“I don’t even need to read it to say it,” I inform him anyway, my hands shaking. Being vulnerable is not my thing. Vulnerability has never served me well. I let myself be vulnerable with Penelope, and she’s dead. I let myself be vulnerable with Aaron, and he left me. Big exhale. “Can you do yours again?” I ask and Vic laughs. He nuzzles his face against my knee, and I let out a small sigh of relief.

He’ll do it; I know he will.

“Sure, but you gotta put the dress back on.” He stands up, looming over me in a way that I can only describe as protective. Vic, despite his dickish demeanor, wants to take care of me. That much, I do know.

“It’s covered in grave dirt and cum, you prick,” I grumble, but it’s really not that bad. Truly, it just needs a dry cleaning. After paying nearly six thousand dollars for it, you bet your ass I’m going to have it cleaned and wear it again.

“Put it on, Bernadette,” he demands softly, moving around me and heading over to the balcony. He steps outside, bathing his body in even more silver light from the moon. It highlights his tattoos and enhances the shape of his muscles.

I stand up and shirk the black lacy nightgown I was wearing, trading it out for the dress. I don’t bother with panties. Victor’ll just tear them off and toss them anyway. My bare feet whisper across the tiled marble floors as I move over to stand beside my husband.

“I can see why you kept yours hidden from Ophelia,” I tell him, and he scowls, turning his attention out toward the sea. A few Sitka spruce and shore pine trees dot the edge of the property, but for the most part, the view is unobscured. It’s nice, but it isn’t worth the blood of innocents. “She’s a motherfucking shark, Vic. Truly, she’s scary as hell. What are we going to do about her?”

He just shakes his head, reaching inked fingers up to run them through his hair. I step a little closer, so that when I breathe in, I can smell that masculine musk of him and not just the salt and sand and sea.

“No more business tonight,” he tells me, glancing over and exhaling sharply. Victor reigns that anger of his in the way he always does, the way he did in his front yard that day that I challenged him, and he pushed me up against a tree. He’s a master at controlling his temper. Daresay, better than Oscar at even. “That’s the thing with Havoc. There’s always someone to bury, someone that wants to bury you, and a more productive way to spend your time.” He laughs again; the sound of it is the very definition of ASMR for the soul. “Sometimes you just want to fuck your girl, you know what I mean?”

I smirk at him, tucking my right hand into my pocket while I hold the list with my left.

“Not exactly. Pretty sure I was born cursed because I’m into guys. If only sexuality was a choice.” I shake my head as Victor smirks right back at me. Tit for tat, he said to his mother, but really, that’s me and him in a nutshell.

“You’re stalling,” Victor says, and he isn’t wrong. The idea of reading to him what’s written on this paper fills me with terror. He turns around, resting his elbows on the railing behind him and looks right at me. “We’ll have another wedding, after I get my inheritance. And we’ll invite every snot-faced, billionaire asshole that my mother knows. It’ll be gothic as fuck and it’ll scare the shit out of them all. Because, you know, I’m not satisfied with owning the respect of high school students. We will control the underground, Bernadette. We will rule it.” Victor reaches out and grabs my arm, pulling me close and lining our bodies up. When he looks down and into my eyes, my heart stops beating. Because he has the power to make it do that. He owns my heart, and he knows that, too. “When that time comes, I will say this to everyone in the audience.”

“Oh please,” I murmur, but once again, my words are soft, as mollified as the gentle waves of the ocean. Victor stands up straight, putting his palms on either side of my face.

“No, you listen,” he tells me, but the pressure on my cheeks is gentle. He can crack skulls, or he can hold me close with those hands. He does both admirably well. “Ophelia cannot truly understand how important you are to me, not yet. She cannot know the depth of the things I feel. If she does, she will do her very best to ruin us.”

“Nobody could ruin us, Vic; we’re already ruined,” I say, and he kisses the fuck out of my mouth, burning me up with teeth and tongue and leaving me panting in his arms. “Bernadette, you are the driving force behind everything I do,” he repeats, and I shiver at the sound of his deep voice. It shimmers through the air and drives into me, filling up every crack, every empty space. I close my eyes, just so I can listen better. “You always have been. I can’t thank you enough for that.” Victor kisses each of my closed eyelids, and I smile. I also feel a little bit sick, because I know I have to sound as vulnerable for him when it’s my turn. “Without you, I wouldn’t have had a reason. A reason to live. A reason to fight. A reason to succeed. You’re the oxygen in my blood and the electricity that makes my heart beat.”

I let out all the breath in my lungs and just let the pain of not breathing sear me for a moment. That’s what it feels like when Victor looks at me, when he talks to me, when he fucks me. Not the pain, I mean, but like the very first breath I take when I can finally find the courage to pull oxygen into my lungs again.

“Even though I don’t deserve you,” he continues as I struggle to hold my breath as long as I can. Victor knows I’m doing it, too, but he doesn’t hurry his way through this. Instead, he draws out each word, like my soul is a voodoo doll and he’s sticking in pins. Each one hurts, but then blooms into a pleasure unlike any other. “Even though my love is selfish, I want you to trust me. Close your eyes and free fall, Bernadette; let me catch you.”

I open my eyes at the same time I draw breath, filling my lungs with the sweet, coolness of the winter breeze. It feels so good that for a moment there, I almost stumble. Vic keeps me standing upright. He leans down and kisses the side of my neck, sending lines of fire into my bloodstream.

“Let me be your husband, and I fucking swear to you that I’ll love you until the world goes dark and beyond that, into the stars.”

“Do the other guys know what a soft-hearted motherfucker you are?” I whisper, but it’s a deflection technique and we both know it. Victor isn’t a soft-hearted motherfucker; he is only soft for me. I have to remember that.

“Will you, Bernie?” he asks, kissing my collarbone. I didn’t bother to put on the feathered piece of the dress, so my throat and chest are naked and ready for the poisonous kiss of his lips. “Will you stay with me until we can be buried in the same casket, in the same plot, in the same cemetery?”

“You’re morbid,” I murmur, but I can’t resist his pull and he knows it. “I will; I do.”

Victor grins at me, putting his hands on my upper arms and rubbing them up and down to warm me up a bit.

“I’ll never get over hearing you say that,” he tells me, giving a low chuckle when my cheeks flush. Even in the dim moonlight, I bet it’s obvious that I’m embarrassed and uncomfortable. That first night, when Vic gave me his vows and asked for mine, all I had to do was grab him and pull him into the bed.