“Jesus motherfucking Christ,” Vic snarls, rubbing a hand over his face. He gives me a dark look which I return, but then Heather’s skipping down the stairs with Alyssa Hart just behind her.
“Bernie, guess what?” Heather says, pausing as Hael and Callum come back up the basement stairs, cackling together and hugging over a dozen bottles of wine in their arms. She rolls her eyes and ignores them, reminding me that even if it feels like I’m her mother, we are less than a decade apart in age. “Alyssa says she’s a really good swimmer. She says her mom tries really hard to make sure there’s a pool at the motels they stay in.” She pauses, even as the bone-deep sadness of that statement washes over me. “So … can we go swimming?”
I reach out to touch the side of Heather’s face and she bats my hand away like I’m annoying the fuck out of her.
“I don’t see why not?” I say with a loose shrug of my shoulders. “Go dig through all the drawers upstairs, see if you can’t find something for Alyssa to wear in the pool.” I lean down with a smile on my face, hands on my thighs. “Don’t worry about making a mess: we’re on vacation.”
“Where did Alyssa come from again?” Heather whispers, leaning close to me and giving me a very skeptical sort of look, like she can’t possibly fathom why I’d ask her to ruin a house she thinks is an Airbnb rental.
“Oscar’s cousin,” I say loudly, when he finally deigns to step inside the house. The energy shifts in a very strange and violent sort of way. Can’t wait to have it out with that bastard sometime soon. We’re already overdue for a scuffle. I look up at Alyssa and smile. “I know you’ve never met him, but don’t worry: as soon as we find your mom, you can go home.” I stand up straight as Heather eyes me with suspicion. I fucking hate lying to her, but this is one of those situations that will go south quick if I don’t give my little sister some sort of answer. Imagine if she went to school and told everyone we just found some random kid at an Airbnb.
“You better not yell at me for making a mess when you told me to do it,” Heather murmurs, but then her mouth splits into a grin and she grabs Alyssa’s arm. The two of them take off up the stairs together. Thankfully, the Vincents’ bedroom is locked, so they won’t stumble on anything they shouldn’t.
“Red or white?” Hael purrs, holding two wine bottles up by their necks. I point at one at random and he sets both down on the counter, taking the cork out of the one I selected. He hands it over and I take a long swig, tasting blackberry, plum, and currant on the back of my tongue. The red color of it stains my lips like blood, and I swipe the black sleeve of Aaron’s hoodie across my mouth to clean it. “Good?” Hael asks, grinning like a maniac. “That’s a hundred and twenty dollars of overpriced. Give me a bottle of Everclear any day and let’s just get fucked up for twenty.”
I stare down at the bottle while Callum hops onto the counter and crouches like a monster in the night. He’s swigging some white wine, his hood up, lips curved into a mischievous smile. When I look up at him, his blue eyes crinkle at the edges, bringing that mirth up from his mouth and into his gaze.
“You know what I want, Victor. It’s what I’ve always wanted: Bernadette.”
I mean, I knew how he felt. It was obvious, even if Callum Park is subtle and sometimes strange. I take another gulp of my wine.
“Come on, teetotaler,” Hael urges, shaking another full bottle of wine at Oscar. “You never smoke and drink with us. It’s annoying as shit. Have some fun for once. We’re on a honeymoon here and even if Vic is the only asshole in this room getting pussy, we can still party.”
Oscar ignores him, but at least he isn’t gazing at his iPad with undying love. He’s just sitting there in his perfect suit, legs crossed, hands wrapped around his knee. He tilts his head just enough to look at Hael.
“Why don’t you party, since that’s what you’re good at? I’ll sit here with a clear head and make sure you don’t fuck something as dangerous as Brittany Burr.” Oscar’s jab cuts right through the heart, but even though Hael’s face flickers with annoyance, he ends up howling with laughter.
“Brittany fuckin’ Burr,” he crows, downing half the wine in one go. Victor and Aaron each take up a bottle, but even though they’re trying, it’d be impossible to miss the rivalry brewing between them. “What are we gonna do about her, huh? We’ve only ever had someone break the rules of their price once before.” Hael pauses for a moment, and the glee on his face dissipates briefly. Sometimes I wonder if he loved Brittany, if only for a minute. The thought fills me with a jealous rage that I wash away with another swig of wine. “I wonder if she sent Daddy Dearest after us, or if he just flipped his shit and went rogue.”
