Fan-fucking-tastic.

I take another drag on the joint and attempt to avoid staring at Cal’s tight ass.

“Oh, don’t worry about asking for dick, princess. You’ll get plenty of it.” Vic lights up a cigarette and smirks at me. “If I were you, I’d be asking for get out of jail free cards instead.”

I flip him off, but my mind is already spinning with possibilities.

Ophelia made a deal with Trinity—likely by blackmailing her about being a brother-fucker—to marry Vic. This would, if she could pull it off, effectively give her a portion of the inheritance. She clearly has some connection with the GMP as well, likely also in regard to her mother’s money. So why send goons after us if they were already winning?

“They weren’t there to hurt Vic,” I muse, thinking on it for a moment as I taste the bitter tang of marijuana smoke on my tongue. The THC tingles as I pull in another hit, savoring the fruity flavor of it. Swear to fuck, whatever the strain of weed is, be it Pineapple Express or Pink Cookies or what the hell ever, it tastes exactly the way it’s named. “The GMP, I mean. I bet they were going to leave Victor alive.”

“You think they just wanted to clean house?” Vic clarifies, and I nod, struggling to find all the pieces and put them together in some kind of order that makes sense. In order to fight an enemy that’s stronger than you, you have to understand them. Subterfuge over brute strength.

And this, this is why Havoc needed a Havoc Girl.

I look over at Vic and see that he’s waiting with his cigarette halfway to his mouth, like he actually cares what I have to say. I appreciate that. When he put that crown on my head, he wasn’t just posturing. He meant the gesture with the entirety of his inky black heart.

“Ophelia would never let them kill you because the money then defaults to charity, yes?” Vic gives a curt nod, and it occurs to me that his grandmother must’ve really seen something awful in her daughter to think up a stipulation like that. Likely, the reason she wanted him to live with his alcoholic father was to keep him away from Ophelia as well. Because even a drunk is better than a devil. “And they didn’t kill me when they had the chance either. There’s something to that.”

I remember James’ rage when he finally caught up to me. “Find the little bitch and put a bullet in her. I’m done playing games.” The question is: what game, exactly, were they playing to begin with?

Victor just stares back at me as Cal shuts the water off and I scramble to get him a towel. He takes it and then throws an arm around my shoulders to keep himself upright while he dries off, getting me wet in the process—just not in the way I’d normally like.

A rush of hot heat between my thighs is not the welcoming signal that it usually is. I look down to find blood on my shorts. Again.

“Bernadette Channing,” Vic warns, and I close my eyes for a moment against the penetrating depth of his stare.

Motherfucker.

I can’t hold onto this any longer, so I just … don’t.

I open my eyes.

“The hospital called to tell me I was pregnant,” I say, and I swear on the devil’s tits, you could hear a pin drop in that bathroom. Hael glances back at me from his place in the hallway as Aaron offers up a melancholic but encouraging smile from behind him. “Also … I’m … not pregnant anymore.” I gesture at my bloodied shorts for emphasis, forcing myself to meet Vic’s gaze.

“What?” Victor’s voice is so sharp that I almost cringe at the sound of it. Instead, I just keep staring down those obsidian eyes of his, watching as he tries to keep control of his temper and almost fails. Vic. The master of control. He’s fucking seething.

“Do we need to go to the hospital?” Oscar asks, his voice strangely calm, almost inflectionless. His emotions are locked away in a vault right now.

Hael, on the other hand, has braced his palm against the wall and is currently bent over, eyes squeezed shut. When he lifts his head and stares at me over Oscar’s shoulder, I feel a wave of exhaustion crash over me. I need sleep. Desperately so.

“No,” I say, because I’m not totally ignorant. Once, in tenth grade—just before she called Havoc on me, coincidentally—Kali thought she might be having a miscarriage. She’d slept with this boy, ugh, what was his name? That’s right Clarence. I remember thinking that no kid born after 1945 would be named Clarence. Anyway, she thought she was pregnant, and then she thought she was having a miscarriage. We looked it up. “There’s nothing they can do.”

“Bernie,” Vic says, his tone a warning. It’s thick with fear and upset and possessiveness. In short, it’s perfect. I ignore him, leaning down to flick open the lid of the toilet and then dropping my shorts as if I were Callum, as if I don’t care that all five of them are staring at me in that way of theirs, like I’m the only thing in the world that matters.

I sit down on the toilet and then take the cup out, turning the water ruby red. It’s a little weird that they’re all still watching me, but I don’t care. This is life. If we’re going to be together, they may as well see every facet of it, even the less pretty parts.

“Don’t,” I growl out, but Vic just raises an eyebrow at me.

“Don’t what?” he snaps, gritting his teeth and then exhaling sharply. He flicks his cigarette into the sink as Hael crowds between him and Oscar so that he can stand directly in front of me. Aaron moves up to fill the gap, and then they’re all just there, inches away from me in the relatively small space of the bathroom.

“Don’t get all overprotective and weird. These things happen.” I try to rinse the cup in the sink and Vic takes it from me, washing it himself. I’m surprised, I’ll admit. Guess there’s more to him than just a primitive caveman asshole, huh?

“Are you fucking kidding me, wife?” Vic asks as he hands the cup back to me. “That’s all that we do—get overprotective and weird.” He laughs, but the sound is hideous. Somebody—probably a lot of somebodies—are going to die for this. “It’s what Havoc was literally made for. So, you might be queen, but this is not an order I’m going to take.”

They all continue to stare at me, pants-less and vulnerable on the toilet, bleeding everywhere. Again. Always bleeding. Be it metaphorical or physical, that’s just my life.

“The GMP beat our baby out of my wife,” Victor says, and his voice is strange and dark and detached. He exchanges a look with Callum, and I swear to god, I can smell it in the air: the promise of vengeance.

And oh, how I recognize that scent better than any other.

“Shot up our school,” Aaron adds, but his voice cracks, and I know he’s struggling to give me space.

“Encroached on our turf,” Hael adds, his brown eyes meeting mine as I lean against the back of the toilet. The cramps are next fucking level, but I can deal with it. Because I’m a woman and everyone knows that women are magical goddesses with the pain tolerance of titans. Pluck a man’s eyebrow hair and he screams in agony. Women deliver people through their vaginas.

Get on our level, bitches.

“Made a deal with Ophelia.” Oscar pushes his glasses up his nose, but he isn’t smirking or sneering at me this time. Instead, he looks reserved, like he isn’t sure how to behave right now. I don’t blame him: emotional intimacy is terrifying. It’s the scariest thing there is because once you show your soft side to someone, they know exactly how to hurt you.