As we do, I text Sara Young and let her know what’s going on.

Just as I’d hoped, she agrees to send a car over here for at least a night or two which makes me feel better.

She isn’t so bad, after all, that doe-eyed VGTF agent.

In late May, Brittany Burr gives birth to a beautiful baby boy, eight pounds six ounces. I decide to pay her a visit just a few days later, when she’s resting at home and her father—the infamous Forrest Burr—is out of the house.

Hael knocks on the door to get her to open it, but it’s me who ends up pushing past to head inside.

“What …” Brittany starts, glancing back at Hael Harbin as he waves and gives a tight-lipped smile before yanking the front door closed without bothering to come in himself. I sweep down the hall as Brittany stumbles after me, growing more furious by the second. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she demands as I find the kitchen and start rummaging around for a vase, so I can put the flowers I bought her into it.

Conveniently, I find a lovely crystal vase in the cabinet above the kitchen sink

“I came here to congratulate you on your new arrival,” I say, spotting a baby monitor on the counter. Based on the image on the screen and the near perfect silence of the house, I take it to mean the kid is still asleep. “And to bring these flowers by.”

Brittany glares at me from dark brown eyes lined with purple circles underneath. Her face is drawn and tired and her pouty mouth is turned down in a vicious frown. Hael never came to the hospital to see her—which she knows. And maybe by now she’s already figured out that the kid isn’t his? That much, I’m not sure since most babies are born kind of looking the same anyway.

“Why are you inside my goddamn house and Hael isn’t?” Brittany tries again to get me to answer her, but I’m too busy fluffing flowers in the vase and stepping back to admire my handiwork. I cast her a knowing glance and her face flushes a funny purple-red color.

“Girl, you know why I’m here,” I say, but Brittany is still shaking her head at me, like she doesn’t want to believe it. But she knows. She fucking knows before I say a goddamn word.

“I want to see Hael,” she demands, turning on her heel and heading for the front door again. I cut her off and she comes up short, reaching out a hand to brace herself against the wall, her white nightgown fluttering around her thighs. I lift a brow up.

“That’s too damn bad, isn’t it?” I ask, and Brittany’s face scrunches up like she might start crying, right here in front of me which, really, would probably be one of those moments that would haunt her for the rest of her life. “Because you’re not going to see Hael today. In fact, you may never see Hael Harbin ever again.”

“He’s the … he’s the father of my baby,” Brittany sputters, pushing back limp blond hair from her face. I’d almost feel bad for her if she hadn’t cheated on Hael and then broken her bargain with Havoc. The thing is, there’s one gang you don’t mess with at Prescott High. And this girl? She messed with us. Big time.

“No, Brittany,” I start, letting my voice drop to a placating coo. “He isn’t. Look, I haven’t seen the baby but Rich Pratt and Hael Harbin … well, they look nothing alike. And your kid, he’s got Rich’s DNA.”

“You’re a liar; you tampered with the DNA results,” she blurts, which is the very lie we told her to get her help to begin with. But it doesn’t matter now. Because we at least have a backup plan for Maxwell, and we have a backup plan for Ophelia, and the VGTF is dropping the hammer on every pedophile in town. With the GMP being pulled apart limb from limb via Sara Young, we don’t need this girl’s help. At least, we don’t need her to think Hael is on her side in order to get it.

“Mm,” I say, leaning a shoulder against the wall and shrugging loosely with the other. “We really didn’t. I mean, we lied to you so that you’d keep feeding us information, but that’s about it.”

Brittany’s face is so tight, it looks like her skin might split open and a monster might come tumbling out. In the same breath, she looks like a little girl who’s just been told that Santa doesn’t exist and God isn’t real and the tooth fairy is really just a demon with too-sharp teeth.

“I bet you can tell, huh?” I start, not bothering to even try with empathy. Brittany Burr is a lucky woman today, and I decide it’s best to remind her of that. “With the baby, I mean. You saw his face and you probably figured it out because he looks nothing like Hael.”

“Babies don’t look like anyone or anything,” Brittany snaps back at me, her teeth gritting in anger. She looks so young and tired and haggard right now that I decide this is enough punishment for her. Being a young single mom is going to be tough—especially with her ultra-judgy family and friends around. We toyed with the idea of running Rich Pratt out of town or threatening him into maintaining distance from Brittany and the baby, but I decided that was more a punishment for the kid than anyone else.

I might be a monster, but I’m not going to rule like one.

“Anyway,” I continue, pushing up from the wall and heading back in the direction of the kitchen. Brittany tries at first to keep me back by extending her arm and placing her palm flat on the wall, but I simply grab her wrist and move her out of the way. She knows she can’t fight me and, luckily for her, she doesn’t even try. “My point is this: you are a very lucky girl, Brittany.”

“I’m going to call my father and tell him you’re here harassing me. And then I’m going to tell him everything I’ve ever heard about Havoc and—”

I cut her off by raising a single finger. With the other hand, I yank open her fridge and hunt around inside until I find a bottle of peach-flavored iced tea. Most of the time, these fruit teas taste like sugary juice. This one only has a hint of peach and a dash of honey, and I decide that even if I have to go to that posh supermarket in downtown Fuller that’s full of the whitest white people you ever did see, that I’ll go just to buy this.

“Do you remember your visit to the cabin?” I ask, looking back at her. It takes Brittany a full thirty seconds for that to register, or maybe it’s just that I continue prompting. “You know.” I gesture loosely at my arms and then point over my shoulder at my back, reminding her of the cuts and bruises, the burn marks, and all the new scars she probably has.

Her face pales, as if she already knows what it is that I’m going to say.

“You owe that beautiful trip to Havoc.”

Another pause. Brittany stumbles forward and just barely catches herself on the raised portion of the counter where a line of tall-backed stools sits. She drags herself into one, clutching the baby monitor to her chest while she stares at me like the devil I know I am.

“Did you not assume there was a reason Havoc would take on any request—no matter the content? That our prices mean nothing, that our rules are nothing. Brittany, the one currency you can carry is truth, and you spent all of it. You owed us in blood.”

“You did that,” she whispers, beginning to shake. Her hands tremble as her white-knuckled grip hugs the baby monitor even closer to her chest. “You and Hael. Hael …” She trails off and a slight sob comes out on the end. “All along … oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god.”