room immediately to the left of the front door. It’s the same room where I gussied-up for my wedding. This is the same house where two pedophiles died a much kinder death than they deserved.

  Already, the boys are spreading the candles around the room and lighting them, turning the place into a witch’s den where I can nestle with all my dark and dangerous thoughts. There’s a sense of ritual to it, which I so very much need right now. Even if I don’t believe in anything spiritual or religious or magical, it never hurts to carry out a ceremony of sorts, something to mark a special occasion.

  And—whether good or bad—this is a very special occasion indeed.

  Because it means my list is done.

  That fucking list I scrawled on the back of an old envelope in Aaron’s now defunct minivan.

  It’s in the pocket of my pink leather Havoc jacket, and even though it weighs less than an ounce, it feels like a thousand pounds, like it’s weighing me down and making my knees buckle.

  I end up kneeling in the nest of blankets with Aaron by my side. He takes my candle and sets it aside, watching as I strip off my boots and toss them into the corner. It feels like a night to be barefoot, doesn’t it?

  Glancing up, I see cobwebs and dust, crumbling plaster, and a ceiling medallion that I already know I’m going to try to save. Poetry might be my artistic medium, but once an artist, always an artist. If you can find beauty in decay, then you’ve just learned what it means to be human. The meaning of life, in so many words.

  Love. Art. Compassion. Empathy.

  I’m not sure why people act like that’s such a dif
ficult question. The meaning of life is obvious. It’s to fucking live it.

  “It’s so creepy in here,” Aaron murmurs, pushing chestnut curls back from his forehead as my heart seizes painfully in my chest. That’s a trigger for me, seeing him touch those goddamn curls. I want to fucking eat them they’re so beautiful. He gives me mad schema.

  “You don’t sound like you think that’s entirely a bad thing,” I murmur as Callum crouches beside me, setting the bag of takeout in the center of what’s shaping up to be a circle. Hael sits next to him, then Victor, Oscar, and right back to Aaron. A circle. A sphere. A shape with no beginning and no end.

  I reach for the food and find my box of pad Thai sitting on the top.

  “A little creepy now and again can be a good thing,” Aaron says, giving Cal a look. For his part, Callum just chuckles and lifts a single shoulder in faux apology.

  “I can’t help myself,” he murmurs, passing out white boxes to the other boys until he finds his own food. “It’s just too much fun to scare people—particularly the ones that deserve it.” He steals a plastic fork from the bag and digs in while I study the fireplace behind Victor’s head, the one with the stones tumbling out of it. To fix that, we’re going to need, like, a mason or something—that is, if it’s at all savable.

  We eat for a few moments in silence, Hael’s eyes flicking up to me every now and again until he finally sets his food down in his lap and gives me a look.

  “You sure this is what you want to be doing right now?” he asks as the candles flicker and jump around us, casting strange shadows on the walls. There’s always a possibility that the GMP could’ve followed us here, that even now, they could be working their way through the woods at the back of the house, out of sight from the two police officers, as they get ready to strike.

  But I don’t think so.

  Ophelia wants that money. Maxwell probably does want to kill us, but he’ll be careful with his plans. As careful as we’re being. Because if he comes for us again and makes another mistake the way he did at the school, he’ll never live it down. His men won’t trust him. The feds will definitely try for RICO charges—that’s when you get the leader of an organization tried and convicted based on the things his underlings have done.