“The move is too soon,” Oscar says, wearing a black-on-black-on-black suit jacket, shirt, and tie. He looks like he’s on his way to a funeral and I don’t hate that. Not at all. “Hold off another two or three weeks. I know you’re excited about this fantasy of playing homemaker with Bernadette, but it’ll have to wait.”
“I swear to god, I only have so much patience in me, Oscar,” Aaron growls back, and Vic laughs. Of course, he does. He thinks this shit is funny. I’m afraid it’s going to tear us apart.
“Stop being a dick, Oscar,” he barks out, straddling his Harley and waiting for me to join him. “Let’s survive until the New Year and then worry about that shit; we can just buy Bernie and Heather new clothes until we get a chance to raid the duplex.” Aaron scowls at his boss, but I appreciate the concern. I know he’s being considerate in a way none of the others have thought of. Aaron knows I don’t care about my clothes; I care about Penelope’s shit, stuffed in boxes and hidden in the attic.
Victor kicks the engine to life and off we go, with the Bronco and Camaro close behind us. After a few blocks, the Bronco peels off, heading for Kara and Ashley’s school. We hook a left and Victor takes me to Heather’s school for the first time ever, waiting on the bike while I fetch my sister and get her situated in the Camaro.
Once the girls are dropped off at Jennifer Lowell’s place—safer than leaving them at Aaron’s at this point—we head for the garage. I’m pretty sure the guys don’t actually own this piece of property, not legally anyway, but I haven’t asked. That’s more Oscar’s problem than it is mine.
“Here ya go, boss,” a kid in a skeleton mask says, dropping some keys into Vic’s palm as soon as we climb off the bike. The boy then grabs a bicycle from the rack outside and takes off. It’s one of the few times I’ve seen a member of Havoc’s crew actually talk to one of us.
“What are those keys for?” I ask, but Vic just grins and gestures with his chin while the other boys pull into the driveway behind us. There’s a blacked-out SUV on the driveway, an Escalade actually. Probably stolen. Victor presses the button and unlocks the vehicle, using a rag to open the rear passenger door and revealing a half-dozen guns on the seats, along with a box of gloves. He snaps a pair on and then lifts one of the pistols up, pulling back the slide to cock it.
“The Charter Crew kept nearly a dozen of our guys locked up for the past ten days and just now let nine of them go.” Victor hands me the box of gloves, and I guess without even asking that I’m meant to put a pair on. Once I do, he hands me the gun. “Do you know how to shoot?” he asks, and I shrug.
“I’ve been to the shooting range a few times with the Thing,” I say, thinking of the way the step-thing looked me dead in the eye before pulling the trigger of his gun. He could hit the bullseye without even glancing at it. “If you piss me off too much, girl …” I shake the memory off. “Sure, yeah, I can shoot,” I correct, hefting the weapon in my hands. “What do you mean they let nine of them go?”
“One of our boys is dead,” Callum says, appearing behind me and reaching past me and Vic for the gloves. “They left him at Oscar’s place. Luckily, we found him before …” Cal pauses, like he’s reconsidering his words. “Anyone else did.”
Oscar’s entire past, his present, fuck, even his future … all mysteries to me. Where did he come from? Who is he? What does he want?
Oscar opens the door on the opposite side of the SUV, using a cloth to keep his fingerprints off the surface the way Vic did. He stares at me from the other side of the seat, yanking the gloves on like he’s performing live or something. I can’t look away. It’s an entire show, slowly dragging the black latex down each, individual finger, obscuring all that ink of his. He picks up one of the guns and examines it.
“These are fantastic,” he murmurs, nodding once before putting the pistol back on the seat. Aaron and Hael hang back slightly, smoking and talking low enough that we can’t quite hear what they’re saying. When I look back at them, I find them both staring at me.
“Why did they let any of our guys go?” I ask, truly curious. Victor glances my way and lets an evil smirk work its way across his lush mouth.
“There’s a reason I like to employ high school kids, and it’s not just because we have class together.” Vic tosses the gun on the seat and then removes his gloves, stepping away from the SUV. I’m not sure what we’re doing with it, but if there are six guns, and six of us … then it’s something awful, I’m sure. “If you kill ten high school kids, people start to pay attention. Authorities send in the big guns. It’s why the Charter Crew is such an annoying problem to deal with, too. Any other rival gang and we’d just fucking kill everyone.”
