“Who the fuck knows? Hopefully lying dead in a ditch somewhere.”

I light up a cigarette because well, shit, Bernadette Savannah Blackbird makes me nervous. I smoke when I’m nervous because, as the leader of Havoc, I’m not actually allowed to be nervous. So I hide it. I tuck it away and bury it like I do bodies.

“Did you ever find out who those men were?” she asks me as I pull out my phone and start a Grubhub order. We’ll get food, and we’ll talk, and then hopefully she’ll let me fuck her until the sun comes up. If she doesn’t, I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do. Being around Trinity Jade makes my face hurt. She makes my dick so soft that I wonder if I’ll ever get hard again. She makes me murderous, to be quite frank. “The ones who beat your dad up?”

I glance over my shoulder and find my wife watching me, my grandmother’s ring glinting on her finger. I actually liked Ruby, my mother’s mother. She was a rich ass white lady with zero ability to check her own privilege, but she was funny. And her laugh was infectious. She was the only person around who could willingly get me to come in the house and sit patiently at the table, no phone, no iPad, no toys.

The reason she left that money to me is because she knew her daughter was a venomous snake. She knew it as surely as I know it. I think she was afraid that I might become my mother—or to a lesser extent, my father. That’s why she put those rules in place. But goddamn if it isn’t a pain in my ass now.

“Idiots from the local watering hole.” I smile wryly. “He borrowed money from pretty much every man in South Prescott to gamble with. Why? You thought he was clever enough to be in the GMP or something?”

“I feel like I don’t know anything anymore,” Bernie tells me, setting her bag down on the table. “I never thought you’d consider Ophelia’s offer. Never. Your love for me … it goes beyond pride and common sense. At least, I thought it did.” Bernadette stares me down with eyes the color of emeralds. Does she have any idea how fucking fierce she looks? Regardless of what happened with Kali, she’s the strongest woman I know in so many ways. “And I liked it that way, Vic. We’re not supposed to be rational, me and you.”

I place the food order on my phone and then slip it into my back pocket as I turn around to face her dead-on.

“Is that what this is about?” I ask, letting my voice soften. “You’re worried about me and Trinity?”

“Not really,” she says, but she glances toward the staircase instead of maintaining that ironclad grip she has on my gaze. I wish she were looking at it because she wants me to take her upstairs so I can really fuck my claim into her. Probably not though. Not yet, I mean. “I know you’re not interested in her. I just …”

I move over to stand in front of her, my nearness drawing her attention and her mind back around to me. I have a physical effect on this girl, even from across a crowded room. We both know it, too. I smile, and she frowns at me.

“Bernie, you tell me what it is that you want. You called Havoc. You’re still—technically—a client. So what is it? Did you leave a name off your list? Do you want me to kick my own ass?” I pause for a moment as she closes her eyes. She’s simultaneously easy to read and impossible to understand, all at the same time. Fuck, we’re similar. “Do you want me to kick yours?”

She opens her eyes again to look up at me, tucking some of that bloodred-tipped blond hair of hers behind one ear.

“I want to see the closet,” she tells me, and I feel my entire body go cold. Fucking Christ. The last thing in the world I want to do right now is relive the horrors we visited upon her. But then, the reason those same horrors didn’t work the way they were supposed to is because my girl is strong. My wife is queen. She’s the only person that can’t see that yet. Maybe she needs to? Most people, you lock their ass in a dark closet for an entire week with a bucket to piss in, some water bottles, and a handful of granola bars, and they’re gonna lose their shit. But not Bernie. She came out fierce-eyed and determined, mouth pinched, hands curled into fists.

The way she looked at me that day, I’ll never forget it. It was this one, perfect moment where her love for me and her hate for me were tied. An impossible balance to maintain. Her hair was greasy, the armpits of her shirt soaked with sweat, but she was more beautiful in that moment than I’d ever seen before.

Instead of breaking her, we cracked her open just enough for all that wild fierceness to spill out.

“The closet,” I muse, working my jaw for a minute. If I don’t take her up there, then I’m the coward she thinks she is. That much I know for sure. I look down at Bernadette and I know then why the universe created me. And that was to take care of her—whether she likes it or not. “I’ll take you up to the closet, but I’m going to keep dating Trinity until we find a new way out of this maze.”

“I hate you,” she tells me, but I smile because even if she means it, she loves me just as much, so it doesn’t fucking matter. From the schoolyard to the wedding, she’s always been mine.

I turn away from her and head for the staircase, moving up two steps at a time, just so I can get there a heartbeat before her, open the door, and steel my nerves. When she moves into the bedroom beside me, I’m ready.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask her, because I know this is one of those weird ass moments that feels like it’s nothing but which you know will change everything. We need this, me and Bernie. Because as soon as I get that inheritance money, life changes. Before it does, we need to sit down here in the dirt and grit and gravel where we came from and burn that identity into our minds.

If the money changes us—any of us—I will get rid of it.

Mark my fucking words.

“Just … lock me in,” she says, and I turn so slowly to look at her that she shivers.

“Fuck that. I’m not locking you in there,” I snap back, and she meets my fire with a surge of her own violent, violet flames.

“You damn well better, Victor Channing, or I’m not letting you date that girl, regardless of how much we both know this plan makes sense.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder, hitting me in the face with it and assaulting me with the sweet scent of peaches, vanilla, and leather. My cock hardens immediately, and I end up grabbing at the crotch in my jeans with a curse.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” I murmur, waiting until she’s slipped into the small, dark space before I slam the door on her. The lock is on the outside, as it’s been ever since I installed it in tenth grade, just so I could imprison the love of my life.

For a while there, it’s quiet. I put my ear to the door to listen in on her, just like I did back then. I can hear her breathing, but it’s different than it was last time. There’s no panic here, no fear. She sounds almost … thoughtful.

Five minutes into this shit and she’s said nothing. I can’t stand that. I need to hear her voice.

“Bernadette?” I ask, splaying my fingers against the door. “Speak to me, princess, or I’m walking my ass in there.” When nothing happens, when her breathing doesn’t change and her body doesn’t shift, I unlock the door and fling it open.