“Except for whatever Vic can get out of Trinity,” Oscar says, and there’s something about the way he says it that makes me sick.

“Where is Victor?” I choke, wondering all of a sudden if I’ve misjudged everything. If I don’t know Vic Channing at all. How far would he go to execute a plan? Would he … he’d never fuck an awful bitch just to prove a point, right?

I take off before Oscar can answer, finding Hael in the kitchen area, sweet-talking some girl who won’t remember which direction is up and which is down when he’s done with her. Our eyes meet as I slow down and he gives me this long, exaggerated sort of wink. I feel momentarily breathless.

How can I keep hold of so many men? I wonder, hating that that’s the way I think, how I was raised and brought up. How do I keep them? instead of how do I make sure they know what I’m worth and how lucky they are?

I keep walking, finding Aaron in the same place I left him, leaning against the wall and nursing a drink that someone must’ve fetched for him. He looks at me, his eyes making me feel dizzy and off-kilter.

“He’s in the other room,” Aaron tells me, like he’s pissed off on my behalf. I move down the steps into the sunken lounge, across the plush rugs piled on the old hardwood floor, and then up the steps on the other side. There’s a sunroom where people are dancing, surrounded by bright green plants that shouldn’t look so fucking happy in the dead of winter.

Vic is dancing with Trinity in the center of the room.

I watch them for a minute, but I can’t see Vic’s face, just his back. His shoulders are tense, but his body seems to be moving just fine. I know it’s all a game. I know that. Just like I let James follow me around and mix me a drink. I’m sure Victor’s giving Trinity that intense, obsidian stare of his and making her feel like the only woman in the world while simultaneously imagining ways to get rid of her.

I know that, but I can’t stop myself. I move through the crowd like I’m possessed, and people move the fuck out of my way. Maybe it’s the white-blond hair dipped in red? Maybe it’s the spirit board dress and the swinging metal planchet hanging in front of my chest? Or maybe they can just smell the violence making my hands itch and burn, making my fingers twitch like they’re the fingers of the devil?

My hand slides up Victor’s back and over his shoulder. He turns to look at me before his brain even registers why he’s doing it. He’s drawn to me like he’s spelled.

“Bernadette,” he says, the word half warning and half desperate heady whisper. He moves away from Trinity like he’s forgotten she even exists. I know he wants me to go away, and I probably should, but I can’t help myself. My fingers tangle together behind his neck, and I pull him into the salsa-inspired rap that’s playing on a fairly low volume. This isn’t the type of place or party where you blast the biggest fucking speakers you can, until your eardrums bleed and you know you might go deaf, but you don’t care. It’s not a good sort of party, is what I’m saying.

“Victor,” I reply, and then I let go of him, so I can dance better. My body moves of its own accord, twining to the music, inviting Victor to sin. He watches me for a moment, going completely still. He’s not even dancing anymore, just watching me.

He closes his eyes for a brief second, opening them on me with a shine that says he’s about to snap. The king of self-control has a weakness, and if I’m not careful, I’m going to show every single person in that room exactly what that is.

But I can’t stop.

Victor grabs me by the hips and pulls me in close. This time, when we start dancing, our bodies are grinding together like we’re fucking.

“Oh!” someone calls out, and an audience forms around us like a ring. “Trinity, girl, you’ve got some competition.”

One of Vic’s legs is between my own, his palm splayed open on my back, our bodies swaying with the music. I can’t look away from his gaze, from the tightness of his jaw, from the tension in his neck.

Competition? She has no competition because she isn’t in the running.

Victor takes me by the hand all of a sudden and starts moving back. The crowd parts for him as he pulls me out of the room and slams me into the wall. Someone turns the music up, but I can still hear mean laughter underneath it all.

“You’re fucking this up for both of us,” he growls at me, his cock so hard and desperate for me that when I put my hand over it, it burns. “I cannot do this with you tonight.”

“You said you’d never cut us off from each other to punish me,” I tell him, but he’s already shaking his head. My fingers dig into his purple-dark hair, and he shudders like he’s been slapped. Vic’s eyes are closed now, so I can’t see what he’s thinking. I can’t read a damn thing.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” he assures me, and then he opens his eyes, and I can see even less than nothing. He’s trying so hard to control himself that he’s gone completely dark. “This plan makes sense, and you know it. If they think we might comply, they might not try to assassinate you. This buys us time.”

“I almost killed James Barrasso,” I tell Vic, and he goes very still. “I took out a knife, but Cal stopped me. Just so you know, the guy’s pissed. He’s out for blood now.” I wait a split-second before I decide to add, “Unlike you, I have trouble pretending to be attracted to someone else.”

“Mm,” Vic murmurs, nodding like he’s got me all figured out. He even has the audacity to chuckle. “You still haven’t quite learned to control your temper. That’s why you’re struggling.”

I give him a look, because the all-knowing leader persona is the last part of Victor I feel like talking to right now.

“Tell me the angle, Vic, or I’ll walk right in there and beat the shit out of Trinity Jade.”

“Hah,” he says, stepping away from me and holding his hands up, palms out. “You don’t have the balls.” Victor turns and takes off down the hallway, heading back into the lounge area as I fume behind him. I’m not so stupid that I can’t see when I’m being played.

You want me to beat Trinity up? I think, smirking. Fucking fine. Wish granted, you dick.

I follow after Victor and find that Trinity’s already dragged him into the middle of the room for another dance. There’s some old Daddy Yankee song on now, something from forever ago that still sounds current—in a bad way, that is. God, this song sucks.

People move out of my way as I walk calmly through the crowd, fingering the planchet. I pause right behind Trinity and pretend like I can’t hear Kali Rose-Kennedy speaking to me from beyond the grave.

“Vic might’ve been taunting you on purpose, but what if he were a little serious, too?” her poisonous voice whispers, making me question myself even when, by all rights, I’ve won. We won, right? The Charter Crew is essentially wiped off the face of the earth. My list is nearly done. Yet, I feel like a baby trying to walk for the first time. “Beat her ass the way you wish you’d beaten mine,” Kali hisses.

“Trinity,” I say, and as soon as she turns around, I’m grabbing her by the hair and yanking her forward. She gasps as Vic stops dancing, the rest of the partygoers in the room shocked senseless. This is Prescott High shit, right? Oak Valley Prep, Burberry Prep, Adamson Academy, or any of those other rich ass schools, they don’t know shit about fighting back.