“We can talk about this later. Let’s get the dress and go,” Vic says mildly, glancing back at the salesgirl. She’s on the phone with … someone. Probably her boss, explaining the situation. Four white trash nobodies from across the tracks have come in; they’re spreading their poverty and filth everywhere. “God and the devil only know who else might be watching this store.”

After everything I learned about the GMP in the car on the way over, I figure Vic’s not exactly talking about cops. Between Ophelia, this new gang testing the waters of our turf, and the cops, I think Sara Young is the least of our worries.

“Buy the dress but forget the shoes,” Cal says with a terrifying smile. “I want to see if I can steal them without the little mouse noticing.” I shiver at his words, giving the salesgirl a quick glance and noticing that her sweater is, in fact, patterned with little gray mice. How appropriate.

“It’s your funeral,” Vic says, which is just an expression, but a terrifying one nonetheless. At some point soon, I’m sure there are going to be plenty of funerals in Springfield. I just hope none of them are ours.

“They will be, if you don’t grow a fucking backbone,” Kali purrs, but I ignore her, tossing the dress onto the counter and smiling as Victor whips out a credit card with two fingers and flicks it at the woman. Behind us, Hael chuckles in bemusement.

“Wrap it up real nice for my wife,” Vic growls, and the girl rushes to comply.

“This plan you have for Sara Young,” I start, drawing his endless dark stare over to me as the girl charges the card and seems surprised to see the purchase go through without a hitch. “Am I going to like it?”

“Oh, trust me,” Victor says, scrawling his name on the iPad the salesgirl hands him, “this is right up your alley. Poetic justice, personal choice, and wrongs made right.” He tosses the iPad back, grabs the box, and then places it in my arms. When he looks down at me, I swear to fuck I can feel the weight of his stare like the universe settling on my shoulders. “Just one of many gifts I’m going to give you, Bernadette Channing.”

Vic moves away from me, lighting a cigarette before he’s even out the doors of the boutique.

I’m so busy clutching the box and breathing hard to fully appreciate the look of terror on the poor salesgirl’s face.

I slump against the shower wall with a groan, hurting all over and wondering why I thought it was totally fucking cool to have a gangbang when I’d just been stabbed. Or go shopping. Or hang Christmas lights on the tree we just put up.

“You really don’t know when to quit, do you?” Vic asks, leaning against the counter. I didn’t even hear him come in, that’s how goddamn tired I am.

“Like you didn’t enjoy fucking me the other night,” I retort, the shower curtain pulled back just enough that I can see him. Water splashes onto the floor, but I don’t give a shit. I’ll clean it up later.

Vic laughs as he stands up, grabbing a towel from under the sink and laying it on the floor to catch the extra spray. He stays crouched down, looking up at me from under lashes that are too long and too beautiful to belong to a man. It softens some of the meanness in his face, takes away some of that brutality that I know is lurking inside of him.

He choked Logan Charter on the floor of Prescott High, I think, but even though the thought should bother me, it doesn’t. Havoc isn’t all that bad. In fact, they’re almost nice sometimes. In order to keep control of the underground, certain things must be done, no matter how unsavory.

Things like … killing Kali.

I turn my face to the spray to hide my frustration with myself. There are red splatters all over the walls, dripping down my skin in macabre stripes. It looks like blood, but it’s just hair dye. It seems stupid, but I almost cried when I covered up the pink. That was Pen’s color. But red is … mine.

“Goddamn, this is torture,” Vic murmurs, and I look down at him, shrouded in steam and tattoos and watching me like he owns me. He does, really, but he doesn’t need to know that. “You, naked and wet but wounded.” Vic’s mouth twitches as he rises to his feet, and I’m forced to look up at him. “We should not have done you like that, you know? I should’ve controlled myself better.”

“I’m fine,” I tell him, but my heart gets all fluttery at the concern in his voice. He swipes a hand over his face, looking me over in just such a way that I know I’ll have to fix the lock on this stupid door if I ever want to get a moment of peace. Actually … he’d probably knock the door down to get to me. Some males are wild when it comes to their mates. “More than fine, actually.”

“More than fine,” Vic repeats with a deep chuckle, seemingly content to lean against the wall and stare at me. “You say that, but I think you’re lying to me. I’d be pissed if I didn’t think you were lying to yourself, too.”

I scoff at him, grabbing the bar of sweet peach soap I bought at one of the shops today. I stole three more bars of it on my way out, but hey, it’s from France and it’s fancy as fuck. Victor’s black eyes follow my every movement as I soap my body up, working carefully to clean the bit of dried blood around the stitches. I’m not supposed to get them overly wet, but it’s a struggle. I just want to be clean.

“Why do you think I’m lying to myself?” I ask, feeling my wedding ring slick across my skin as I wash my body with thick, peach-scented lather.

“Because I can see inside your soul,” Victor tells me, pointing at his face with two fingers and then turning them on me. “You are me, in female form. We’re the same person, Bernadette.”

“Careful, someone might think you weren’t the leader of a vicious gang,” I tell him, loving this invisible barrier between us. There’s a tension building that will be oh so delicious to break later, to tear apart with wild claws and aching bosoms. Jesus fucking Christ. I need to sit down and at least write my terrible poems out on Aaron’s laptop or my brain will stay muddled with purple prose.

“Bernie, I have to love as fiercely as I destroy, or I’ll rot from the inside out.” He smirks at me, and my lower stomach muscles clench with the memory of his thick, hard cock stretching me to my limits. I want him so fucking bad right now, but his control is goddamn legendary. Even if I teased him, he’s already made up his mind: he thinks I need rest, so he won’t fuck me. “You won’t find my masculinity so fragile that I can’t tell my wife I love her or that I care about her.”

“Get away from me,” I groan, because I have awful intimacy issues. When Vic says things like that, I just … I don’t know how to process. “And we might be similar, but you’re so much more even-keeled than I am. So much braver, too.” My hand slows with a sponge clutched tight in my fingers, pressed against the edges of my dragon tattoo.

“Bernie,” Vic says, and his voice is as soft as it ever is, just for me. I can feel down to my bones that this voice, this sound, is reserved for me and me alone. It’s mine. I don’t ever have to share it, and I know for a fact that not a single other woman on this earth has ever heard it. “You called Havoc for a reason. Kali was your girl, your friend, almost a sister. You lost a sister once already. I’m sure it was hard, losing another. It didn’t have to be by your hands, you know that. Why you made the choice to go after her, I don’t know that I understand it.”