Dirty Wicked Prince (Court Legacy Book 1)

Dorian – age 17

“Hey, you fellas got room for another player?”

I stopped mid-shot, and Wolf, Wells, and Thatcher stood tall on the court. We’d been joined by a fifth.

Charlie.

My uncle came waltzing onto the community park’s basketball court like we’d seen him every day. Like he hadn’t been away at classes, and we all hadn’t been missing him. He raised his arms. “What do you say? Or am I too fucking old to hang out with you guys now?”

Grinning, I ran, the other guys too. I tackled Charlie’s ass, and he caught me.

“Dude,” I said, catching his hand first. I held tight as I hugged him, the other guys crowding around. I pulled back. “When did you get in, bro?”

“Just now. Just now,” he returned, smiling wide. He looked good. Hair slicked back and rocking a little style with his bomber jacket. Charlie looked like a college boy through and through. He put out a hand to Wolf. “Wolfy!”

Wolf grinned, taking him in, and Thatcher and Wells did the same. We’d expected Charlie home for the three-day weekend, but not until Saturday.

It seemed he wanted to see us early.

I’d welcome that, always. I missed my uncle, my brother. Home life had been different since he’d been gone for the past few weeks. I was used to always having access to him, down the hall and in my life.

He punched at our chests, asking in on our basketball game again. My buddies and I all welcomed him with open arms.

We played into the night.

We played like we were kids again and not divided by years or miles. Wolf and I were juniors this year, Wells and Thatcher sophomores. We’d all been really coming into our games on the football field, and I hoped were making Charlie proud. He’d left quite a legacy on the field himself after he left. He’d been quarterback before I took over.

Charlie told us all about his first semester so far as we played. He was a freshman at Pembroke University. I could imagine most of us would be going there too. Pembroke was kind of like a sister school to Windsor Prep, and many of the guys and girls who matriculated through the academy’s halls ended up there.

We all played so long Charlie and I ended up sitting down for a drink, letting the guys play for a bit. We sat on the benches, chugging water while the other guys just dicked around.

“You look good, man,” I said. Charlie did look good, amazing actually.

Charlie smiled a little, sitting back. “Thanks. I am good. Stressed to fucking hell already with classes…”

I chuckled.

“But good, Robin. Real good.”

I’d missed that too, being the Robin to his Batman. I shook his leg. “How’s the female situation?” I asked, the first shit he should have led in with. What the fuck did I care about school and academic shit? “You should have started with that shit, by the way.”

The jostle had Charlie shaking his head. He was pretty modest when it came to women, didn’t talk about them a lot. He laced his hands. “I’m sure you can imagine.”

“I can.” I grinned. “But stop leaving me hanging like an asshole.”

“Your ass needs to be focused on school.” He brought me under his arm. “Not girls.”

Who did he think I was? I mean, he knew me, right? We had the same blood.

I wrestled with him a bit but didn’t leave from under his arm when he stopped. He patted my chest. “How have things been here? In school?”

“Okay.” I was top of my classes. Not a wiz like Wolf or even Thatcher, who was brilliant too. I shrugged. “I get by.”

“Mmm.” He grinned at me, but his smile faded a little. In fact, it wiped away completely. “How is she?”

She.

I was surprised he hadn’t led in with that.

I’d never asked Charlie about him and his relationship with our headmaster Principal Mayberry after the party he’d caught my friends and me at last year.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t aware of the fallout.

The guy had been a wreck when he left for college, and though he hadn’t talked about it, I knew that’d been because of her. From what I understood, he’d ended things with her. I hadn’t meant to, but I’d stumbled across one of his text messages before he left. He’d been wishing her well, ending things because he was going to college.

It should have ended sooner.

I assumed, since he had ended things, what had been going on had just been a temporary infatuation. Charlie was dealing with personal shit and needed a release.

I supposed she’d been good for at least that, and Charlie did seem happier now. Lighter. I picked up the spare ball the boys and I’d brought, spinning it around with my fingers. “She’s fine, I guess.” I shrugged. “She and Coach—”

“Wait. Coach?” Charlie raised a hand. “She and Coach are a thing?”

I frowned, confused. “What do you mean? They’re married.”

“Still?” He sat back, looking thoroughly thrown by the information. Shaken. He outlined his lips. “You mean to tell me they’re still together?”

“Yeah, why? Are they not supposed to be—”

“No.” He pulled a joint out of his pocket, lighting up in front of me, which was something he never did. I mean, I knew he smoked weed. I wasn’t a fucking idiot, but he tried not to do it around me. Something about wanting to be a good example or some shit. He blew smoke through his nostrils. “They’re not. She was supposed to leave him. She said she was.”

