“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 not doing them.
“Maybe we will go to the funeral,” Sara says, surprising me. Constantine, too, if the look he throws is her any indication. He can’t possibly fathom why she’d want to waste her time at the funeral of a dead whore. Anger rises up in me, hot and filthy, but I push it aside. Save it for later, as Vic might say. Wield it like a weapon. I really should trust his advice, considering how goddamn similar we are. “Why don’t you give me the details and we can speak with Callum after?”
I stare right back at her, and I swear, the look on her pretty face is a challenge.
The thing is, I’m a dog of motherfucking war. I know exactly how to hold the stare of another predator and win. After a moment, Sara takes out her phone, unlocks the screen and passes it over to me.
After a split-second of hesitation, I take it and type in the address. Stacey’s funeral is being held at a different cemetery than the one where Pen is buried, thank god. I’m not sure if I’m ready to go back up there just yet. And not necessarily because of the trauma Neil put me through, but … because I don’t how to face my sister just yet.
It wasn’t the Thing with his twisted appetite that finally snuffed out your sweet light? It was Mom? Pen, if you were so scared of Pamela, you should’ve told me … You should’ve told me everything. We could’ve run away together. We could’ve taken Heather with us.
My breath catches because I know that, even in my desperate dreaming, a plan like that never would’ve worked.
“Starts in two hours,” I say, studying the two VGTF agents. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, am I right? And I intend to keep Sara tucked up right beside me until we get through this. “For now, you can fuck right off. Prescott doesn’t like pigs—be they from the SPD or the FBI or the motherfucking CI-fucking-A.”
“Why don’t you see if you can’t get the F-word into your speech a bit more frequently?” Constantine jeers, turning away and heading for the passenger side of the car. “Shows off how much class you’ve got.”
“Oh, Constantine, baby,” I call as Sara starts after him, pausing to give me a look that clearly says don’t get started with him. “You have no idea how classy this bitch can be.”
I let out a throaty chuckle, eyes shifting to the right as I hear a monster sound system throbbing from down the block. Not entirely unexpected in this neighborhood, but …
“Hael’s back.” Cal dips his chin briefly and then lifts a hand up to indicate the pink and white convertible rolling toward us. The top is down, the vintage beauty clearly responsible for the music pulsing in the gray February afternoon. The song that’s playing is “Girls in the Hood” by Megan Thee Stallion. My lips twitch. Really, Hael Harbin? Really?
“You motherfucker,” I murmur, putting my hands together in a prayer position and touching them to my as-of-yet unpainted mouth. Don’t worry though: I’ll correct that later. I have an idea for a custom blended color for the funeral. Prescott girls know their lip color; I can’t disgrace Stacey’s memory with something basic.
Hael pulls the car up alongside the curb behind the maroon-colored Subaru that Sara’s been driving. The paint is shiny and fresh, almost glaring in the tumbledown neighborhood with its overgrown lawns, faded apartment buildings, and moss-logged roofs. We have some mad car culture shit in Prescott, but you won’t find any residents here leaving their vintage beauties outside to be stolen. Happens all the time. The rule at Prescott High is: if you’re stupid enough to get your car stolen, then it doesn’t belong to you anymore. Get over it.
Rumor has it that’s how Scarlett Force met her main squeeze—by stealing his car and then totaling it.
“Hael Harbin,” I warn as my heart thunders, and I forget for a moment that I’m supposed to be pissed off at the two VGTF agents standing in my yard. “What the fuck is this?”
But, of course, I know exactly what it is.
This is my ’57 Cadillac Eldorado, the one he promised to restore for me.
Promise, delivered. There’s even a bow on the motherfucking hood.
“Girl,” he says, turning the song up and then opening the door and revealing the bloodred leather interior. “Your man doesn’t say shit if he doesn’t mean it.” He lights up a cigarette and raises his red brows in Sara’s direction. “Officers.” He turns back to me, effectively dismissing them as unimportant. “Get that tight ass over here and check out your new ride.”
He steps back and holds out a tattooed hand to indicate the driver’s seat.
Personally, I’m rooted to the spot, as if the ivy spilling down the side of our rental house has trapped my ankles, bound me to Prescott soil so I can feel the dark but vibrant energy of the neighborhood.
“Probably stolen,” Constantine murmurs, but I ignore him. If he’s stupid enough to think the Havoc Boys would bring a stolen car around with the VGTF on our dick, then there’s really no reason to worry about him at all.
“Hael …” I start again as Megan sings about being a bad bitch.
“Blackbird,” he warns right back, reaching out and snatching my wrist. He yanks me up against him, putting his lips up to my ear and sucking the lobe into his hot mouth. My hands come up of their own accord, fingers curling in the front of his t-shirt. When he left this morning, I assumed he was checking on his mom. This … I did not expect this at all. “Stop questioning your good fortune. Sometimes, good things happen. Just smile and say thank you baby, yes I’d be happy to suck your dick later and call it a day.”
I smack him in the chest, and he laughs, but we both know that we each owe each other oral sex. Regardless of the giving and receiving, neither of those scenarios is a punishment for either of us. As I bury my fingers in his shirt, dragging the neckline low enough that I can lick the Hot Rod ink on his chest, my eyes close and I summon up the memory of us fucking in the front seat of the Camaro. Or on the hood of it in Aaron’s driveway.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathe, thinking of the fuzzy pink dice he got me for Christmas. They’re admittedly hideous, and totally tacky, but I see now that they’ll go perfectly on the rearview mirror. “Actually, it might be the most beautiful thing that anyone has ever done for me.”
I press my face into his chest as he bands his tattooed arms around me. As always, he smells like coconut and motor oil, like grease-stained Prescott dreams dotted with vintage cars and inked hands and scrappy determination. Havoc owes its existence to Hael as much as to anyone else because without him, and his constant desperation to maintain cheer, to joke around when everything else seems to be falling apart, this would never work. He tempers the rest of us with a strength I don’t think even he knows he has.
“Shall we go for a drive?” he asks, and I nod, still pressed against him. Really, there are a lot of other ways I’d like to thank Hael Harbin—most of them involving either my pussy or my mouth wrapped around his dick. Unfortunately for both of us, the decorous officers of the Violent Gang Task Force are still standing here.
“Come inside for a minute,” Cal murmurs, moving up to stand beside us. As he does, and his heat joins with Hael’s, I start to wonder about combinations of boys. Like, does a Hael/Cal sandwich taste any different than a Hael/Vic sandwich? What about a Cal/Oscar with a side of Aaron? Will they enhance each other’s flavors or just cancel each other out?