Only one way to find out …
“Inside,” Hael says, working his jaw briefly. “Okay.” He leans down and kisses my cheek with an affectionate ferocity that leaves me trembling slightly in my pj’s. Hael Harbin makes me feel safe, and excited about life, like we might do something crazy at any moment. Hold hands and dive into an ice-cold stream. Wake up at five in the morning to make pancakes. Pack an overnight bag and jump on an international flight. “Let’s go inside for a moment so you can get dressed? Then we’ll look at the car.”
I pull away from Hael just in time to see him lift a dark gaze and a scowl on the officers. They’re standing there, looking around the neighborhood and making notes on Sara’s phone. They even write down the license plate of the Eldorado which annoys the fuck out of me.
As Hael puts a hand on my lower back to guide me away, I catch a glimpse of said license plate, and my lips twitch. It’s a specialty plate featuring the infamous Crater Lake. Oh, and it’s personalized. Frankly, I’ve always thought of people who get personalized license plates as big fat douchebags, but …
“HAVOC?” I choke out, disbelieving the ability of the Havoc Boys to actually get such a thing printed on a license plate. At first, I wonder if that’s such a good idea, advertising my gang affiliation to the world. But then I remember that it’s motherfucking tatted on my knuckles, that you couldn’t miss the Havoc Boys if you tried. Besides, whenever we’re about to do something illegal, we just steal a different car to use during the crime.
“HAVOC,” Hael confirms as he guides me up the walk and inside, past a shirtless and still-smoking Victor. Vic closes the door behind Callum, flicks a lock, and then scoots over to peek through the curtains.
“So goddamn predictable,” he murmurs as I try to pry myself away from the spell Hael seems to have cast over me. “They’re putting a tracker on the Eldorado.”
“Before they even finished parking, Constantine hopped out and stuck one to the Bronco and the Firebird.” Hael pauses and gives Vic a grim sort of look that very clearly says apologies in advance. “They tagged your Harley, too.”
“Motherfucker,” Vic growls as I strip off my pj shirt right there in the dining room, flashing my tits to all three boys present and startling a fourth when Aaron comes down the steps and pauses in the foyer.
Dragging a white t-shirt over my head, I shake my hair out and pretend like my nipples aren’t so hard that they hurt. Or that they’re not showing through the fabric like two fresh pink roses—complete with thorns.
Aaron’s eyes catch on my breasts before he reluctantly drags his gaze up to my face, swiping a hand over his own and shaking his head at me. I just smirk right back at him.
“A tracker, huh?” I murmur, moving over to peek out the curtain beside Vic. “What do we do about that? Borrow cars to get around?”
“No,” Oscar says, also joining us from upstairs. “We’ll use the trackers against them. Guide them where we want them to go.” His razor-sharp mouth tilts up at one corner, and his eyes sparkle with all the ways we might fuck with the cops without actually committing any crimes. “It might be advantageous to do a few experiments, see if we can’t lose them, and if we do, how long until they catch up to us.”
“Which Bernie and I are very happily going to do as soon as they get the ever-loving fuck out of here,” Hael says, and this time, he just throws the curtains nearest him open, cigarette clenched between his teeth as he waves at the detectives with a tight smile on his full lips. “Not very subtle, are they?”
Aaron huffs as he slumps into a chair and then hops right back up as it creaks and groans beneath his bulk.
“Jesus,” he murmurs, shoving chestnut hair back from his forehead with clear annoyance. He could probably use a haircut. Not sure if I’m going to allow him to get one though. I sorta like his hair longer. “What need would they have to be subtle? We know they’re after us; they know we know.” He shrugs his big shoulders. “Anyway, Bernie.” Aaron turns that piercing gaze of his over to me, the colors of his irises a mesmerizing blend that the artistic side of me is dying to recreate with a brush or a colored pencil. Except, my talent lies in poetry, right?
Spring and summer, a twisted tide, a gaze of made up of green grass and the sunshine that falls across the blades.
Eh. Maybe I shouldn’t quit my day job as a gangster’s wife? Or … gangsters’ wife? Apostrophes make all the difference, don’t they?
“Yes, Aaron?” I ask as his eyes travel my body again, sliding across my breasts in just such a way that I shift a little under the intensity of it.
“Do you mind if I tag along?”
“Ooooh,” Hael howls, tossing his head back as he laughs. The cigarette flops out of his mouth and he curses as he drops his chin and bats at the still burning embers on his shirt. “You want to join us, do you, lover boy?” Hael continues to shake his shirt out as he chuckles at Aaron. “I hear you and Vic performed like pro-wrestlers in a tag-team match: all the faux fighting, all of the unnecessary drama, but damn good actors when it came time.”
