“Mitch,” he purrs, and I wish I could truly describe the way Vic smiles then. There are demons there, twisting up the edges of his lips. It isn’t a natural or normal smile and yet, my blood pressure spikes as soon as I see that malicious expression spread across his handsome face. It’s pure … I don’t want to say evil, because Victor is far from evil. Real evil, I’ve seen that, in the Thing’s face, in Eric’s bleeding scowl, in Kali’s pink painted sneers. But it’s something dark and wicked, something that glitters like the edge of a bloodstained blade. By the time he answers with a curt “Yeah”, I’m soaking wet.

“You sociopathic nightmare!” Mitch screams, now on speakerphone. Hael startles awake, his hand snaking underneath the cushion, likely to grab a weapon of some sort. He cracks one brown eye to watch Vic set the phone down on the coffee table. Victor leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together in front of him. “We’ve been fucking with you until now. You’ve just opened the floodgates, motherfucker.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Victor asks, completely deadpan. His entire stance though, that speaks to violence. I take a bite of my eggs to hide the involuntary shiver that passes through me.

“You think I wouldn’t notice the goddamn corpse you put in my trunk? Are you nuts? You’re lucky I’ve got Kyler and Timmy on a short leash or you’d already be dead, motherfucker.”

“Try a different word. You’ve used motherfucker twice,” Vic says, and I hear the crash of something on the other end of the line. Mitch is clearly in a mood. Maybe he should’ve thought about what could happen when he decided to challenge Havoc? “And slow down. A corpse? What corpse? Should I notify the police?”

“You are going to bleed for this. I’m going to hold your girl down and fuck her until she begs me to end her life. You hear me, Victor?” Mitch is panting and cursing; I hear voices in the background but they’re too faint to make out.

Vic’s eyes narrow, and his face darkens into something truly terrifying. I hear Mitch’s words, but they pass over me like a light breeze. How many times have men threatened to rape me? More than I can count. I’m not afraid of Mitch Charter.

“If you speak about my girl like that again, I will drown your mother in her bathtub. Do you understand me?” Vic’s as calm as could be, his eyes on the phone, his shoulders tense. I have no doubt in my mind that he’s telling the truth.

“And if you think we’re done avenging Kali’s face, you’re seriously deluded. Tell Bernadette her stepdad says—”

Victor hangs up on Mitch and then promptly blocks him.

Wow. Dismissive. I love it.

“My stepdad says … what?” I ask, feeling my stomach hollow out. If Mitch is somehow working with the Thing, that won’t go well for us.

“Irrelevant,” Vic says, waving his hand at me. “We have to deal with the Charter Crew, and we have to deal with your stepdad. It’s all one in the same to me.” He stands up from the couch, and I find my eyes drawn down the muscular length of his body. He’s built like a dark god, and I’m here to worship on my knees. Shit, fuck, goddamn it …

I frown.

“Everyone get up and get dressed,” Oscar says, making Hael groan. Aaron is perched on the edge of the couch, finishing his breakfast. He takes my empty plate from me before heading into the kitchen. “We have a lot to get done this weekend.”

“Like moving more bodies?” I quip as Cal finishes his stretches and stands up, arching his arms above his head with a yawn.

“Better,” Oscar says, glancing over at me with a smile that’s as sharp as a garrote, wrapping around my neck and sucking the air from my lungs. “We’re going to look at a wedding venue.”

Sara Young is a pretty young blond who lives in a pretty yellow house on a pretty little street.

I stand at the end of her driveway, staring at the bright, red color of her front door. I’m not a fan of this plan, not at all. I don’t trust the cops. But … I do trust Havoc. Even though I shouldn’t. Even though their secrets are buried as deep as the bodies in the woods.

The video.

Vic’s confession about my price.

The truth about the incident with Kali.

Yet, here I am, walking up to Sara’s front door in a crisp linen summer dress that I watched Callum pinch from Nordstrom. He even had a tool tucked away in his backpack that he used to remove the security tag. Impressive.

I feel like a fraud in it.

Taking a deep breath, I lift the tattooed knuckles of my left hand up and knock softly.

It takes Sara a minute to show up. She answers the door with her hair wrapped in a towel … but her hand on her gun.

As soon as she sees me, she relaxes … and then spots the tattoos on my hand and tenses up again.

“Can I help you?” she asks, and I do my best to smile. The expression feels forced, like it’s stretching my lips in an unnatural way. I don’t even know what it means to smile anymore.

“Maybe. I’m Bernadette Blackbird, Neil’s stepdaughter.” I watch the information wash over her. The fingers on her gun relax and she pulls the towel from her hair. I wonder if Neil is supposed to be picking her up soon in the cruiser; she’s already dressed in her uniform.

“Bernadette,” she says, like the name is familiar enough. Sara’s face is so little, her features petite and delicate. I have a hard time believing she commands authority in cold-hard criminal types. “Yes, it’s nice to finally meet you.” Her eyes flick to my knuckles again, and I realize then that Oscar wasn’t exaggerating when he called her a save the world type. She’s one of those black-and-white, good-versus-evil hero types.

And those types … they are dangerous as fuck. Their morality is the most important thing to them. They only think they know what justice means. Sara Young here probably thinks pedophiles like Neil deserve life in prison … with three hot meals a day, unlimited access to HBO, and feather pillows in their cells. Because, like, that’s humane.

I frown, even though I know I’m supposed to be playing a part here. The thing is, Sara is even worse than I thought. She’s seen my tattoo; she already knows I’m a gangbanger. I may as well be wearing an orange jumpsuit in her mind.

“Sara Young,” she says, trying her best to smile. I mean, I’m still a teenage girl, so her conflicted inner sense of justice is struggling to make my presence make sense. “As glad as I am to have finally met you, may I ask what you’re doing at my house?”

“The …” Don’t say the Thing, not outright. “My stepdad’s driven us past your house and pointed it out once or twice.” I shrug my shoulders. It’s a lie, a pretty terrible one, if I’m being honest with myself, but it doesn’t matter. That part of this interaction is irrelevant, as Vic might say. “I know it’s weird for me to just show up on your doorstep, but I don’t have your number or anything and I thought …”

I try to remember what the old Bernadette used to believe. Oh, that’s right. People in positions of authority are there to help. Report bad things. Be honest. Ask for assistance when you need it. I mean, it’s laughable to me now, but I used to believe those things with my whole heart.