Hael and Callum reappear from the direction of another hallway, directly opposite the one where Aaron’s reemerging from.

“All good on our side,” Hael confirms and Aaron nods in agreement.

“Same.”

And then Oscar turns around and we’re all just sort of standing there in a loose circle looking at each other.

“Oh come on,” Vic says, pushing up from his position against the window with a grin. He throws an arm around my shoulders in a way that should be entirely companionable but comes across as possessive and needy instead. Fantasies of being fucked against the glass of these windows, butt naked and looking over the campus as the boys take turns on me, fills my head and makes it suddenly hard to breathe.

Oh, even better if I were dressed in my uniform, my pleated skirt bunched up around my hips …

“Don’t act like somebody fucking died,” Vic continues, pressing a scalding kiss to the side of my head that does nothing to dry the sudden rush of hot heat between my thighs. “We’re living in a luxury apartment on the eleventh floor. We’ve got round the clock security; the girls are safe. Mason is dead.” Victor pauses at the sound of his phone buzzing, glancing down at the screen with a wry smile on his lips.

“Ophelia?” Oscar guesses, crossing his arms over his chest. Seeing him in the Oak Valley Prep uniform won’t be much different than seeing him in his usual suits but for the color. Seeing any of the others in a jacket and tie … that’s going to rock my world. At first, I’ll probably hate it, then I’ll probably get off on it, and then … who knows?

“Ophelia,” Vic confirms, answering the call and putting it on speaker at the same moment. “Mother.”

“You wicked little monster,” she hisses and while I would normally say something like that and mean it as a compliment, I’m fairly certain Ophelia Mars intends for it to be an insult. “Mason Miller? Inside the club of all places? Now, how on earth did you manage to pull that one off?”

Vic sits down on the larger sofa, putting his phone on the coffee table in a strange déjà vu moment where I think of him sitting in Aaron’s living room, talking to Mitch Charter in this same manner. Full circle, baby. But trying to compare Ophelia and Mitch is laughable—they’re not even in the same league.

“Mason Miller?” Vic queries, and then he laughs as his mother huffs an exasperated sigh. Meanwhile, Hael wanders over to the fridge—carefully disguised as one of the cabinets—and opens it, searching for something to eat. It’s empty, obviously, and he shuts it with a pained sigh. “Oh, that’s right. That pervert we killed on Friday. Tell me: at anytime while you were riding Maxwell Barrasso’s dick, did you not consider that we were going to retaliate for what happened at our school?”

“Your message was received loud and clear.” Ophelia pauses here, and I swear, I can hear the sound of her pacing in high heels. “Tom is dead.”

“Not by our hand,” Victor says, leaning back in his seat as I drop down next to him, Cal perches on the arm, and Hael and Aaron accept piles of garment bags that Oscar hands over to them. “That was Mason’s doing. Are you terribly upset? Oh, wait, you have no heart. That’s a virtual impossibility.”

“Son, do not test me right now.” Ophelia stops her pacing. I can almost see her in my mind’s eye, torn between being pleased at the development of the annulment and furious over Mason’s and Tom’s deaths—both of which she’s going to blame us for, regardless of what actually happened. “How is your new school? You know, I have a lot of regrets in my life and not sending you through the Oak Private School System is one of them. You belong there, Victor. Your blood is as blue as any other student there.”

“Mm, it’s almost like you think I give a shit about any of that. I’m not a golden retriever, Ophelia, a dog that you bred for its curly coat and pretty eyes. I’m your son, a son that you paraded in front of perverted men when Ruby stopped giving you money.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Victor,” Ophelia says, and that’s when I see it. For the very first time. A real and true and genuine crack in Vic’s self-control. He grabs the phone from the table, his knuckles turning white as he squeezes it too hard, hard enough to crack the screen.

“Dramatic?” he whispers back, his voice so low and dark that I actually shiver in response. Oscar pauses in his sorting of the uniforms to look back at Vic, exchanging a brief look with Callum as he does. “You’re calling me dramatic because I didn’t like grown men touching me when I was a child? You think this is funny?”

“Don’t think I don’t know that you’ve been living outside of your father’s place,” Ophelia continues, throwing the rules of the trust into her son’s face. “And what’s this I hear about an apartment on campus? Do you want to lose this thing so easily, Vic?”

“You filthy bitch,” Victor snarls back, rising to his feet, still clutching the phone. His left hand clenches and unclenches at his side as he grinds his teeth together. “Do you really think you can peg me on a technicality? You know as well as I do that Ruby’s trust allows me to live on the campus of an educational facility. I’m going to win this game, and I’m going to win it with my hands wrapped around your motherfucking throat.”

Vic throws his phone as hard as he can against the far wall, shattering it to pieces as he storms away from the couch and I scramble to take off after him.

“Vic,” I start as he yanks open the front door like he’s going to leave the apartment.

I move up behind him, unsure if I should actually touch him or not. He’s bristling now. He’s on fire. He’s … coming apart in a way that’s probably healthy but also a little bit scary. Wield it like a weapon. It’s like, all these years of holding back that temper, of saving it, of collecting those flames into an inferno, and Victor is getting ready to unleash it.

“I need to take a walk,” he says, his dark eyes sliding briefly over to me. His expression softens enough that I know today isn’t the day he breaks. Not today. Not yet. But soon.

“Do you need me?” I ask, and Victor gives a visible shudder at the words, swiping a hand down his face. I want nothing more right now than to help him through this, the way he’s helped me time and again deal with my own over-the-top temper.

His obsidian gaze starts at my feet and rakes up my body, making me shiver and crackle like my skin is made of coals and his eyes are the flame that finally ignites the blaze. I didn’t know about the exceptions in his trust, the ones that allowed him to withdraw money for education, the ones that allow him to live here without breaking the stipulation that he lives with his father until graduation.

That means … all along … Victor could’ve left Prescott High and his drunk father and all of that bullshit behind. He has the grades to get in here, the connections. Even Ophelia claimed she always wanted him to go to school here (not totally sure I believe that, but I guess it might’ve helped her maintain the failing image of an aristocrat).

Anyway, I don’t have to ask why Vic didn’t leave.

It’s pretty goddamn obvious: me.

His love is far from selfish. Or, if it is, then it’s much more than that, too.