“Irrelevant,” Oscar corrects, still sitting there, an annoying statue with a pretty face and demon hands inked onto his throat. His hair is growing out, and shockingly enough, it isn’t the raven-black color that it appears. He has … blond roots? What the actual fuck? They’re barely showing at all, but the way he’s sitting, in front of all those big windows, the light shows me very clearly where his hair dye ends, and his real hair begins. Huh. “Her job was to sic her father’s anti-gang squad on the Charter Crew. She failed to divert his attention. I will calculate her risks.”
“We aren’t killing a pregnant girl,” Hael snaps, voice like a violent whiplash. I actually have to do a double-take to make sure he’s the one actually talking. His mouth is twisted into a deep frown, his pretty almond-honey eyes dark and dangerous. “Because he murdered a pregnant prostitute.” Victor’s words about Hael’s dad pop into my head as I sip my wine, wondering if that has something to do with his visceral reaction. “You never told her she couldn’t send the VGTF after us. Maybe be more specific next time? She could still send that bald-headed prick of a dad after the Charter Crew.”
“Stop romanticizing things that don’t need romanticizing,” Oscar says back, his voice as smooth as a shark fin slicing through a quiet sea. It’s coming for you, no doubt, but you won’t hear or feel a splash until you’re bleeding. “And don’t you dare criticize me. Victor said—as per my request—that Brittany was to redirect her father’s attention away from Havoc and over to the Charter Crew. What do you think the word redirect means, you moron? Shall I look it up for you?”
Hael’s jaw clenches tight, and he takes a step forward, like he might actually start shit with Oscar. Do the other guys see how hard Hael Harbin works to hold himself back? They poke and prod him like he’s got unlimited patience coiled inside his chest. In reality, he’s just barely keeping himself from striking out.
“Alright, Oscar, you’ve been a monumental prick since you blew your load and left Bernie to clean up the mess.” Vic gestures at him with his wine bottle. “Knock that shit off. We have too much going on to start fighting with each other.”
I wish I could describe the expression on Oscar’s face without using words like death, gravestones, sharp-beaked crows, and skulls with empty eye sockets. But … I can’t.
“My apologies, boss,” Oscar says, his voice like dark chocolate over old bones. It looks okay at first, but you would never eat that. “Sometimes Hael’s diminished intellect infuriates me which, of course, is unfair since he can’t help being born that way.”
Hael smashes the wine bottle on the floor, spattering the linen-white furniture with droplets of red wine. Oh, I bet Leigh will love that.
“You better be playin’ with me because if you ain’t playin’ with me, I’m gonna kick your ass.” Hael kicks over a side table with his boot and a glass lamp shatters. “Well? I’m waiting for your apology. Or maybe I should tell Bernie that you were a—”
“Shut your fucking face,” Oscar hisses, standing up from the sofa. The two boys face off against one another, chest to chest, their jaws clenched, eyes hard. “If you don’t want to be ridiculed for saying ridiculous things then stop. saying. them.”
“Still doesn’t sound like an apology to me,” Hael replies, his voice weirdly cold and smooth. Not like his usual cocksureness at all. I set my wine down and step between the two of them, putting my palms up on either of their chests. For a second there, it seems like neither of them is going to acknowledge me.
Oscar's hand comes up out of nowhere, whip-sharp and blazingly fast, snatching my wrist and making me cry out as he jerks me aside and then grabs my other arm with the same hand, pinning them together. As he does, he steps back and tugs me along with him. His tattooed hand ends up on my throat for the briefest of seconds, the pressure just this side of scary.
“Do not defend him to me,” he purrs, his mouth far too close to mine. His cinnamon scent surrounds me, and my body reacts in a violent and disturbing way. “I'm in a mood, and I can't stand it.”
“Oscar, I will put you in the fucking ground,” Vic roars, but Oscar is only looking at me. His thumb strokes my pulse point as he leans in ever closer to my face.
“When I let you pin me before, I was being nice. Never forget that.” He releases me and I suck in a gasp of air, putting my own hands over my throat. I wasn't actually cut off from breathing in any way, shape, or form, but it's just the idea of it.
Oscar moves quick, much quicker than I thought.
He stalks off and Vic throws a wine bottle at him. It smashes into the wall beside Oscar's head. He pauses for a brief moment to glance back at us.
“You're going to regret doing that,” Victor warns, but Oscar just nods once and then continues off down the hall.
“What the … fuck?” Hael asks, blinking like he's just waking up from a dream. “The hell was that about?”
“You okay?” Aaron asks, but I nod. My fingers are still at my throat, but not because I didn't like it. But because some fucked-up part of me did. To be fair, when I fantasize about Oscar, I usually fantasize about one or the other of us with their hands around someone's throat.