I watched him, red creeping up the side of his neck. He drew another hit, and with the tension, I wished I hadn’t said anything. I knocked his knees. “How about we do another game? We can do two on two. Have Thatch sit out or something.”

Thatcher never liked playing as much as us anyway.

In his own thoughts, Charlie had to come out of them just to look at me. But once he had, he wrestled my hair, grinning in the way he always did. He passed it off like what I said didn’t bother him, but that grin didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“No, y’all play,” he said, letting me go. He jutted his chin forward. “I’ll watch you guys.”

He leaned back with his blunt, and though I didn’t like that, I couldn’t tell him what to do. I tossed him the spare ball, then headed back out there with the boys. We played for a little bit before I noticed Charlie over there on his phone. He was just playing on it, his fingers scrolling, but then out of nowhere, he was standing.

I stopped bouncing the ball. “Charlie?”

He was putting his bomber jacket back on when I came over, something he’d taken off when we’d started playing. He popped his collar. “Hey, Robin. I’m gonna take off.”

My eye twitched. “Take off where?”

“Just to go visit some friends.” He put his blunt out under his sneaker, tapping my fist. “I’ll be back for dinner, though.”

My family tended to eat pretty late. I usually came home when Mom shot me a text, and since I hadn’t gotten that, I assumed food wasn’t ready.

I studied Charlie. “Charlie—”

“I’ll be right back. Gotta go.” He was rushed, an urgency in his voice I didn’t like. He started to walk away but I grabbed him.

I hugged him.

I didn’t know why. It was like I felt compelled, and the gesture definitely threw him off. He frowned before folding his big arms around me.

“Dinner,” I made him promise, pulling away, and he nodded. He wrestled my hair again like he liked to do, making me smile, and next thing I knew, he was disappearing into the park.

I lost him through the trees.

*

Wolf and I played hoops long after Thatcher and Wells left. They were tired, but I simply wanted to tire myself out. I had stress in my muscles I didn’t like, so I played hard. Wolf was with me. I could tell he was tired too, but he kept playing.

I was like my dad in that way. He tended to work out too when he had thoughts roaming his mind.

The hour got so late. So late in fact, Wolf and I both decided to call it. My mom definitely should have texted me for dinner by now but might have gotten word Charlie was back and wanted to do things big.

I went ahead and asked Wolf if he wanted to join us. He or the other guys often did and Wolf never turned down my mom’s pot roast. My mom and I weren’t meat eaters, but she made it for Dad.

Wolf and I could smell the roasted meat all the way down the block, the pair of us walking home from the park since it was so close. We got pretty close to my house before we noticed the cop car outside it.

And my god dad’s Mercedes.

“That’s my dad’s car.” Wolf noticed at the same time as me, the pair of us picking up the pace. We got to my house, and I opened the door, placing the basketball down beside it.

“Mom?” I called.

“Dad?” Wolf asked, not far behind.

We heard no answer.

A buzzing hit my ears I didn’t like, a tension. In our search for our parents, I felt a tightness in my chest. It was an anticipation of something, a ringing in my head.

We found our parents in the kitchen.

Like all our parents, my mom and dad and Wolf’s. My god dad Ramses and Wolf’s mom, Brielle, were both there. Brielle had been headmaster of our school before we’d enrolled and Principal Mayberry had taken over.

The cop was with them.

The officer was talking to my father, my dad’s hands in his pockets. Brielle was holding my mom with Ramses right beside them.

The familiarity of it all twisted sickness into my stomach.

The last time I’d seen my parents like this…

“Mom?”

Our parents and the cop saw us when I called for Mom. They must have not heard us come in.

Mom immediately went to me. She immediately placed me in her arms, and Brielle did the same with Wolf.

“Oh, God,” my mom gasped in my ear, shaking the fuck to hell. “Baby. My love…”

“Mom.” I gripped her shirt, staring at my dad over her shoulder.

He was more than tense.

In fact, he appeared to be having a hard time keeping eye contact with me.

“What’s going on?” I asked, those words familiar too. The difference was it’d been Charlie to say them.

Where’s Charlie?

He should have been home by now. He promised he’d be here by dinner, and he always kept a promise.

“Where’s Charlie?” My immediate next question. I pulled away from my mother. “Mom, where’s Charlie? He said he’d be here for dinner. He came home early—”

“Son.” My dad cut me off, coming forward. He lifted a hand. “Son, there was an accident.”

“An accident?”

At this point, my mom started to cry. Like full-on sobbing in the kitchen. She immediately left the room, and my dad started to go after her.

