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.

I bite my lower lip, tasting the sweet waxiness of a lipstick color called Honey Buns. It quite literally tastes like beeswax and soft summer afternoons spent by the creek.

“Fucking tragic, isn’t it?” Vera asks, her shaved red hair buzzed into a series of designs, one of which just so happens to be a capital ‘S’. The way her makeup and nails are done reminds me of last year’s winter formal, when she got busted stealing a dress and ended up attending the dance in her ragged-ass PE uniform.

I force a tight smile.

“I’m going to make it right, I promise,” I tell Vera, standing in an empty half-circle near the front of the crowd. Nobody dares jostles me or touches me, not with my boys slinking through the gathered mourners, taking note of the attendees, looking for anyone who doesn’t belong. Of course, there are two very obvious standouts in this group: Sara Young and John Constantine.

They stand across from me, on the other side of a very deep hole, just past the gleaming surface of a casket that I fucked my boyfriend in. Some might call that disrespect, but I’m pretty sure Stacey Langford would approve.

“Hope you know what you’re doing,” Vera tells me, pale eyes following my train of thought to the uptight federal agents and their prying eyes. “Bringing pigs to a Prescott funeral.”

I let my attention shift from the VGTF officers and back to Vera.

“Sara, at least, isn’t a bad person. Some part of her genuinely wants to help. I’m just … letting her see a different side of Prescott.” I shrug my shoulders, like this is no big fucking deal. In reality, it’s a huge one. Because despite everything, despite all my bullshit and my bravado, I still want to believe that there’s good in the world and that Sara Young might—might—be a small part of that.