Dirty Wicked Prince (Court Legacy Book 1)

Dorian

I arrived on time to school, but didn’t get out of my car right away. I texted the guys I’d be in later, then parked in a random spot in the lot.

I lit up a joint.

I just needed a moment to fucking think, and I did that for a while. After taking the seconds I needed, I eventually parked my car with the rest of the guys, then hit the halls of the school. First period was most people’s homerooms, but usually the guys and I just dicked around. Really, we did whatever the fuck we wanted to do, but today, Wells said he needed to talk to us. When we all needed to meet, we met in the computer lab only the tech kids had access to. Thatch was one of those since he was a tech boy genius. He had keys to the lab, then made us dupes.

The lab was basically Legacy’s personal fucking room, a place where we brought chicks and smoked weed. We usually didn’t fuck girls together in there, but there’d been a time or two where things had gotten crazy.

I didn’t go out of my way to see my buddies’ dicks no matter how close we were, though. So if I needed the space, I usually texted ahead. The other guys didn’t give a shit, but there were plenty of places to take girls on campus where we didn’t have to smell each other’s fucking cum.

Today, we were just meeting to talk and shit. We’d, um, acquired all the other tech kids’ keys so only Legacy had access to the place now.

I unlocked my way in, and Wells passed me a bag of food from Jax’s Burgers. His dad owned several burger joints around town, and Wells knew I liked the tots from there since they were vegan. I usually only ate the shit when I wasn’t training, but I’d had a hell of a morning and texted him to get me some since he always stopped. Anything he got at his dad’s franchises was free, so why the fuck not.

I devoured the tots after barely bumping Wells’s fist for the grub, throwing myself in a swivel chair. Wells and Thatcher already sat around a computer screen, playing video games, and Wolf sat beside them with an empty wrapper. No doubt from those egg sandwiches he liked to eat in the morning. He crumpled it, tossing it at me. “You all right?”

The others swiveled in my direction, and I hoped to fuck my face wasn’t telling shit. I didn’t need any of them on my back either, their suspicions and shit. Especially Wolf. He also hadn’t known I’d been going upstate. None of them did.

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?”

The answer seemed no in this case.

We didn’t have a lot of time to get to Principal Mayberry, but one of those was the period the bitch used to do coke. The woman had a chronic drug habit, and catching her in a moment of vulnerability was our next chance to do what we needed to do.

We could get her then, make her pay then. Since we’d missed our first window on the street that night, the headmaster’s free period was a second option. The layout of the office made it easy to get to her through the janitor’s access. The Windsor Prep’s campus was laced with secret hallways the janitorial staff used to get somewhere quickly.

My buddies and I had memorized it all, knew the academy like the back of our hands. If we wanted to get someone out of the place without anyone noticing, we could.

The other night an opportunity had snuck up on us when Principal Mayberry had chosen to take a late run. She had Reed Security Systems in her home, so we knew where she was at all times. Thatcher could hack into the security feed, but his father’s security system was too good. The feed and knowing her location was all we had. We couldn’t override any of the systems, and Principal Mayberry didn’t normally leave her house. Locked up like Fort Knox.

Something told me what had happened last year had something to do with that.

The woman was a paranoid coke whore since she’d returned to town, her life clearly fucked.

But we could do more.

We would do more. I rubbed my jaw, staring at the schedule on the floor. Up until this point, Noa Sloane had just been a fucking nuisance.

But now, she was in the way.