“Royal, I got it,” Ramses stepped in, my mom’s best friend. My mom and Ares’s dad had been best friends since high school. He touched Brielle’s shoulder. “Honey, Ares?”

Immediately, Brielle took Wolf off to the side, and I had no idea where they were going.

I was too busy freaking the fuck out.

I was shaking and my dad had to physically take me out of the goddamn room. When we ended up in the hallway, I struggled away.

“What are you talking about an accident?” I shot, louder than I should toward my father. “I just saw Charlie. Charlie’s fine.”

“But that’s what I’m saying. He’s not, Dorian.” He tugged me over. “Listen to me—”

“I just saw him, Dad,” I croaked. “Dad, I just saw him.”

Dad placed cautious hands on my shoulders, and from somewhere I could hear my mom still, my god dad’s whispers. Ramses was telling her it would be okay.

Why was he telling her that?

They were both acting like someone died. They were…

“Dad, where’s Charlie?” If he was at the hospital or something… If there was an accident, we should be there, not here. “Dad…”

“He was jogging, son,” Dad said, and at this point, the officer left the room. He tipped his hat at my father before he left, the door clicking closed behind him. Dad faced me. “You know how he liked to jog in the high hills.”

I did, but that had always been the excuse. Charlie used to use that as an excuse to go over and see Principal Mayberry behind Coach’s back.

I knew because I always covered for him at home.

“He was in that neighborhood tonight, and he heard something. Screaming.” Dad rubbed his mouth, his words and expression pained. “He was passing by Principal Mayberry’s house, and he heard some shouting. Elevated voices.”

My breath left me, thoughts completely escaping me.

“Apparently, there was an altercation between her and her husband, Coach Mayberry,” Dad continued. “And according to the officer, things got aggressive. He hit her.”

He hit her.

“Charlie heard the screaming from the street, and he broke in.”

I faced him, the color completely drained from his face.

“Coach was armed.”

Armed.

My lips parted. “Dad…”

Dad shook his head. “According to Elaine Mayberry, her husband believed Charlie to be an intruder. He shot on instinct.” Dad’s voice thickened, pained. “He shot, Dorian, and Charlie didn’t make it. He passed away at the scene.”

No…

No.

I didn’t believe it, backing away.

“Dorian.”

“No.” I raised my hand. “It’s not true. I just saw Charlie, Dad. I just saw him.”

“But it is true, son.” Dad’s voice boomed in the room, his face entirely red. Dad didn’t lose his composure. He was completely in control always.

But this shook him.

It had to have shaken him at his core because he even placed a hand on the kitchen island to stabilize himself.

“The man was clearly troubled,” Dad stated, his jaw tense. “Because after he saw what he did, that it was Charlie and not an intruder, he turned the gun on himself. Blew himself away right in front of his wife.”

I couldn’t hear this. I didn’t believe this.

It was bullshit.

I refused to believe it and left the room.

“Dorian—”

I ignored my father, taking my keys. I got into my car and drove all the way to the high hills.

I was there in moments.

It was like a police shootout had occurred there, cop cars everywhere and news reporters filling the streets. The scene was a nightmare, a cluster fuck, and I honked my way as close as I could get. I ended up leaving my car in the street and hadn’t cared if someone stole it or did whatever the fuck they wanted.

This is a lie.

This was my recurring thought as I ran, lies everywhere. It was a lie that Charlie was dead. It was a lie that all this was happening.

I stood at the yellow tape. The scene was completely blocked off by the cops. Suddenly, the shutters flew, and the reporters and photographers redirected their attention to a pale woman being escorted out of the house. She was underneath the arm of a female officer, the woman guiding her off the property.

They had Principal Mayberry under a blanket.

Her eyes were red, her expression vacant. Tear lines tracked down her face, and when the female officer placed her in a cop car, my headmaster stared out the window. Principal Mayberry blinked amongst the lights and shutters of the cameras. Her expression was blank.

But then she spotted me.

Her mouth parted, her eyes wide. She stared at me like all the answers were there, and I merely had to see them in her eyes to decipher them. She sat there like there were far more answers inside that house than what I’d been told.

She was a lie.

She was lying, and I stared at her now. Charlie had been thoroughly shaken after finding out Coach Mayberry was still with his wife. After finding out his ex-girlfriend was still with her abusive husband. He hadn’t come over to this neighborhood tonight to jog.

I knew that in my gut.

That woman had something to do with this. She did something, and I watched as the cops drove her away. She shifted in her seat, staring at me through the rearview mirror. There were more answers that needed to be found out here and once I found them…

I was going to end her.