Dirty Wicked Prince (Court Legacy 1)

They wouldn’t agree.

None of my buddies would, but Wolf? He’d kick my fucking ass. It’d be World War III in this motherfucker if my best friend found out what I’d been doing behind his back. Behind everyone’s backs. I shrugged. “Just got a late start.”

“You don’t get late starts.” Wolf frowned, then looked at the other guys. “We get late starts.”

“You do.” Thatcher slapped Wolf’s chest, and Wolf brought him under his arm. This worked for all of the two seconds it took for Thatcher to strong-arm him back. Wolf may have the height, but Thatcher Reed was a fucking tank. Thatch threw him off him. “I’ll kill you. I swear to shit.”

“Haven’t yet, kiddo,” Wolf chuckled, and I smiled. I enjoyed easy times like this where we could just sit around. No drama or women. We’d been having a lot of drama.

“I got bad news,” Wells rolled in, sitting back and crossing his legs. He lifted a hand. “We can’t get a van for a while.”

“What the fuck?” I shot forward. “Why?”

Wells popped his big shoulders. “My dad’s piece-of-shit employees have been stealing stuff off them recently.” Wells frowned. “Because of that, Dad’s monitoring his delivery vans. They’re completely locked up, and I’m not sure when I can get another.”

Wells had been able to get a van from one of his dad’s restaurants, and without it, that made shit real fucking difficult.

It made a lot of things difficult.

We’d had a window the other night, a short one, and we’d had the van then. I huffed. “When are you thinking something will open up?”

“Hard to say.” Wells opened his hands. “I’m sorry, man.”

Thatcher fell into silence too beside him, both of them looking guilty. Had they done things right, we wouldn’t need to get a van for a second time.

Shit would have been done.

But I’d be lying if I said I had no fault in what had happened. Wolf and I had been at the drop-off location, preparing shit.

I should have been there.

This was my responsibly, my cross to bear.

My burden to settle.

The rest of these guys had just been there with me. They had a stake in this too but not like me. Thatcher tapped his knees. “This sucks, D. This is our fucking fault.”

He gestured to Wells, my other buddy nodding. Wolf waved them off.

“It’s not about whose fault it is,” Wolf said. “It’s about what we’re going to do about it.”

Wells shook his head. “I’m going to keep watch, and I’ll let you know the moment I hear something.”

“We can’t mess this up again,” I told them. “We’re not going to.”

I had my dad on my back now. We were running out of time, and there were no do-overs. No time to muck shit up.

“And there’s something else,” Thatcher said. Reaching back, he got something off the computer table. “Noa Sloane’s records and everything finally got put into the computer system. Her schedule too.”

I didn’t know what the fuck that had to do with anything. Noa Sloane had obviously been a pain in my ass. She’d gotten in the way that fucking night with Mayberry, which was why I’d brought her brother into our circle. I wanted him close to fuck with her.

But now…

I saw it right in front of me, my eyes blazing at the schedule Thatcher gave me. He nodded.

“She’s student assisting for Principal Mayberry during the headmaster’s free period,” he said. “Which means the one hour we might have had access to the bitch, new girl is going to be in there with her.”

“You’re fucking kidding.” Wolf ripped the schedule away. He scanned the page, his eyes darkening. He tossed it. “Can that little shit not get in the way for once?”