“Would it be wrong if I fucked you against the fence and scared the shit out of the neighbors?” He leans in, fingering some blood-tipped blond strands of hair that’ve escaped from the loose chignon I’ve decided on. “Ruined those pretty panties of yours.” Hael pushes the tight dress up my legs, moving the mesh cutout from my thighs to my crotch. My panties underneath are as red as my hair.
“Wrong?” I echo, because the word just sounds funny to me now. What does wrong mean anyway? And how do you know if something is right? “We kill people, Hael.”
His eyes crinkle up at the edges in a way that tells me that, if he makes it long enough to become an old man, his skin will be permanently marked in those spots. The chances of that happening, however, are slim. People look at age, at wrinkles and white hair, as an inevitable curse. In reality, it’s pure luck to get that far in life. Most of us don’t make it nearly that long.
“Yeah?” he asks, that cocksureness of his fixed firmly in place. He even has the audacity to cock his head to one side and give me a crooked, little smirk that promises he’s up to no good. “So?”
Without another word, Hael lifts me up and my legs go around his waist. My lipstick stains his neck when I kiss it, marking him. There won’t be a woman at that gala tonight that doesn’t notice the shape of my mouth pressed into his skin.
“We’re late,” Oscar says, appearing in the doorway. Both Hael and I glance over, and Hael groans dramatically.
“Dude, give us five minutes.” I snort at that, but Hael just grins. “What? I’m not ashamed of it. I want to come in you so bad, just so I can look at you in that stuffy fucking art gallery and know your panties are soaked with my cum.”
“The limo is here,” Oscar tells him, looking sharp as hell in the black-on-black tux. It’s not much different than what he usually wears, but it’s expensive as fuck. I found out why his suits all look so good by the way—he takes them in himself. The first time I saw him sitting with a needle and thread in his hand, I thought he was getting ready to sew somebody’s mouth shut. That was far more believable than thinking he might actually be doing something as domestic as sewing. “It’s not like you two don’t fuck each other enough.”
“Based on what you’re saying,” I start as Hael pulls away, and I have to resist the urge to grab his arm and drag him back. “Someone might think you were jealous.”
“A jelly motherfucking doughnut,” Hael teases, but I notice that he makes a point to stay out of Oscar’s orbit as he passes by.
The two of us stare at each other, and I shiver as Oscar’s eyes make a sweep of my body.
When his silver eyes meet mine again, I can see a rare glint of approval in them.
“You look the part of the billionaire’s wife,” he tells me, and I blink a few times to adjust my brain to that statement.
“The what?” I ask, and Oscar smiles.
“You heard me,” he says, lifting his chin up and sliding his inked fingers into the pockets of his slacks. “That’s how big this money pot is, didn’t you know?”
I just stare at him, the wind teasing my cheeks with icy fingers.
“Vic said it wasn’t a life-changing amount …” I start and Oscar laughs. The sound is enough to startle me.
“Please, Bernadette. He said it wasn’t enough to change the world. You’re smarter than that.” Oscar taps the side of his head with a wicked finger. “Read between the lines. Do you really think Ophelia would care about an account full of pocket change?” He holds out his hand, but I’m too stunned to take it.
Billion … What does that number even mean? And why would a person ever need that much money to begin with? I almost choke on the idea.
“That’s a lot of money,” I hazard, and Oscar nods.
“It is. Especially for Prescott trash.” He sneers when he says it, and then snaps his fingers, breaking me out of my reverie. “I imagine Victor didn’t specify an amount for this very reason. Don’t make me regret telling you.”
I shake my head to clear it, but I’ll admit, I’m having trouble keeping my feet.
A billion dollars? Or more than that?
Jesus fucking Christ.
“What did his grandmother do?” I choke out, and Oscar smiles.
“Her father owned a company that manufactured rifles and ammunition. She inherited the money. Then she left it to Victor because her daughter is a miscreant.” I finally take his hand, and our eyes meet as our fingers come together with a rush of heat.
“Oscar …” I start, but then Aaron appears in the doorway with a slight limp and a hardened expression on his face that says he most definitely is not looking forward to seeing Ophelia tonight. I finally managed to get him to tell me the whole story, how he woke up in a trunk, how he saw Ophelia shoot Mitch. All of it.
So I get it, why he looks downright fucking murderous.
“Hey Bernie,” he begins, swiping a hand over his face. “Smoke a joint with me before we leave? I’m afraid that if I don’t chill the fuck out, I won’t be able to keep my hands off of Ophelia’s throat.”
