callan
“The fuck do you want?” João asked, stepping out of his Mercedes with tinted windows the next morning at five a.m.
Sakura had left me last night while I was talking to Jett—who wouldn’t stop fucking calling me—and I feared that I had screwed up beyond repair with her.
I should’ve blocked his fucking number, like I had with Georgina, when I had the chance, but I answered it so he wouldn’t wake her up. I really wanted to talk to her this morning, but I had blown that one.
After glancing around to ensure no other students had driven into the student parking lot, I pulled two black duffel bags, stuffed full with stacks of hundred-dollar bills, from my trunk and tossed them to his feet. João and Poison wouldn’t pass up this kind of money.
“Vaughn is part of a sex trafficking ring at Redwood. He has a list of girls he’s helping the mob pimp out to the billionaires who run this town.” I pulled out the recording I had transferred from my phone to a flash drive this morning of my conversation with Vaughn yesterday afternoon. “Take care of him.”
João knelt and unzipped one of the bags, gazing into it. “Vaughn’s the ugliest motherfucker I’ve ever seen. Don’t know why any girl would trust him with anything even if he’s the principal.”
“Two million dollars total now and then another two once the job is done,” I said.
“Why don’t you do it yourself?” he asked, standing.
“Because I’m too fucking close to it all,” I said. “I have other shit to deal with right now.”
João leaned back against his car, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, and stuffed one into his mouth. After taking a long drag of it, he pulled the cigarette from his mouth and blew out a puff of smoke.
“Make it six,” he said. “These are our lives, Avery. We’d be tried as adults if caught.”
“Cut the bullshit. I know you have killed people before and haven’t been caught.”
“Six million or no deal.”
This was Jett’s dirty money, so I really didn’t give a fuck what happened to it. But still, João wasn’t about to take advantage of me like he probably did all the other rich kids who asked him for favors, who’d pay two million just for information.
“Imani is on Vaughn’s wish list,” I said, briefly remembering that I had spotted a couple of members of Poison in the halls with Imani Abara recently. “Poison isn’t the only men who’ve been intrigued by her looks lately.”
João stiffened, but then turned away and stuck the cigarette into his mouth, inhaling the smoke into his lungs. “You’re fucking bluffing, Avery. Imani is on no list, and if she were, why would I care?”
“Four million,” I said.
Instead of answering me, he grabbed the flash drive from me and tossed the bags of money into his trunk. “If you’re fucking lying about Imani being on the fucking list, I will kill you myself for free. Don’t ask me for shit ever again.”
Once he shut the trunk, he turned back to me and pulled the cigarette from his mouth. He stepped closer to me, until we stood toe to toe, and blew out a puff of smoke into my face. And I had to resist the urge to hurl my fist into his ugly face right then and there.
“Sakura asked Kai for a gun,” he said, smirking. “Because of you.”
“She what?” I asked, startled.
No way in hell would Sakura ask someone for a gun. João had to be lying to get underneath my fucking skin. And because of me? When had this happened? Yesterday? Today? A week ago?
“Stop fucking lying to me,” I said between gritted teeth. “Leave and do the fucking job.”
“You can ask her yourself,” he said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. “Why would I lie about that? I thought it was funny as hell. The valedictorian of Redwood Academy, asking Poison for a gun to off her boyfriend.”
He’s lying. He’s lying. He’s lying.
He has to be fucking lying.
Does Sakura want to kill me? Have I driven her that crazy? All I did was protect her, and she wants to kill me? She had barely let me explain myself last night, and the little explanation I had given … I doubted she even believed. I doubted she had even heard.
“Kai told her no,” João said, turning around. “But it really makes you think …”
With fury rushing through me, I wrapped my hand around his throat and shoved him against his car door. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I asked through gritted teeth. “Did she pay you to tell me that? To fucking scare me?”
“Sakura didn’t pay me shit,” he growled, shoving me back and straightening himself out. “But she did watch you murder Gunther Zurn in front of her the other night”—he glanced down at the parking lot—“right fucking here.”
“How the fuck do you know about that?” I asked. “You disabled all the cameras here.”
“Avery. Avery. Avery. You think we’re that stupid to disable one of the school cameras and not set up one of our own? We know everything that goes on in this section of Redwood Academy. Watch yourself next time.”
And with that, he walked around his car to the driver’s side and slipped into the hunk of metal. I balled my hands into tight fists, watching him drive off before any other students or teachers turned up for school today.
That fucker had to be lying.
Sakura had waited for me at my house last night, marched right into my living room, and fucked me as she cried her pretty brown eyes out. She didn’t have a hurtful bone in her body. She wouldn’t ask for a gun.
But what if I had driven her insane, thrust her past her breaking point?
Between Gunther and Vaughn, letting her believe that I really wanted to fuck someone else, and Skylar’s death … any innocent woman who didn’t know how corrupt Redwood really was would fear for her life.