“No, mother,” Vic says, reaching out to touch her necklace. His flint-like eyes move up to her face. It’s fascinating to see the two of them nose-to-nose like this. Makes me realize how strong his mother’s side of the gene pool is. Likely, if we had a kid, they’d look just like the two of them. “This is a beautiful necklace. I guess you brought it as a wedding gift? You know, since you didn’t get me and Bernie shit.”
“You call that a wedding?” Ophelia chokes out with another laugh, this one much more caustic. “At that termite-infested nightmare of a house?” She reaches up as if to push the blade away, but Aaron presses the knife in harder, turning the ruby pearl into a stream that slithers down the front of her neck.
With slow, careful movements, Victor removes the necklace from his mother’s throat and then turns to me. He kisses the shell of my ear as that musk and amber smell of his curls around me like smoke.
“I’m going to give you the world,” he promises, fastening the necklace and then stepping back so suddenly that I’m left feeling dizzy and breathless. Vic turns to Aaron and nods. “You can drop the knife,” he says, and, with some great reluctance, Aaron does.
Ophelia touches manicured mauve nails to her throat and pulls them away to stare down at the bloodstains on her fingertips.
The house is silent, but for the faintest echo of a movie coming from upstairs.
“So,” Victor begins, taking my hand in his and sliding his thumb across his grandmother’s ring in the laziest, most sensual sort of way. Even with Callum, Hael, and Oscar positioned around the room with guns, with Ophelia’s black eyes staring at me, with Aaron’s tired-looking frown, I’m excited by it. Pretty sure that’s Vic’s intention, anyway. “Mommy dearest, we both know you can’t really have me killed—despite my jokes to the contrary.” Victor looks down at me with a soft expression on his face. If it actually reached his eyes, it might be cute. “If I die before receiving my inheritance, the whole pot goes to charity.”
My brows go up as I look toward Ophelia. For someone bleeding by the neck, she looks remarkably regal in her satin gown.
“So … to lose the money to your mother, you have to fail to graduate or move out of your dad’s place then?” I ask and Vic grins.
“Or get divorced,” he adds, and then he throws back his head and laughs.
“Or commit a felony,” Ophelia adds, crossing her arms under her breasts and looking around the room at the other Havoc Boys. “Which I’m fairly certain you’ve just done. Tom, finish your drink and let’s go.”
Aaron moves forward with the knife, but Victor waves him away.
“Tit for tat, Mommy. You’re apparently involved in a child sex-trafficking ring.” Victor runs his fingertips over the necklace on my throat and steps back. He tucks his tattooed fingers in his pockets as Ophelia stares at him with a face as cold and impassive as Oscar’s. My eyes flick over to the man in question, but he just seems bored with the whole scenario.
As if he can sense me looking at him, Oscar’s gray eyes find mine and we end up staring at each other. Does he remember being inside of me? Does he know how deep he cut me by running away? Instead of getting pissed off at everything, I need to learn to listen to my emotions.
Oscar’s attitude is making me sad.
So fucking sad.
I’ve been voiceless for so long that when I realized I could speak out, I went in the opposite direction. Every little thing out of my mouth has been dripping vitriol and rage. After all, I have a lot to hate these boys for. I can’t see inside their heads; I’m not a mind reader. I need to open up a dialogue with them.
I look back at Ophelia.
“All your fancy friends, too, I’ll bet,” I say, letting that vitriol and hate I was just talking about spill across my mouth. Why direct it at the guys when I have other targets? “You won’t say anything about this. You’ll leave this house and start a new plot against Victor. Why don’t you go now and start planning? You’re fucking up our honeymoon.” I let my smile turn into a white-toothed grin. Like husband, like wife. “Thanks for the necklace, by the way. It’s lovely.”
Ophelia smiles at me, the expression a match for mine. She hates her son almost as much as I love him. I say almost because there is no touching this toxically beautiful thing that Victor and I have.
“We have an entire year to play games with each other,” Ophelia purrs, leaning in close enough that I can smell her perfume, like coffee, vanilla, and white flowers. Some expensive fragrance, no doubt. “I’m looking forward to it.” She quite literally snaps her fingers as she stands up and Tom stumbles to do her bidding, shoving his empty glass back in Coraleigh’s hands as he scrambles to keep up. “Come along, David.”
David—one of the only two guys outside of Havoc that I ever slept with—shoves up to his feet, casting me one, last, strange look on his way out the door.
