But come on, this is Havoc.

This is Havoc, and all along, I still haven’t quite figured out how well-oiled they are, how deep their plots run, like a vein buried deep inside the heart.

“You’re Callum Park, correct?” Sara says, attempting to smooth over her partner’s bad cop persona. How stupid do they think we are?

“He’s Callum Park,” I answer, pushing Cal’s arm down. He bands it around my waist, and I have to really focus to remember to breathe. In that moment, his energy is my energy, a dark swirling storm that only I can control. “And yeah, I’m dating him, fucking him, fucking four other guys. What’s your point?”

“Fucking five guys?” Detective Constantine says with an ugly male laugh. Some of the officers behind him titter like schoolgirls. I blink back some of my own rage. “That must be … I mean, wow. You’re, what, seventeen? Those boys must fight over you like animals.”

I just stare at the man, for so long that he actually starts to look uncomfortable.

“Is your partner done with his sexist bullshit or can we leave? We were on our way out.” I look back at Sara, telling her with my eyes that I have something I need to say. No idea what, exactly, that is now, but I have to come up with something so that she feels like we’re still on the same side.

Now that I know she’s with the VGTF, and that she was looking into Neil Pence, I have several clues I can put to good use. One, she’s more interested in finding out all the awful things my stepfather has done, rather than the things I’m doing. Her questions all come rushing back to me in a flood, and they all seem to make a hell of a lot more sense than they did before.

Second, if she’s with the Violent Gang Task Force, then she’s specifically put on cases involving dangerous gangs. Neil wasn’t in a gang, as far as I know, so he must’ve been working with one. The Charter Crew hardly qualifies, but they were working with the GMP.

That’s what she’s here about.

The enemy of my enemy is my … friend.

“Whatever you’re taking out of the house, we need to search,” Sara tells me sadly, her pretty mouth forming into a frown as I lean into one of my many, many boyfriends. Fucking eyeroll. His smell settles over me, sweet and clean and deliciously male, and I feel myself calming. “That won’t be a problem, will it?” she asks, but I shake my head.

Cal already stashed the bag of my mother’s stolen goodies in the attic. They’ll find it there, I’m sure, but that can only be a good thing.

“You want to dig through my underwear?” I ask, feeling my jaw clench with irritation. “Play with my vibrators?”

“I’m sorry, Bernadette,” Sara says sadly, looking at me and not Callum. Constantine can’t seem to tear his eyes away from Cal’s. When I look up, I see Callum smirking, his blue eyes glittering, his blue-painted fingernails curved around the doorjamb. He looks dangerous and unpredictable, which is a good thing, I guess, since he really is. A tiger with obvious stripes.

“You have a search warrant?” I clarify, and Sara nods, holding up a piece of paper with a judge’s signature on it. Oh, Pamela is going to love this. I step back, allowing Sara to come in with Constantine and the others following along behind her.

“I’ve got the guns in my pocket,” Cal whispers against my ear, making me shiver. I smile in just such a way that Constantine scowls, like he thinks Callum’s whispering perverted wishes into my ear with those Disney prince lips of his.

Sara bends down and opens my bag, looking through my panties and the pair of vibrators at the bottom of the bag, the dildo I stole from the sex shop downtown. She exhales sharply, but doesn’t lose that sense of professionalism. When she reaches for Pen’s box, however, my stomach aches so fiercely that I feel like I might throw up.

“These are Penelope’s things?” she asks, and my heart stops.

“Please don’t take them from me,” I say, my voice cracking. That gives Sara pause, and she looks up at me from her crouched position, pink wool coat pooling on the floor around her. “My mom or Neil or whoever got rid of the rest of it sometime recently. All I could find was this.” I stop for a moment, trying to keep that edge of panic from overwhelming me. “This is all I have left of her.”

Callum wraps me up from behind, holding me like a specter while the cops fan out around the house, their efforts directed by Detective Constantine.

“I’m so sorry, Bernadette,” Sara says, and I feel so dizzy I could puke. “We might need whatever we find in here for our case.” She looks through the papers for a moment and then stands up, taking the box with her. “Once we’re finished, you’ll get back whatever we don’t need as evidence.”

I just stare at her like she’s a fucking monster, and it shows.

“You didn’t care about Penelope when she was alive and asking for help, but now that she’s dead, and Neil has run off with one of his whores, you suddenly care so much that you need a box of old papers?”

“If I’d known about Penelope—” Sara starts as I scowl. She just stops talking then, like she knows it’s a moot point. With the front door open, it’s impossible to miss the sound of Pam’s Oldsmobile rolling into the driveway behind the cop cars.

Cal leans over again and whispers in my ear.

“Do not fight with your mother here. We have plans.” He stands back up and releases me, watching my mom with eyes like spears of ice. She’s lucky that I asked Havoc not to kill her. So goddamn lucky.

“What the fuck is all of this?” Pam yowls, like one of the unneutered alley cats that fight in the alley two doors down. She looks like one, too, when she comes in the door with her keys in her hand, eyes spitting fire. The way she stares at me, I wonder if she wouldn’t try to kill me if we were alone in a room together. “What have you done now, Bernadette?”

I say nothing, looking down at the floor instead of at her face.

“I just came by to grab my stuff,” I start, but Pam is too busy being freaked-out by the idea of cops that aren’t Neil Pence inside her house of horrors. She doesn’t pay me any attention as I grab my bag and give Sara Young a long, studying sort of look.

Callum doesn’t want me to fight with Pam in front of her? Why? I need to know, and I need to know tonight.

“What is all of this about?” Pamela asks as Sara moves up to stand beside Constantine, the box of Penelope’s things under her arm.

“Why don’t you take a seat, and we’ll talk,” Sara says, and I find my feet slowing at the door. She guides Pam into the living room and then kneels down in front of her, putting her hand on my mother’s knee. “I regret to inform you that we’ve discovered Neil Pence’s body …”

I stumble, but Cal keeps my arm and pushes me forward, even when I try to stop and listen.

“You … what?” Pam asks, and then she starts to wail, in a way she never did for my father or her own fucking daughter.

“Keep walking,” Cal whispers as I stumble down the sidewalk, my mind white with fear. If they’ve found Neil’s body then it’s only a matter of time before our house of cards comes tumbling down.

“I’m freaking out,” I whisper, choking on my own breath as we pause at the curb and Cal takes my heavy duffel bag from me, swinging it over his shoulder like it weighs nothing. “Why are you not freaking out?”