“I meant on the drive, you fucking twat,” Aaron gripes back, flicking open the box of pink doughnuts on the table.
“Still can’t curse right,” Hael whistles, shaking his head. “Twat? You English or something? Say dickhead. Douchebag. Anything else.” He flashes a big white all-American grin on me before turning his attention to Callum. “But okay. You don’t want a three-way with me. What say you, buddy? Threesome?”
Cal chuckles darkly, crouching on the table despite the creaking sound it makes. He extracts a doughnut from the box and lifts it to that perfect mouth of his.
“I’d be down,” he says, shifting his attention over to Oscar. I praise his equanimity as he lifts his gray gaze to Cal’s blue one, as if he isn’t also thinking about threesomes. How could he not be? With all of us in agreement about the current state of our relationship, that opens up a hell of a lot of possibilities. Different combinations. I wonder if any of the guys has ever thought about touching another member of Havoc? “What about you, O?”
Oscar just stares back at Callum before shifting his gaze to mine and then dropping it right back to the screen of his iPad. I take his sudden, desperate silence to mean yes.
“Christ,” Vic murmurs, rolling his eyes as he gets a doughnut for himself, too. “Bunch of perverts. If you’re going out, do it now. We can’t be late to that funeral.” Victor gives me a look that says he knows how important Stacey and her legacy are to Prescott High. It would be seen as unbelievably rude and entirely anti-Prescott if he didn’t honor the passing of an alpha female from the southside.
“Let’s hit it, Blackbird,” Hael says, snatching the Eldorado keys off the table. He’s even added a lucky pink rabbit’s foot to the damn thing. “Slip into those buttery leather pants of yours and meet me outside.”
“On it,” I say, snatching a doughnut for myself as Aaron reaches out to grab my wrist.
“I’d do it,” he says as Hael gapes from behind him and then laughs some more. Doesn’t stop Aaron from saying what he wants to say. That’s just how he is: if he feels a certain way about something, he isn’t going to let it go. “Have a threesome … or whatever with you again. Anything. For the way we’ve treated you, it’s the least of what you deserve.”
Aaron releases my arm and takes off as Hael chortles with laughter and Callum snickers. He storms past them, flipping them off over his shoulder before he slips outside and slams the door behind him.
“And you?” I ask Oscar, because I already know what Vic would say. He’d do it, probably will do it, but isn’t a huge fan of sharing me. And that’s the way I like him, so I’m cool with it. “While you’re at it answering tough questions: when can I start calling you O? It’s cute; I like it.”
“Mm, let’s start with the second answer: never. It should be Mr. Montauk to you.” My turn to snort, but I at least get a tight smile out of him before he shakes his head and pushes his glasses up again. “We’ll see on the first.”
“Oh, come on, O, it’s not like you didn’t fuck me in a casket at the funeral home. That has to account for something?” I call as he takes off, heading for the stairs to, undoubtedly, put a suit on for the funeral.
Hael and Callum end up doubled over in laughter in the kitchen, and it occurs to me how fucked-up our life is … but also how much I love it.
And how I’d really and truly do anything I could to protect it.
Stacey Langford’s funeral is a wild, colorful affair, attended by girls in miniskirts and sequins, their faces painted in full Prescott glory. Lipstick colors with names like Sordid Affair and Cop Killer grace the mouths of some of the baddest bitches to ever set foot in the dump we call Prescott Senior High School.
Even Scarlett motherfucking Force is there.
I just stare at her two-toned hair from across the park, taking note of the three hulking dudes who seem glued to her side.
Another woman with a harem who just so happens to hail from the same shitbox high school as me. I’m impressed. Guess we breed ‘em strong in the southside, huh? Part of me wants to sidle over to her, ask her advice, see how it works in the real world when you’re dating and fucking and loving more than one man with a ferocity that frightens you
I rub at my temple with two fingers as Vera, Stacey’s second-in-command, moves over to stand beside me. Not six feet in front of me is the white casket with the pink lining that Oscar and I, uh, ‘picked out’ at the funeral home. The lid is closed on Stacey and her ruined face. Even now, standing on the lawn of Prescott Valley Cemetery, I can shut my eyes and see it all playing out in vibrant, punishing color.
“You Stacey Langford?”
“Who the fuck wants to—”
Bullet, brain, body slumping to the floor.