I nod and Oscar releases my hand like he’s been struck by the poisonous fangs of a snake. I want to know why he hates to be touched so much. I deserve to know. Because we belong to each other. When he looks back at me, I can tell he knows it, too.
“You’re such a stubborn fuck,” I murmur as he turns and heads for the door like his feet are on fire, sweeping past Aaron and back into the house.
“And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,” is his reply, and I roll my eyes. Apparently, we’re going to work our way through Shakespeare’s entire sonnet, albeit out of order.
“Did you know that Victor had more than a billion dollars on the line?” I whisper to Aaron as he slips the joint and lighter from his pocket.
He gives me a look that says he most definitely did.
“Motherfucker,” I curse as Aaron lights up, takes a drag, and passes the joint to me.
“He’s not satisfied with just that, you know,” he tells me, and the sentence sounds very much like a warning. “He wants more. He’ll always want more.”
I smoke the joint for a moment and then hand it back.
No wonder Ophelia’s so eager to get her hands on that money.
There are people in this world who’d drown their own children to have a fortune like that—literally—and not lose any sleep over it.
“It won’t mean shit if we don’t survive long enough to get it,” I reply absently, my mind already spinning. One year of marriage. That’s what we have to get through first. Standing here in this overpriced dress, it feels like an eternity.
But it’s nothing a little violence can’t help with it.
If Ophelia is dead, she can’t exactly hurt us, now can she?
As the sleek, black length of the limo pulls up to the curb in front of the art gallery, the six of us slip into our masks together the way we always do. The driver lets us out, doing a double take when he sees what we’re wearing.
Guess we’re the only people at this masquerade wearing the maws of grinning dead things, huh?
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Hael murmurs as the six of us climb the insanely wide steps of the gallery, heading toward its soaring glass walls and its mono-pitched metal roof. There’s an outdoor art installation, some colored paper lanterns suspended at different heights by metal poles. It bathes the otherwise austere exterior of the building in color. “This place is swanky. You sure we won’t catch fire when we walk in the doors? Like sinners on hallowed ground.”
Vic gives his best friend a grim smile as he threads his arm through mine and waits for the valet to open the doors for us.
“Believe it not, we’re probably the holiest motherfuckers invited to this party tonight.” Victor hands over the invitation he received from Ophelia—likely because the security guards are eyeing our skeleton masks like they’re made of horse shit—and we’re welcomed in with polite smiles and fearful eyes.
As the doors open wide, sensual jazz music leaks out into the cool December air around us. The traffic isn’t too bad, but the distant murmur of cars in the distance keeps this spot grounded. As soon as we go in, and the doors close behind us, we’ll be stuck here, trapped in a different world.
“We’ve got this,” Callum murmurs, and Aaron nods, meeting my eyes one, last time before I look from him to Oscar. His steely gaze gives me nothing, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve already cracked his shell; I just need to hit it a few more times before it peels away and shows me what’s really underneath.
“Once you invite a vampire in, you can’t rescind your invitation,” Vic says mildly, and then he’s striding forward with me by his side. I swear on the devil’s tits, every person in that room turns to look at us. I mean, I’m not surprised. Everything from my dress to the boys’ cufflinks to the red bow ties is intended to grab the attention of the affluent crowd. Havoc never does anything in half-measures, after all.
“Mother,” Vic breathes, his eyes focused on a single figure in the room, as calculated and predatory as a cat discovering a mouse. The crowd of glittering urban nobles parts as we pass by, heading straight in Ophelia and Tom’s direction before one of the waiters moves over to us, offering up champagne. “No thanks. We brought our own.” Victor holds up one of the expensive liquor bottles we stole from Leigh’s house—pretty sure this one’s worth about eighty-grand—and then pops the top.
I swear to god, Ophelia’s eye twitches when she sees what her son’s doing.
“Southside trash in the Oak River Heights district,” he says as we approach his mother, and she gives her son an air kiss on either cheek. The rest of us, she ignores. Vic swigs the champagne and then passes it to me. “You must’ve had a fit at the very thought.”
“Victor,” Ophelia oozes, ignoring her son’s statement, the smile on her face reminiscent of a garrote. Her raven-colored hair is twisted into a precise knot at the base of her skull, and her skin shimmers with the faintest luminescence. If you were to compare our makeup styles, you might say I looked like a succubus while she appears as light as a pixie. She holds her mask in one hand, the glittering face of a jaguar made up of precious gemstones; it’s probably worth a fortune. “I’m so glad you could make it.”