“Let’s go rob the Nazis then, shall we?” Vic asks as I find the store I’m looking for, pointing it out across the street. It has a sign proclaiming to be Locally Owned and Operated. But trust me, I looked this place up and found out that the owner is the daughter of some techie asshole who claims to be one of the world’s first trillionaires. Eyeroll. Talk about a disgusting distribution of wealth, am I right? Some people starve; some people have gold ceilings and toilets.
“The woman who owns that one is a ‘self-made’ woman,” I say, making quotes with my fingers. “Self-made with a loan from daddy. She’s had numerous bankruptcies, managed to avoid paying income taxes for years, and even once ‘paid’”—I have to make quotes with my fingers again, sorry, but the story is too dumb—“her husband a consulting fee to get out of reporting an extra million dollars in profit.” I drop my arms by my sides as Callum chuckles darkly beside me, swallowed up by a blue hoodie and terrifying as always. He’s got those long jean shorts on that he likes, showing off the tattoos and scars on his legs.
“I love that you’ve researched this, how you always try to make sure the people you bleed deserve it.” He laughs again and then slips his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. “It’s an admirable trait, Bernie. A rare one at that.”
“Oh please,” I start with a bit of an eyeroll. “My insistence on justice makes me as blind as Sara Young. I’m going to get myself killed.”
“Not if I can help it,” Cal quips right back, holding out a hand to indicate that I should cross the street. I step off the curb in my heels without even bothering to look both ways, forcing some dickhead in a Ferrari to slam on his brakes. He rolls down his window and leans out, like he’s going to yell something at me. I pause in the middle of the street with the three boys behind me.
They all look at the driver, waiting for him to say something.
He doesn’t.
Good for him.
He like, literally almost died.
A grin sweeps across my lips as we finish crossing the street, and I push open the pristine glass doors of the store with both hands. I’m wearing the diamond ring on my finger, the necklace on my throat. When the store girl sees me, she looks like she might piss her pants.
“I need a dress,” I tell her, taking in the shop with a single glance. It’s a fairly small boutique, but there are plenty of choices. Most of them cost upwards of the average person’s monthly salary. I look back at the girl and her watery brown eyes, her fearful smile. She doesn’t want to upset me, but she’s also afraid of someone else. Likely, her boss. “It has to be red.”
“Um, yes, of course,” she begins hesitantly, leading me through the store and pointing out possible choices. A good half of the items aren’t in my size, but that doesn’t bother me. I know my worth. I’ve known it far longer and far better than I ever wanted to. No girl likes grown ass men to catcall them out their car windows when they’re thirteen years old.
If you agree to hate yourself because the world tells you to do so, then it’s already won. Don’t let them do that to you, make you despise yourself even as they lust and drool after everything it is that you already have.
I make a few selections, letting the salesgirl take my choices to a fitting room. Snagging one last dress off another rack, I head to the small men’s section in the corner of the store. I’ll start by seeing if I can pair the color red with any of the bow ties there.
“We have to do tuxes, don’t we?” Victor asks, swinging around a rack to stand in front of me. He rubs at his chin in thought and then frowns, like the idea is repellant. I wish it weren’t; my husband looks damn fine in a tuxedo. He also smells amazing, that wild musky scent of his at odds with the subtle floral notes drifting through the store’s lavish interior.
“The dress code is black tie, so … tuxes,” I agree. “With understated but eclectic details. Maybe with bloodred bow ties that cost a fucking fortune but somehow still say I don’t give a fuck? Add in the skull and crossbones cufflinks you guys wore on Snow Day, and we’re golden.”
Vic smiles at me, a slow, easy spreading smile.
“By the time we’re done here, you’re going to eat Ophelia alive,” he says, which is a huge fucking compliment that I don’t deserve. I didn’t kill Kali when I was supposed to; I failed. She’s in the store with us, standing in the corner and staring at me with unblinking eyes. I look at Victor instead, but I can’t seem to make the words come out. Hey, Vic, I’m actually seeing ghosts that I think are the manifested incarnations of the disappointment I have in myself.
Nope.
Not the time or place.
I turn back to the display of bow ties, picking one up and matching it to the red silk of the dress. When I look up, there’s Callum, in a spot he most definitely was not seconds prior. Fuck, what I’d give to be able to move like that.
