Page 29 of The Sweetest Cruelty: Hudson
I was going to lose my shit, big time and my palms started to sweat again.
Casting an unsure glance around the room, Molly’s eyes snagged mine. Busted. Her entire expression lifted from uncertainty to elation as she saw me. Those blue eyes of hers twinkled with interest. She even lifted her hand and gave me a cute little wave.
I forced myself not to respond and blanked her like the dick I was. As I rolled my shoulders and turned back around to face those on my table, I caught a glimpse ofdisappointment on her sweet features. Making her feel like shit did not feel as good as I had thought it would.
Fuck me, she was hot. An image of my hands lifting her school skirt started to materialise, but I shut it downbeforemy body took it too far. Getting a boner in the middle of the lunchroom wasnotthe way to go.
God-fucking-damn it!
I felt like I’d received two slaps to the face. Not only was I attracted to the spawn of our principal and a man I hated, but the girl of my dreams had just been swept out of reach.
Her presence in the school and the man she was related to had also put ahugetarget on her back and I held the fucking gun.
I’d made a vow when I found out Miller had a kid that I’d make the brat's life miserable. That decision was made after receiving a thorough dressing-down from Principal Prick in front of the entire team as summer school ended. Everyone knew I was a grudge bearer of the worst kind.
It hadn’t been difficult to put the word out, and several other clicks had agreed to help make his/her first week not so nice. We didn’t know the sex of his kid at the time. Turned out it was a her, but that wouldn’t make it any easier, especially when she looked like that.
If Miller’s child had been male, I could have beaten the shit out of him. Although how I’d get away with it without getting thrown off the team had been a mitigating factor. What? I was temperamental; I usually acted first and thought about it later. Not the smartest of strategies, I know.
Reed was the thinker among all my brothers, and he rarely acted on impulse. Phoenix was a hothead like me, and Micah was the most relaxed. That’s why he enjoyed getting stoned so much.
He was found in a squat when he was three years old, buck naked, covered in his own shit, sitting between his dead overdosed parents. Micah had been in the social services system longer than anyone I knew, yet he was the most down-to-earth. He was placed in foster care with the same family as Reed when he was five. As for Reed, no one knew his story, not even Reed.
Micah drummed his fingers on the table, calling, “Earth to Hudson.”
Shaking free of those tangled thoughts of darker times and suffering, I straightened in my seat. “Sorry.”
Damn it.
I wouldhaveto bury my initial reaction and those feelings Molly had unearthed, and do what my peers expected of me.
Throwing my shit onto the lunch tray, I got ready to get down to business, determination threaded through every muscle.
The fact that she had not been above board regarding her identity caused anger and betrayal to burn through me.
Yeah, that’s it. Latch on to that! Keep telling yourself she’s a bitch. She lied and tricked you.
If something is too good to be true, it usually is. One of my old case workers’ words came back to kick me in the ass. She said this to me after the first family I had been placed with went to shit. The elderly couple hadn’t been able to deal with the aggressive, screwed-up boy who had major problems with authority.
“We done?” the boys said in unison, moving to collect their shit.
“Almost,” I replied with a sinister smile; anger was like a rising tide in my chest.
I needed to put my plan in motion. I told myself, it didn’t make any difference that Miller’s kid was a pocket-sized, fine-looking female who appeared as sweet as candy. Or that I’d gone all starry-eyed about her that very morning. I wouldstillget to himthroughher. Collateral damage could be a bitch.
Staring at my boys, I delivered my instructions.
“The principal’s daughter, Molly Miller, is still a target.” Fucking prep-school princess. I had misjudged her in the library. Little, innocent-looking Molly, who’d hidden who she truly was. She was deceitful, likeallbitches. No different from the rest.
Annoyanceblazedthrough me at how easily the girl had knocked me off my game.
Micah and Nix exchanged a worried look, but they didn’t question me. They had given up challenging me years ago.
They were my brothers, there to pick me up on my bullshit and then keepfuckinglistening to it. Just likeeveryoneat school did.
I was a king, and Harbor Heights wasmykingdom.
OK, time to stick to the plan. Let battle commence.
