But it was nice, like taking a trip while I was confined to a bed.

I have a feeling Breonna and I will be friends for a long while.

Well, her and Vera—which isn’t a surprise—and maybe even Sara Young.

We’ve had a lot of time to spend together, with all the questioning and shit she put me through as soon as I well enough to answer. Still, whatever happened on campus that day, it was undeniably in self-defense. You can’t attack a bunch of high school kids with assault rifles and not find fault in their attackers. Still, in order to get out of any charges for our own illegal weapons, we had to offer her affidavits to use in court about what, exactly, transpired from the time Heather went missing to the time I was shot.

Regardless, I can’t be mad at Sara Young. She’s brought charges against Neil’s father and brother and against all the rich, entitled assholes involved in either the trafficking ring or the money laundering through Trinity’s mother’s foundation.

Trinity … All I know is that her father kicked her mother out of the house. For now, Trinity is still living with him, but I’ve heard rumors that she’s no longer in his will. Gossip still travels well through Springfield. Doesn’t matter if it originates in Fuller or Prescott or one of the Oak neighborhoods; we always know and we always hear. Because we are Havoc, and this fucking town belongs to us.

“Between Brittany and my dad,” Hael breathes, but we both know how Brittany’s life is going. As in, not well. Rich Pratt took a scholarship opportunity in Florida, so he’s long-gone. And Britt had to explain to daddy Forrest that she had more than one potential baby daddy. Her friend Jennifer—via Vera’s grapevine of social networking—told us that she’s started working in her mother’s bookstore in downtown Fuller. Maybe being surrounded by all those words and all those worlds will make some sort of difference in her life? Either way, not our problem.

“We could just as easily say between Ophelia and Pamela … Hael, family takes turns cleaning up each other’s messes. That’s what we do. We belong to each other, so your problems are my problems, and my—”

Hael turns my head toward him and kisses me from over my shoulder, leaving me breathless and wanting, the way the boys always do. We’re insatiable, wild, little heathens with weekly bacchanalian affairs. Once we move into this house—and away from the sometimes too-watchful eye of Marie who’s been staying with us—they’ll probably be more like every other day affairs. Or maybe every day, at least for a while.

We kiss until the other boys join us, fanning out around the fire in the front yard of the old Gothic house, the one that Ruby cherished, the one that she left to her daughter because even when she knew that Ophelia was a snake, she couldn’t resist trying to take care of her one last time.

Aaron and Oscar take a seat on the old bench we dragged across the lawn while Cal crouches on a rock. Hael and I stay where we are while Victor presides over us like an alpha wolf regarding his pack.

“There’s a letter,” he says, showing us the envelope that his lawyer handed him during our meeting on Monday. He hasn’t touched it since, but it’s been sitting there on the table for days, brooding and silent and holding all its careful secrets inside of pressed floral paper. “I should probably read it.”

He stares at it like he’d rather just throw it in the fire and watch it burn, but his curiosity gets the better of him and he finally opens it up. The page unfolds in his hands and then Victor gets caught reading his Grandmother Ruby’s words.

“Victor,” he begins, as my skin ripples with chills and I think of Penelope’s last letter to me, the one that she left in her journal and that Sara Young gave to me even though she didn’t have to. I’ve read it so many times that even though it’s tear-stained now, I can still remember exactly what it said. Besides, I took about a hundred pictures of it with my phone and uploaded it to the cloud first, just in case. “We are not always given the things we want. Oftentimes we are not even given the things we need. Your mother was given everything she ever wanted, needed, craved, desired, coveted, or lusted after.

“I don’t know if that’s why she turned into a person I no longer recognized, one that seemed to forget how to feel or care or cherish. But that’s why I’m doing this, why I’m leaving everything to you.

“But only on these conditions.

“I want you to learn to persevere. I want you to learn—period. I want you to stay true. I want you to be honest. Mostly, I want you to learn to love. Because love is the most powerful force in the known universe. It defies logic, and it makes fools out of us all, but it also gives us a reason to keep going, even when everything is dark and the world feels like it’s caving in.

“I love you, Victor, and this is why I’m leaving you the world.”

Victor stops reading and then drops the letter by his side.

Hael releases me then, so I can go to Vic, and he takes me into his strong arms and holds me close, so tightly that I know he’s feeling every emotion in the book, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

“The world …” he says after a long moment, breathing into my hair. Victor pushes me back slightly so that he can take my face between his big hands and kiss me until I forget that I’m human, until I become nothing but a spirit and a heart and a well of emotion that soars and tumbles. “She left me the world.” He looks into my face and then lifts his gaze up to study the boys—his boys, our boys—before turning his attention back to me. “And now I’m giving it to you.”

I know he means the money and the opportunities and control of the very city we all love to hate and hate to love.

But in his ebon eyes—yes, Mr. Darkwood lived, okay?—that’s where I really see it.

The world.

“I’m giving it to you,” he repeats, and then he kisses me, and I know without a doubt that he doesn’t just mean me. He means all of us. The six of us.

Havoc.

One year later …

The air is poisoned with white dust. It floats everywhere as we make our way through the main floor of the house.

Now, with Victor’s inheritance money in hand, we’re knee-deep in the middle of a renovation that’s just now nearing its zenith. To be fair, the place was a goddamn mess. There were holes in the ceiling, and pieces of the flooring missing, drywall covered in rot, and a fireplace with the stones tumbling out. The kitchen was nonexistent, the bathrooms were holes where toilets and sinks and showers used to be (which is a serious fucking shame because Oscar told us this place had all original fixtures until Ophelia sold off all the parts).

But now?

It seems almost impossible to remember that Eric and Todd Kushner were murdered here. Actually, I can only remember it when I’m stoned and the light falls in the upstairs bedroom just right and even then, it doesn’t matter because they were fucking pedos, so their death is nothing but a blessing for the world.

Mostly, I remember getting married here in an expensive-as-fuck black Lazaro gown that still hangs in the closet at Aaron’s place. Seeing as his mother still technically owns the house, and she’s nowhere to be found, we can’t sell it. We can, however, keep making the mortgage payments and letting Marie live there until we find her to buy it.