“We can do it,” Vic replies easily, no hesitation. I wonder if there are other assets to be liquidated? Or if Havoc, like always, is just good at playing on so many levels that they’ve got extra cash squirreled away in other places. “Twenty for you, twenty for your dad. All you have to do is get us a meeting in a public place and make sure he shows up.”

“Done,” David says, eagerness coloring his voice as he looks back at Mack in a way that says he’d do anything to stay here with his man. Hey, I get it. I’d do the same: attend this horrid prep school for Vic just so he can get his diploma. Love is never easy, is it? There’s a bit of a pause before he adds, “are you planning on killing him?”

“If we were …?” Aaron starts as Vic makes a choking laugh that causes goose bumps to rise on both of my arms.

“I’d say … karma?” David suggests, face darkening as I think about what Aaron told me, how David basically admitted to being abused by his father. And then Victor with Ophelia. Penelope and the Kushners via Pam and Neil. Everything is connected. My list, my revenge, my boys, this city. The world is nothing if not a dangerous web. Pluck the wrong strand and the spider finds you before you get a chance to untangle yourself. “Anyway, just … be cautious. Ophelia broke up with him and moved out last week. He’d been planning on marrying her, too, so … he’s a little salty.” David swallows a lump in his throat, letting me know that Tom’s idea of saltiness is a bit more extreme than some bitter remarks and a deep-set frown.

“Ophelia broke up with him, huh?” Vic asks, rubbing at his chin. “Interesting. That must mean she has a much better prospect in mind. Say, Maxwell Barrasso?”

“Oh, they’re fucking for sure,” Mack agrees, giving Vic an appreciative once-over and then flicking his eyes over to me as if to say just lookin’, girl. “Ophelia met Maxwell through Tom and it’s been downhill ever since.”

“Aw, poor baby,” Vic murmurs, lighting up another cigarette. “So, he’s broke and dumped both, huh? You think he’ll agree to meet with us—even with the risk of the GMP?”

“He’ll do it,” David says, eyeing me skeptically, like he wonders what the hell I’m up to with this crew. Or maybe he’s just wondering why he ever agreed to hook up with me, considering I’ve been a Havoc Girl in my heart all along. “He needs the money too badly to say no.”

Victor nods again and then digs a card out of his pocket that he passes over to David.

“He meets us here, or it’s no deal. He’s also got a three-minute window of time in which to show up. If he’s late, we’ll kill him. Understood?”

David nods at Vic’s harsh words, plastering his body against the wall as Mack strokes his arm in solidarity.

“Boys,” Vic says, nodding with his head in Trinity’s direction. “Wife?” Victor offers me his arm, and I take it, allowing him to lead me away from David and Mack and toward his faux fiancée—a spot that I once held before becoming his wife. But Trinity will be nothing near what I was to Victor. The closest she’ll ever come to him touching her is if he’s forced to wrap his hands around her throat.

Trinity stays where she is, watching us from beneath the leafless limbs of a maple tree, her arms crossed over the front of her jacket, her gold hair billowing in the breeze. Victor and I approach her together, like a couple. Like it always should’ve been. Her eyes spot the ring on my finger right away.

“Well, looks like you really are stupid enough to decline your mother’s offer.”

“Bitch, listen up,” I start, swinging right out the gate as Victor laughs beside me, his chuckles low and sensuous and dark. “We know about you and James. Namely, the fact that you and James are half-siblings through Maxwell Barrasso. Oh, and the fact that your shared lineage didn’t stop you from riding his dick.”

Trinity blinks at me, maintaining that ineffable calm of hers. According to Vic, she seemed pretty shaken up about James’ death. Looking at her now, you’d never know.

“Do you have a point?” she asks, rearing back slightly to look me over with a sneer building on her lips. It’s like … Trinity is Kali without the rachet, but with an extra helping of smug superiority. But where Kali had a rotten soul, at least she had one. Pretty sure Trinity Jade is an empty trinket on the inside. “Why are you even here?”

“We came here to enroll, of course,” Victor says, and I shiver in pleasure as Trinity’s face pales, going ashen beneath the pretty layer of makeup she’s caked on her doll-like features. “Oh? You seem shocked,” he continues, reaching out a single finger to lift her tie. There’s a cruelty to his movements, to the set of his gaze, that I’ve never seen directed at me. It’s the look that promises the Vic who strangled Logan Charter to death in the hallways of Prescott High still exists.

He’s very dangerous, Victor Channing is.

I reach up and take his arm, and he grins, standing up straight and shrugging his big shoulders. A master of control.

“Oak Valley has opened up a dozen spots for students from Prescott High, in a show of solidarity—a dozen scholarship spots. We’ve got a few … on-campus connections, so it looks like we’ll be starting next week.” Vic gets out a cigarette and lights up, his gaze sliding over to me. “And by we, I mean me and my wife. My boys.” He flicks his attention back to Trinity as she stands there clutching her leather book bag and struggling to keep her expression placid.

“You’ll be dead before you can set foot in your first class,” Trinity deadpans, not bothering to hide the menace in her words. “Maxwell will see to that, after what you did to James.” Her face cracks for the briefest of moments, and I smile. I wonder if she’d like to know how her brother met his end? On the floor of my cheap, dirty high school with a rock to the head. No eyes. And blood. So, so much blood.

“No,” Vic says, chuckling and shaking his head as the tree branch above Trinity’s head creaks and she looks up to see Cal crouching there, staring down at her. Victor takes another step forward, grabbing the end of Trinity’s tie and twirling it around her neck like a noose. He tugs the end of it and grins. “Because you’re going to go back to Ophelia and tell her that our engagement is still on. You’re going to get that judge grandfather of yours to promise that the annulment is complete.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she retorts, her eyes blazing. I can’t decide if she’s just pissed off or pissed off and turned-on. I know where I stand as I reach out and snag the loose cig dangling from Vic’s lips. I smoke it while he leans in toward Trinity and puts his forehead so close to hers that she squeezes her eyes shut.

“You should be. Every person in our crew knows about you and James. If you want to keep rich daddy Jade from discovering that you aren’t his brat, that your mom is a whore, and that you’ve got no part of his pretty royal blood … Well, then, that’s your choice.” Vic releases her tie suddenly and stands up.

Trinity’s eyes trail over to me, meeting my green gaze with a dark one of her own.

“Do it, Trinity Jade,” Vic continues, cupping the side of her face in a way that makes me shift with jealousy, leather pants creaking as I pop out a hip and stare Trinity down. “We don’t want to have to kill you.” He taps her cheek and steps back, nodding over at Oscar briefly. “Let Maxwell know that if he doesn’t reaccept Ophelia’s original offer, we’ll start dismantling his organization from the top down.”