“What the hell was that about?” Hael asks, pointing between the front door and my face. I glance back at him, trying to school my expression, but I must be a terrible poker player because he narrows his brown eyes on me. A bit of jealousy sours his expression, but I don’t … dislike it. Is that wrong?
Even if it is, I don’t give a shit.
“Bernadette fucked that guy,” Victor says, lighting up a cigarette and giving me an inscrutable sort of look. “That sweet cunt of yours better not get us into trouble the way Hael’s dick has, or I swear to god, I’m off to Fiji and I’m never coming back.” He gestures in Coraleigh’s direction with his head. “Callum, let her use the bathroom and then tie her up again. We’re going to stay the weekend.”
Victor Channing is a dark, masculine god. I don’t think there’s a straight woman on this earth who wouldn’t look at him and feel the need to worship at least some aspect of his body. His personality, on the other hand, might leave something to be desired.
“Want to tell me about David?” he asks, shirtless and gorgeous and looking over his shoulder at me with a cruel, possessive twinkle in his obsidian gaze.
“David,” I start, sitting on the edge of a king-sized bed in one of the five motherfucking guest bedrooms in this monstrous house. We’ve left the Vincents their room to spend the night in. I mean, they’re tied up, but at least they’re in their own bed, right? “I met him at a Prescott party, and we hooked up one time.”
Victor turns fully around to look at me, tossing his shirt on the floor next to his suitcase. We sent Callum and Hael to grab our things from the hotel; we’re officially moved into the Vincents’ mansion now. At first, the thought made me nervous. What happens if we get caught here? But then I remembered that there’s a little girl named Alyssa in the other room who was about to be sold to perverts. We have too much dirt on the Vincents for them to do anything at all.
“Did you use a condom?” Victor asks, and I swear to fuck, I almost blow a gasket. The look I give him is pure fire, but he doesn’t back down. He just stands there, shirtless and inked-up and glorious and stares at me as I comb the beach tangles from my wet hair.
“Yes, asshole. I used a condom. Believe it or not, I never made a habit out of not using condoms until I became a Havoc Girl.” My stomach clenches at my own idiocy as of late. Aaron, of course, was a perfect gentleman and made the condom thing work. But Oscar and Victor and … even Hael.
“You don’t forget unless you really like a girl.” Hael said that to me once, in the Hellhole, that goth shop in downtown Springfield. And he did just that, on the hood of his Camaro, the car he doesn’t let anyone touch unless they’re a part of Havoc.
Hmm.
My face flushes and I look down at my lap. I’ve been taking those stupid birth control pills that Oscar mysteriously procured—or more likely had Callum steal for him—so at least there’s that.
My hand stills on the brush as Victor comes over to stand in front of me, grasping my chin in his fingers and lifting my face up to look at him. The connection between us pulses and throbs like a live thing, making my chest hurt. Does he know how much he means to me? Even if he says his love is selfish, even if he is a jealous prick.
I lick my lips as he leans down and breathes me in.
“You smell so damn good,” he murmurs, and I have to close my eyes to hold back the rush of emotion in my chest. “I could eat you up, Bernadette, consume every last bite.” Victor licks the side of my face and the brush falls from my hand, clattering across the floor.
Fuck, shit, damn it.
“Stop it,” I admonish, but there’s no heat to my words.
“No.” He grips my chin even harder, and I open my eyes to meet his beautiful ebon ones. “These pieces of shit wasted nearly half a day of my time; I’m going to make up for that now.”
I almost open my mouth to protest, but then … why bother? Aaron has the girls under control. Between Cal, Oscar, and Hael, they can watch the Vincents.
“It was a nice wedding present,” I say instead, and he smiles. Even with a bit of true mirth coloring his eyes, it’s really more of a smirk. “I mean, between the Vincents and the Thing …” I trail off as Victor chuckles.
“Violence and sex, I can offer you either of those things in droves,” he tells me, releasing my chin and then stepping back to flick the light. We’re plunged into darkness, but it doesn’t really matter because we live there in our souls anyway. That’s me and Vic, just two crows in a murder of black feathers and sharp beaks. “And love. Those things are infinite.”
“You’re an ass,” I sputter, because it’s all I’ve got. My cheeks are flushed and my heart pounds. “But I love you anyway.”
“Why?” Vic asks, moving through the shadows to grab something. It’s my dress, my beautiful, black wedding gown, that he takes off the hanger and brings over to me. He offers it up, but it takes me a second to grab it because I’m struggling for the right words.