Only … I do.

I do so much that it feels suddenly hard to stand up, and I slump into one of the stools at the breakfast bar. Oscar moves up beside me, stroking long, careful fingers across the back of my neck. My gaze shifts his direction, and our eyes meet. Casual touching is hard for him, so this is kind of a big deal to me, even in the light of the Pam stuff.

“She purchased some drugs off a fellow inmate,” Victor explains as Hael moves into the kitchen and gets me something to drink. He places the brandy in front of me, and I don’t even have to ask where he got it from. He and Cal have been breaking into some of the staff apartments for fun, just to see if they can do it without getting caught. Sometimes, they take an item or two, nothing noticeable, but just because they can.

This is where the brandy comes from.

And you know how much I love the taste of stolen things.

I down the whole of it in one go and then slam the glass back down so that Hael can refill it.

“Bernadette,” Victor hazards as Oscar stays close on my left side, Aaron just behind me, and Cal climbs up onto the counter to crouch the way he likes to do. “What are your thoughts?”

My thoughts … I down the second glass of alcohol and let the warm fire of it percolate up through me, cutting through the storm of feelings that are swirling around inside my chest.

Pamela is dead.

I wanted her dead, but … my mother is dead. And I was supposed to kill her. And now she’s taken away the last bit of power I held over her, the only shred of vengeance. A small noise escapes me, and my palm itches, right on that thin, white scar where Victor cut me and we shared blood.

Havoc.

Blood in, blood out.

I look around at the five of them, hands clenching and unclenching at my sides.

“I want to go out,” I say, but I don’t tell them where or why. I’m not entirely certain that even I know the answers to those questions just yet. “Call the fucking valet.”

Sara’s protective detail follows us to the store to grab supplies where the boys look at me like I’m nuts for purchasing several dozen white candles. In addition to that, I grab some blankets, a new tube of pink lipstick called Finish Lines, and a chocolate cake.

Afterwards, we drive over to this Thai food place that I’m obsessed with to pick up takeout. While I’m waiting for the order to be filled, I pretend that I need to use the bathroom, slip out the back door of the restaurant, and sneak around to the front of the liquor store that’s next door.

I’m in and out in a jiffy with two bottles of stolen Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey. The tagline for this brand is Tastes Like Heaven, Burns Like Hell. And if that isn’t the most apt slogan for my life right now then I’m not sure what is.

Sounds difficult to steal something as large as a one-point-seven-five-liter bottle, right? Let alone two of them. The thing about thievery is, most stores have little to no security. And even when they do, their security officers are usually neutered to the point where they can only ask for you to return said merchandise and take a seat in their office. They can’t even fucking touch you. So, the answer to how it is that we manage to steal shit is twofold. One, it’s far easier to steal things than anybody thinks. More often than not, you can waltz right out of a store with an entire cart worth of crap and nobody can or will stop you. Second, Havoc is exceptionally good at what we do.

“I want to go somewhere quiet, somewhere remote,” I say, after I slip back in the Eldorado where Oscar, Aaron, and Victor are waiting. For once, Vic didn’t bring his Harley. I think he knew that I needed to drive, and I also think he couldn’t bear to be separated from me. Not today. Not today when … I don’t let myself think about it.

Not yet.

I think, if they’d had the choice, Hael and Callum would be in here, too. But even though the Caddy can technically seat six, it wasn’t meant for five beefy boys with rippling muscles and attitudes the size of Alaska. Plus, it’s sort of a safety thing with us. What if one of the cars breaks down and we’re in a sticky situation? It’s always best to have two, at least.

“Let’s go to my grandmother’s house,” Victor says, and I glance over at him, sitting in the front seat with Aaron between us. “It meets all of your requirements.”

I think about that for a moment because, ultimately, this is my decision to make.

Today is a monumental day in so many ways.

It’s my day.

The day my mother died.

Something strange catches inside of me as I start the car and send us screeching out of the parking lot. The Camaro follows and so do the cops, but I don’t really care if they know where we’re going. Even if we did outrun them again, they’ll catch up to us. And if we remove the trackers, well, that’ll just rouse Sara’s suspicions even further.

“Should we really trespass with the cops on our asses?” I ask, and Vic gives me a small, secretive little smile. It’s Oscar, however, that’s the one to answer from the backseat.

“We’re in escrow,” he tells me, folding his arms on the front seat and watching me as I drive, fuzzy pink dice swaying in such a way that they catch his attention and cause him to scowl in feigned annoyance. He pretends like Hael’s cuteness and quirks bother him, but that’s a total heap of crap. He loves the guy just as much as I do. “When we inquired with Ophelia about holding the wedding there, we discovered that the property was in the process of transferring hands to the city.”

“Unpaid property taxes,” Vic explains as Aaron snorts. “We agreed to pay those off in exchange for the city offering us a onetime use permit.” Victor leans back in the seat, crammed up against Aaron and me. “And now, yeah, we’re in escrow. The city liked our offer.”

“Where are we getting the money for this?” I ask, because I imagine that fifty-grand we had in our account is nearly gone. I haven’t much had the head for finances as of late. And anyway, that isn’t the king and queen’s job: it’s the accountant’s.

“Let me worry about the finances,” Oscar purrs, reaching out to stroke some hair back from my face. “You have noticed we haven’t been giving out weekly allowances? We’ve sold off the rest of the weed and the cars from the garage; money is tight, but a dilapidated house on the edge of the city doesn’t cost much.”

“What they’re both trying to say in so many words,” Aaron continues, letting his fingers trail up my thigh. “Is that you don’t have to worry about anything tonight.”

I nod, but there’s something strange in my throat, something breaking up the melancholy that’s creeping through me like evening shadows. Happiness? Pretty sure that’s what this thing is. We’re buying Victor’s grandmother’s house? It seems surreal. Also, it seems very Havoc. It’s a very Havoc thing to do.

Once we get to the property, the police pull off at the end of the long drive, leaving us to trundle down it and park by the sagging front steps.

I climb out, slamming the door behind me, and look up at the imposing Gothic Revival structure in front of me. It’s bathed in shadows, its dark windows like the empty eyes of a wicked spirit, haunting this quiet, dusty place on the edge of nowhere. The only reason I actually know what sort of house it is, is because Oscar told us the first time we arrived. Otherwise, like I said, Prescott High and architecture … ehh.