“Cop girl is outside,” he murmurs, glancing over his shoulder as the front door of the shop opens and in walks Sara Young. Hael is standing next to the entrance, pretending to be interested in a display of heels. The way he touches the shoes, with such carnal reverence, gives me an idea that I tuck away for later. Hael, me, naked but for a pair of nice heels … Shit.
I banish the thought just in time to meet ‘cop girl’ head-on.
“Bernadette,” Sara says, raising a hand as if in greeting. It feels more like a threat. I pretend to be surprised, draping the red dress over my arm. “How are you feeling? I heard about the accident at the party.” Her face says she believes absolutely nothing about that story.
I stare right back at her, the garment I’m holding worth thousands. It feels much heavier than a piece of silk rightfully should, like it’s carrying the weight of everything it’s supposed to represent. Over Sara’s shoulder, I see Hael tuck his hands into his jeans pockets and walk along the wall of windows at the front of the shop. He’s clearly checking to see what the situation is here. Say, for example, if Sara is alone.
She looks at the dress and then back up at me with a soft, blond brow cocked.
“Can you afford that dress, Bernadette?” she asks me gently, ignoring the death stares of both Callum and Victor. I know that either way I answer, I’m trapped. Either I’m going to steal the damn thing, or I have quite a bit of cash on me that came from … somewhere. Nice move, cop girl. She’s slick, this one.
“Victor’s mother is a wealthy art enthusiast,” I say, letting my mouth curl like the petals of a poisonous flower. I’ve painted them Venus Flytrap Purple today, so the analogy fits. The color is somewhere between a bruise and an iris, and that’s exactly what I was going for. “She’s invited us to a party next week and agreed to pay for a dress.” I lift the garment up in explanation. “Of course, come the day after, I’m going to pawn the stupid thing, but whatever.” Loose shrug of my shoulder.
Sara’s doe eyes finally slip past me to land on Victor. She stares at him for a moment, the way a person who truly wants to be good looks at someone that they perceive as bad. If she had a button to push, one that would punish Vic in all the ways she thinks he should be punished, she’d fucking push it. She looks at him like he’s already guilty in her mind.
“Well, I’ve been trying to contact Kali Rose-Kennedy to discuss her relationship with Neil Pence, only to have her father tell me that she hasn’t come home, and he doesn’t know where she is.”
“White trash is as white trash does,” I say with another shrug and a sigh. “My mother never could keep track of me either. Thankfully, the emancipation.” I wiggle my fingers at her to show off my wedding ring as the salesgirl comes over to take the dress from me. She puts it in a changing room with the others, but less like she’s providing me customer service and more like she just doesn’t want me touching the damn thing any more than necessary. “Well, you know I hate Kali with a passion. I have no idea where she is.”
“How about a woman by the name of Coraleigh Vincent?” Sara says, surprising me. Fuck. I have to resist the urge to look back at Vic. But I can feel him, poised, waiting. Callum is just oozing violence from behind me. If he thinks he has to, he’ll kill cop girl for me. But I don’t want that, not for anyone involved.
Hael comes up to stand behind Sara, hands clasped in front of him like a bodyguard, head tilted to one side. His red hair is bright beneath the store’s white lighting. It reflects back at me from the mirrored walls a thousand times over.
“She used to work pretty closely with your stepfather,” Sara continues, browsing her phone for a moment and then looking back up at me. “Tell me: have you seen her lately?”
I laugh, but I don’t have to try very hard to make the sound ugly.
“Coraleigh?” I ask, like she doesn’t come to mind often. To be quite honest, she doesn’t, she hasn’t. She was a small part of my pain. Maybe, when I was holding her against her will at the beach house, she thought she meant more to me. She thought I actually gave a shit about her. To be quite honest, the only reason I’m still glad we went after her is because she helped reveal all the other duplicitous assholes in my life. Ophelia, for example. She’s so much more a part of this city and its underground than I ever could’ve imagined. “Who the fuck gives a shit? She’s a bad person who likely got what was coming to her.”
“Bad person, how?” Sara asks, and this time, I do glance back at Vic. Purposefully. I give him a long, searching look that both serves as camouflage and allows me to get a read on him at the same time. How much should I tell her? I’m wondering.
The way Vic very slowly lifts a cigarette to his mouth, I know what he wants. “I’mma go smoke this outside.” He moves away, nodding his chin to indicate that Cal and Hael should follow after him.
I wait until all three boys are outside before responding. The suspension is killing Sara; I can tell.