Victor Channing, the boy I’ve loved since I was eight years old, stands right there in the sunshine while I wear his wedding ring and tells me that under ‘normal circumstances’ Havoc would just murder their problems away.
“Makes sense,” I say, putting the gun he gave me back in the SUV. Victor grins at me, like I’ve just met his dark approval and leans down to kiss me on the mouth. My fingers curl in the front of his t-shirt and my eyes close as the heat of his lips takes over me. When Hael told me he’d follow Victor into hell … He wasn’t wrong. I’d do the same.
“Run along and make nice with your other boyfriends,” Victor purrs, slapping me on the ass. But when I roll my eyes and start to move away, he grabs me by the chin and holds me in place so he can look straight at me. “No fucking around with them.” I tear my face away and scowl at him, but he just smirks back at me. “Not yet,” he adds which mollifies me, but only a little.
I end up wandering into the garage to find Aaron and Hael gossiping in low tones yet again. As soon as they see me coming, they stop and turn to watch me. Aaron’s gold-green gaze and Hael’s honey-brown one both track me from head to toe. I can’t say I’m displeased with the attention.
“Are we … going to do a drive-by?” I ask, because if you put guns plus stolen car plus gang war then … well, what does that equal? Hael shrugs, but Aaron nods.
“Yep,” he says, his voice sad and far-away as he looks at me.
“Nantucket,” I reply, without skipping a beat, and he smiles. I’m so tempted to tangle my fingers in his chestnut hair, tease the waviness with my fingers. Until Oscar said what he said earlier, it didn’t really occur to me that Aaron and I are moving in together. Like, for real. Like we always dreamed. Me, and him, and the girls … and probably the other Havoc Boys most of the time, too. It seems like they only go home to check on whatever family they have left. That, or in Vic’s case, to meet a contractual obligation.
The truth of the matter is: everyone really only lives with Aaron.
“Nan-motherfucking-tucket,” Aaron sighs, slipping a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offering one up to me. “Now that you’re here, we should just … like, enjoy all the sins together, huh?” He lights up his own cigarette and then cherry-fucks mine until it’s burning. We smile at each other.
“Well, you know,” Hael purrs, leaning in close and smirking at me. “Only if Daddy Vic says it’s okay.” He leans back as soon as he sees Victor coming, trying to keep his expression neutral.
“The fuck are you gossiping about in here?” Vic asks, and Hael just shrugs. Victor snorts, takes a drag on his cigarette, and then gestures with his chin in the direction of an open office door. “We got about”—he checks his phone, smoke still hanging from his lips and dangling around as he talks—“an hour until sunset. Come here, Bern.” Victor shows me into the office and then slams the door behind us.
His flint-like eyes spark with interest, and I know before he says a single word or makes a single move what his purpose is for bringing me in here. My breath hitches as Vic and I stare each other down, my gaze sweeping his muscular arms and their blanket of ink, trailing down his long legs to his boots. When I lift my attention to his face, he pushes back his dark purple hair and smirks at me.
I’m sure he can tell by the look I give him that I know what he’s up to; he isn’t a very subtle motherfucker, now is he?
Vic doesn’t waste any time in undoing his pants.
“Victor Channing,” I warn when he starts stalking toward me. He grins and pulls the cigarette from his lips with two fingers, offering it up to me. “What are we doing in here?” I don’t need to ask, but it’s all part of the game, now isn’t it?
“Quick fuck before we go,” he assures me. “Super quick.” He pauses for a moment and looks me over again, like he’s considering something. “You taking those birth control pills that Oscar gave you?”
I glare at him.
“Is it your business?” I query back, and he grins at me in just such a way that I lose my mental faculties for a moment. “Just because you’re my husband—”
“Maybe I deserve to know because I’m your boss?” he presses, watching me inhale two lungfuls of nicotine before I pass the cigarette back.
“You’d love it if I weren’t taking those pills.”
Victor smokes the cigarette for a moment, the button on his pants undone, but the zipper still up. He thinks for a minute and then shrugs.
“I mean, not gonna lie about that.” He looks me straight in the face and smiles like the asshole he is. “You know I’m just dying to get you pregnant.” Victor flicks the cigarette into a metal ashtray and closes the distance between us, slamming his palms on the wall on either side of me. “But I really don’t want any other acronym in our name taking what’s rightfully mine.”
“What are you talking about?” I stammer, feeling my body flush with righteous anger. I wonder if Victor knows that Hael and I jacked-off together? I should probably tell him, if not. “Don’t be such a dick all the time; you get more flies with honey.”