“Yes?” Oscar prompts, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“Tom Muller,” I say, and Aaron goes completely stiff beneath me—just not in the way I was enjoying a few seconds prior. His hands go still on my hips, his grip tightening until it’s almost painful. Tom threatened to sell him into the sex trade not all that long ago. He’s understandably wary of the guy. “And I know just how to get ahold of him.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” David says, his casual stroll across the Oak Valley Prep campus turning into something of a half-jog as the boys and I close in on him. His brown eyes are wide with fear, a bit of sweat pooling on his upper lip. He’s not bad looking; I can see why I chose him out of a crowd for a one-night stand. But now, having been with all five Havoc Boys, he may as well be a flashlight next to the brilliance of the sun.

“David,” I start, his name both a warning and a placation escaping my red-painted lips. “Slow down, okay? We just want to talk.”

He turns the corner only to run into Aaron.

“Oh, fuck,” David groans, face paling considerably as he slumps back against the brick wall of some fancy-ass building with the name of a rich dead cis-het white guy on the plaque outside the door. “Not you again. I already went out on a limb helping you.”

“Which is why, despite everything your father has done, you are not on our radar,” Aaron tells him, his face darkened with the shadow of ugly memories. It might only have been a few days that he was missing, but it’s left a mark on him. The threat of rape and death will that to ya. I wonder briefly if we shouldn’t get out the handcuffs again and work our way through it as a family … “But we need your help.”

“Look,” David starts, wetting his lips, his eyes darting past me as the other boys catch up to us and form a half-circle around the frightened prep school boy. Money can buy a lot of things, but dignity and bravery are not anywhere on the list. “I don’t think you quite understand what you’re dealing with.”

“We know that your father supplies girls for a man named Mason Miller,” I retort, and David goes ghost pale. I mean, like me after I spent seven days in the darkness of a closet. Ashen. Sallow. Desperate. He doesn’t like this, and I don’t blame him. Even by talking to us, he’s risking a lot.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” David murmurs, reaching up to adjust his blue tie. He’s wearing the gray Oak Valley Prep uniform—jacket, slacks, tie. Looks like something from a Japanese anime if you ask me. Or, like this one book I read back in freshman year—Filthy Rich Boys. Swear to fuck the author of that was an anime junkie. Bet that’s where she got the idea for the uniforms. “You don’t want to be messing with Mason Miller, Bernadette.”

David and I stare at each other, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s recalling our relatively basic one-night stand. Kissing, groping, condom on cock, penetration. Bam. That was about it. It was nice, but nothing to write home about.

“Can you not look at her like that?” Aaron growls, his possessive streak making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. He’s sweet and he has a good soul, but I can see it in the way his jaw clenches, the way his eyes narrow … he wants to kick David’s ass for having touched me once upon a time. “Don’t think we don’t know you once slept with our girl.”

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” David murmurs, eyes darting from Aaron to Victor, Callum to Oscar, pausing at Hael before flicking back to me. “Look, I’m like … a five on the Kinsey scale. I swear, I barely even like girls. I was drunk, and I … What do you even want from me?”

“We just want to talk to your dad,” I tell him, pausing and glancing over my shoulder at the sound of footsteps. Mack Holdman, boyfriend extraordinaire, to the rescue.

“Pardon me, boys,” Mack says, shoving his way through the cluster of Havoc Boys like they aren’t all at least six inches taller than him and imposing as fuck. “Are you harassing my man, Bernadette Blackbird? Because I like you, but I won’t if you’re back for another round.” He gives me a look and then pauses to flip off a passing student. “That’s right you homophobic piece of shit, keep walking.”

I follow his gaze over to where a very familiar figure waits beneath a tree.

Trinity Jade.

“She’s a homophobe and a royal cunt?” I ask, shaking my head as the emerald green snake of jealousy wraps itself around my throat. If she touches Vic, she’s a dead woman. But … we do also sort of need her help, so the royal ass beating that I owe her will have to wait. “Good to know.”

“Her father only donates to political campaigns that emphasize the dismantling of human rights for the LGBT community.” Mack pushes some dark hair back from his forehead as he looks from David’s sweaty face over to Aaron’s deep-set frown. None of the other boys say anything which is probably good. I don’t trust Vic to deal with David without trying to kill him. And … well, let’s just say nobody here is a fan of using my hookup as, well, a hookup in a different sense. “Anyway, what can I help you folks with?”

“We need to see Tom,” I tell Mack, remembering what Aaron told me about his brief interaction with the couple. Honestly, there’s a chance that by giving him a ride against Tom’s and Ophelia’s wishes, Mack and David inadvertently saved both Aaron’s life and my own. No need to tell them that though. Don’t need them to think we owe them or anything. “Could you set up a meeting for us? That’s all we want.”

“Trust me: Blackbird has more than enough dick now. She don’t need yours.” Hael chuckles and finds the closest No Smoking sign before lighting up in a glorious display of irony.

“You want to talk to my dad about Mason Miller?” David clarifies, giving Mack a look. They both—according to them—work for Tom. What, exactly, they do for him I don’t want to know. Probably procure girls. If they do, and I find out about it, I’ll wish their names were on my list. Instead, I just focus on cutting the head off the zombie, as Hael Harbin might say.

“That’s it,” Aaron promises, drawing David’s attention back toward him. Their gazes meet and something passes between them, a private memory that I can only guess has to do with Tom putting a fucking shotgun to the back of his son’s head. “We just want to meet with him. We know he’s short on money, too, so we’ll make it worth his while.”

David adjusts his tie again, clearly uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. I catch onto his nervousness and take a step forward, reaching out to put my hand on his upper arm. He flinches, but he lets me touch him.

“How close are you to losing your place here?” I ask, and David’s face pales even further. “What if we made it worth your while, too? Gave you some tuition money?”

“I’m almost twenty-thousand short,” David murmurs as Mack frowns and then drops his attention to where my hand rests on his boyfriend’s arm. He clearly isn’t a fan of me and David sleeping together either. I make sure to drop my hand by my side. “Can you do that?”

Last I checked with Oscar, Havoc had fifty grand in our account. What we have left now, I’m not sure, but probably not a lot. Nobody else is feeding us or buying gas for our cars or paying rent. Nobody else is paying for Heather and Kara and Ashley to enroll here or buying them their expensive uniforms.