“She looks furious, to be quite honest,” I reply, and he grins.

“Good.”

Finally, he takes his hands off the wheel and we get out together, meeting the other boys just inside the front doors of the coffee shop.

“Why are they all here?” Brittany demands, looking past Hael to glare at the other boys—but mostly me. “This is a private matter between us, Hael.”

“Eh,” he says, giving a loose shrug of his shoulders. “You sort of called Havoc in order to get me to play along, so it’s really more of an all of us issue.” He pauses for a moment and then cocks his head to one side. “So, you gonna tell me or not? I’m guessing since you haven’t thrown yourself at me with tears of joy running down your face, that it’s not my kid?”

Brittany pauses for a moment, swallowing hard, eyes flicking to Oscar as he fires up his iPad like one might discharge a weapon.

“If you lie to me, I will know,” he says, without even looking up from the screen. I have no doubt that the boys will find a way to verify the results of the test from a means other than Brittany herself.

“Hael, please …” she whines, and his attention snaps over to her in a way I’ve rarely seen before. The predator in him is coming out, and he is pissed.

“You made a deal, Brittany. We’ve done everything you asked on our end. I’ve taken you to the movies, to the mall, out to dinner. Our boys beat Rich up; I got beat up by your shitty dad. Tell me the fucking results now.”

She stares at him, eyes watering in a way that makes me realize that she really and truly loved him. Still does. The baby isn’t even important to her. That’s not what this was about, not ever.

It was about Hael and how much she craved him.

My stomach flips, and I exhale sharply.

“This isn’t fair,” Brittany says, burying her face in her hands and letting out a deep sob that draws the eyes of everyone else inside the building. “It’s just not fair. You were mine. You were fucking mine.” Her shoulders shake as I exchange a look with Aaron.

“We should go, maybe,” he says, because we already know the answer to our query, even if Brittany refuses to say it outright.

The baby … is not Hael’s.

But also, this moment is personal and sad and weird, and I just want to get the fuck out of there.

“I’ll stay for a bit,” he says, tucking his fingers into the front pockets of his dirty jeans. Brittany sniffles and lifts her head up to look at him, but when she reaches out to touch him, he moves back. “Hands to yourself and we can talk. Otherwise, I’m out of here and you will never see me again.”

It hits me then that Hael—despite the things he does in Havoc’s name—is actually sort of … nice.

Oscar seems to realize this, too, and scowls like he’s a disappointment.

“What a fucking relief,” Victor murmurs, exchanging a look with Callum. “Not our baby, not our problem. Let’s roll. Hael, meet us back at the house in twenty? We have wedding shit to plan today. You can be my best man as long as long as Callum is Bernie’s maid of honor.”

“Just so long as I don’t have to wear a dress,” Cal quips, giving a dark anti-smile. “They don’t suit my frame very well.”

“This isn’t a joke!” Brittany screams, but she just sounds reedy and desperate.

We ignore her, turning right back around to head outside. Just … not before I put my hands on Hael’s massive bicep and rise onto my tiptoes to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“You owe me oral sex now, too,” I whisper, just loud enough for Brittany to overhear. Hael grins at me as I drop back to my feet and follow the other boys outside.

As soon as I’m situated safely inside the Bronco, I just throw my head back and laugh, and I don’t stop until we get back to Aaron’s place.

Two years earlier …

Hael Harbin

I cannot, for the life of me, understand how Batman sleeps at night. He holds the power to kill the bad guys, but yet … he lets them go. Every. Fucking. Time.

That’s my problem, right? Like, I go home, and I lay my head down on that goddamn pillow, and I can’t stop thinking about Bernadette Blackbird.

Sure, my friends and I have been into her since she showed up at our inner-city elementary school, quiet and reserved and too pretty for South Prescott. The other children didn’t like her because when she first started going to school with us, her clothes were too nice, her hair plaited, like a little doll.

The thing is, while they saw all of that and thought of wealth and snobby Oak Park assholes, we watched Bernadette morph from a doll into a statue. Day after day, the same clothes. Her hair got wilder and more knotted, her shoes worn.

For years, we watched her dip lower and lower into poverty and pain, and we felt powerless.

The only thing we could agree on was that none of us could ever have her. Because as much as we loved Bernadette, we always loved each other, too. She could destroy us from the inside out and we knew that, even at a young age.

Thinking back on it, I’m like, what the fuck, bro? Destroy us from the inside out? Huh? How? By being the perfect Havoc Girl? By fitting in and getting along with five fucked-up misfits that barely belong in society?

No way.

The only reason Bernadette couldn’t be one of us at first, was because we were all selfish.

Well, not today, Satan.

My hand squeezes around the handle of the knife. We have guns, Havoc does. I mean, we didn’t used to, but things are changing. We’ve morphed from a kiddie gang ruling a high school into something else, something sinister and wicked and black.

“You can do this, Hael,” I tell myself, waiting for the front door of a particular motel room to open, for Neil Pence to step out. Once he gets down the steps, I can move out of the shadows, wrap my arm around his neck, and drag him into the trees at the edge of the park.

I can kill him.

Quietly. Painfully. Cover my hands in blood for Bernadette.

My entire life I’ve watched my father beat on my mother, use her as a punching bag for his drunken nights and his jobless days. There’s nothing I hate more than a man who chooses to treat a girl in his family with disrespect.

Nothing.

Besides, I’ve turned into something strange, a whore who can’t stop fucking, who doesn’t know what to do with his feelings, or how to help anyone. This is the least I can do, really. Dad is still in prison and, god-willing, he’ll stay there. Mom is safe, at least for now. I mean, if the parole board doesn’t jam their heads up their own asses and decide to let him free.

I lick my lips, adjusting my grip on the knife. Neil Pence is out here, fucking a prostitute who looks about the same age as Bernie. Blonde hair, big tits, curvy. I should kill him just for that.

Mostly, I’m killing him because I’d do anything to make sure that Bernie makes it to adulthood without falling into the hands of a predator.

That’s all I want. I’ve got simple needs, you know. I’m easy to please.

Something in the darkness draws my attention, and I shove to my feet, spinning around and swinging the knife in an arc at my would-be attacker. Fortunately for me, the person coming at me is just as good as I am and manages to miss having his throat split open from ear to ear.