“Tell you what?” Hael asks, adding oil to a saucepan and dropping the seasoned meat into it. He's swaying a bit with the music, bobbing his head and mouthing the lyrics. Not sure how someone so dangerous can be so cute. But there you go. I like him even better now that I know he isn't going to be a dad to someone else's baby.
I bite my lip.
“Tell me how it is that you know how to cook?” I ask and Hael laughs. Always fucking laughing, him and Callum. But while Cal, oddly enough, reminds me of the Joker, Hael is just … fun. His laughter is just that, a way to lighten the mood.
“Ma mère m'a appris à cuisiner, cher,” he purrs in French with a little Cajun touch, giving me this saucy ass shit-eating little smirk that both pisses me off and makes me want to fuck him on the cracked countertop. I lean forward and park my elbows on it instead, acting like I don't feel Victor watching us from the living room. Most of the debris has been swept into a pile, so we can still sorta lounge around in the detritus.
“That means … something about your mom?” I ask, putting my chin in my palm.
“En fait c'était à propos de ta mère mais tu n'as pas compris la blague, n'est-ce pas?” he asks me, cocking a brow as he stirs the meat with the spatula. I pick off a piece of the broken counter and chuck it at his face. He catches it, which annoys me to no end, and then flings it over his shoulder. It lands perfectly in the tiny prep sink. “My mother taught me how to cook,” Hael adds finally, face falling slightly. The song on his phone shifts to “My House” by Flo Rida and his lips twitch into a small grin. He loves this stupid ass song and, as much as I hate it, I can't help but feel something when I see him start to mouth the lyrics. “She didn't teach me to cook no turkey fucking tacos, but once you've got the skillset down …” Hael trails off as Callum appears, holding an apron.
“Let me put it on for you honey,” Cal murmurs in his beautiful voice. It's more than just gravelly or husky or broken, it's transcendent. When Cal speaks, his words carry emotion the way his dance moves do; he's just full of feeling.
“Why, thank you, sweet husband,” Hael chortles as Cal tosses the apron around his neck and then hugs his midsection.
“We should get freaky afterward, with you in such a skimpy little thing.” Callum slaps Hael on the ass and then, in one single motion, he hops onto the counter and crouches beside me. He stares at me as he grabs a cluster of purple grapes from the bag next to my arm and very carefully and purposely crushes one between his teeth. “I loved your swimsuit, by the way.”
Victor snorts from behind me, and I turn a glare on him.
“That wasn't a swimsuit; it was a husband's worst nightmare. Like some prologue to a porn shoot.”
“Hey, fuck you!” I snap at him, chucking some grapes his direction. He actually manages to catch one in his mouth as I glare. “If I want to swim naked, I will.”
“Just so long as you wax that bush,” Oscar chimes in, but he doesn't look up from the magazine on his lap. Hot heat fills me from my head down to my toes, like a kettle of boiling water. Would not be surprised if steam came out of my fucking ears.
“I'm going to literally kill you,” I grind out, and, without my even meaning to, my fingers find my throat. Oscar looks up then and our gazes lock, stealing my breath away and making me dizzy. “When I let you pin me before, I was being nice. Never forget that.”
“Why the fuck would you ridicule a girl for having hair where the devil put it?” Victor asks, giving Oscar a nasty look. “You've already infringed on the last of my nerves today. Next time you put hands on my wife, I'll crack your face open.”
“Besides,” I quip, loving the way both Vic's and Oscar's gazes swing over to me. “It gets chafed down there if you fuck as much as I do and leave it bare.”' I smile meanly. “I keep myself looking fly, I trim that shit. Maybe you should consider doing the same?”
“Shots fired!” Hael howls as Callum chuckles. Aaron pauses halfway down the stairs, hand on the banister, as he tries to figure out what we're playing at down here. “Tu es une putain de dure à cuire, Blackbird. One tough bitch.”
Oscar's eyes narrow, but apparently, he doesn't want to talk about the fact that he went balls-deep while I was bleeding and vulnerable underneath him. He doesn't care. He's just a sociopath with a pretty face.
“The kids are situated; the Vincents are secure,” Aaron says, coming over to stand beside me. When he comes close, I can feel him, like there's a charge in the air, some electrical connection between us that buzzes pleasantly against my skin. “I told them we could eat and then swim again.”
“Almost done,” Hael says, putting the top on the sizzling pan of meat before returning back to the avocado he was slicing up. “Did you know cartels control most of the avocado production in Mexico? We should get in on that shit.”
