Page 74 of Cruel Prep (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 1)

I open my mouth to answer… when a bright light streams through my window.

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Finn

Lily yelps, and I curse and fumble for the ignition, ready to speed away from whatever asshole wants to try and rob me.

Then, a flashlight taps against my window. “Roll down the window.”

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath as I roll down the window. I meet Officer Ingram’s eyes with an expressionless face. “What do you want?”

“What are you doing here, Foster?” Ingram asks, squatting down to look over at Lily. His mouth pulls into a half smile when he sees her, and he tips his hat. “Evening, Miss.”

I lean forward, blocking his view of her. “Is it illegal to park here?”

He scratches his chin like he’s thinking about it. “No.”

“So, why are you bothering us?”

“Am I bothering you?” he asks. “Did I interrupt something?”

I sigh, bored. “Pleasure to see you as always, Ingram. Let’s do this again soon.”

He clicks his tongue and steps away from the door, nodding towards the back of the car. “Why don’t you step out and talk to me for a minute?”

“I’d rather not.”

He doesn’t bother to answer. Just walks away to wait for me at the back of the car.

“Finn?” Lily lays a hand on my elbow protectively. “Is everything okay? Did we do something wrong?”

“This isn’t about you,” I say, shaking off her touch and the bolt of electricity that came with it.

She frowns. “You didn’t actually rob a bank, right?”

Despite everything, I chuckle. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Ingram is waiting for me with a wide stance, his arms crossed over his uniform. His mustache is faint, but defined. I can’t wait until it grows in so I can give him shit about being a porn star. He’ll hate that.

“What do you want?” I ask. “If you couldn’t tell, I’m with someone.”

“Oh, I could tell,” he says, one eyebrow raised. “You better be careful, Finn. I can help you with a lot, but if you’re caught by someone else out in public, that’s indecent exposure.”

I salute him with my middle finger. “Thanks for the lesson, sir.”

Ingram’s lips flatten out beneath his mustache. “If that isn’t a good enough reason to listen to me, how about this: I’ve heard from a few different sources that you might have some answers to an assault and battery case I’m working on.”

My heart sputters, but I do my best to hide it with a shrug. “Who got battered?”

Ingram lowers his chin, looking at me from beneath his brows. “You know damn well who. If you don’t tell me what you know, I can’t help, Finn. I can’t protect you.”

“Fuck you. I don’t need to be protected.” Especially since I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything wrong. Unless you count dumping Dallas at the hospital. Which technically, the government might.

But fuck that. I didn’t kill him. Didn’t even hurt him.

He did that to himself.

Ingram sighs and lowers his voice. “Look, I had run-ins with Dallas Martin. He has a loud mouth and no sense of when to shut it. If things got out of hand and something happened, you can tell me. Plus, the Hell Princes step on a lot of toes. You and your friends have had encounters with them in the past, and if something escalated and—”

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