“Fucking cartels,” Victor murmurs, but he's also rubbing his chin, so clearly he's thinking about something. “Any word on how the Charter Crew did making up that twenty-grand in product?”
Oscar makes a sound of annoyance and then sneers, tossing the magazine aside. Pretty sure he wasn't even looking at it—what use would Oscar Montauk have for modern décor in a contemporary world.
“Since Mitch Charter is driving a new car, I would say they aren't hurting at all. They either have sources of income I don't know about, or else someone big is backing them.” Oscar pauses, narrowing his gray eyes on the floor as he spirals into his thoughts.
“What about the gang that supplied them with the product in the first place?” Aaron asks, but Oscar is already standing up and shaking his head. He is, once again, wearing a suit and tie. It's like he doesn't know how to relax for more than five freaking minutes at a time.
“What gang do you know that takes on charity cases?” he asks, glancing over at me in just such a way that I know the look itself is meant to be an insult. I decide to ignore him this once, placing a single grape in my mouth and sucking on a tattooed finger for just a moment. My lipstick—we're on a roll here and this one is called Jilted—smears across my skin and Oscar watches it like he's mesmerized. As soon as he realizes he's doing it, he turns away. “Not likely. Someone is padding their pockets.”
“That doesn't make any fucking sense,” Victor snaps, clearly frustrated with the situation. “The Charter Crew is nothing. They don't even deserve a name. May as well keep calling them the Charter/Ensbrook brothers.”
“Someone wants them to pick on us,” Oscar muses, like he's thought about this before but found it too ludicrous to mention … until now. He glances up, gray eyes flashing, and stares Vic down. “What about your mother?”
The energy in the room shifts completely, and Vic's beautiful mouth turns down in a frown.
“It makes sense. Ophelia participates in this little … shindig.” Oscar waves a tattooed finger around in a circle as he stalks across the room and grabs his iPad. He flips the lid open, unlocks it, and starts to do … whatever it is that he does. “She makes easy cash by hooking the Vincents up with buyers for the girls and then feeds some of that cash into the Charter Crew.” Oscar snaps his fingers like he's onto something. “Mitch would just lap up an opportunity like this.”
Victor leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees and waiting for Oscar to finish his mini-rant. Our boss—holy crap, my husband—seems skeptical, but open to this theory.
“I mean, I wouldn't put it past Mommy Dearest to try and fuck me in whatever ways she can, but this is a little far-fetched, don't you think? Bernie's list, the Kushners, the Vincents, Kali. It's all tied together?”
Oscar bites his thumb nail, his gray eyes slits behind the shine of his glasses.
“I'm missing something,” he says, sounding frustrated, like this isn't something that happens to him often.
Funny that, considering he royally fucked my feelings after we had sex. But whatever. I spin a slow circle on the stool and then pause. My eyes flick to Aaron. He's heard about David already, of course, but it's not an easy thing to bring up. He … waited for me. That's pretty romantic, don't you think? Anyway …
“David Benedict,” I say, exhaling sharply.
The Havoc Boys all stop what they're doing to stare at me.
“Your Brittany Burr?” Oscar queries, obviously trying to be an asshole, even during a critical discussion of Havoc business. I fucking can't stand him sometimes. “What about him?”
“He goes to Oak Valley Prep,” I say, standing up from the stool. A strange feeling cuts through me as the puzzle pieces in my mind start to slide together. “Do we know the name of Kali's Oak Valley Prep hookup?” I glance over at Oscar, and he nods, checking the screen of his iPad.
“Yes, of course. Mack Holdman.” Oscar looks back up at me in triumph, but when he finds me grinning, the expression fades away as quick as it came. “What? Are you aware of something that I'm not?”
“David Benedict is bisexual, and he's been fucking Mack on and off since freshman year.” My grin gets a little wider. “Yeah, I actually did have a bit of a conversation with David before I slept with him. You're welcome.”
“Jesus,” Aaron murmurs, his arm brushing up against mine. I swear, I can feel jealousy reverberating through him. “Even if that's true, what does that have to do with anything?” I glance over at Aaron, recalling the look on Kali's face when she saw us snuggled up close in the hallway together. Jealousy, pure and simple. She has always wanted what I have. For what reason, I can't say. My life hasn't exactly been a bed of roses. Not sure I'd wish my existence on my worst enemy.
Oh wait, never mind. I most definitely would.
“Kali was at the same party I was, the night I slept with David.” I swear, Aaron cringes when I say that and then scowls. “She saw me with him, probably saw us leave together. If I know her at all—and I know I do—then she'd probably try to figure out who he was and go after him.”