No, this shit is just beginning.

“Coffee?” Hael asks, lifting up his mug and saluting me with it. “A little caffeine to get you through the horror of a wedding night with Victor.”

“Heh,” Vic snorts, looking askance at his best friend. “You’re just salty because your birthday got fucked. Well, instead of cake, I’m going to eat Bernadette all night long. Be jealous, dickhead.” Hael just grins and laughs as I slide onto a stool at the peninsula next to Oscar.

“What are we going to do with Neil?” I ask, thinking of him, bloodied and still in the back of our stolen ride. I’m guessing the guys took turns watching over him last night. And with the stress the riot put on the Springfield police, it’s likely nobody will notice he’s missing until later today.

“That’s the wedding present I was talking about,” Vic says, smirking at me over his coffee. “Your stepfather, wrapped up nice and tight. The perfect gift for a Havoc bride.”

“You were arrested by the VGTF yesterday and you’re, what, plotting murder today?”

Victor shrugs his muscular shoulders, like it’s no big thing.

“No rest for the wicked,” Oscar reiterates as Aaron makes me a cup of coffee and slides it across the counter. It’s spiked with chocolate milk and whiskey, my favorite. I hide my smile behind a sip. “Finish up and I’ll help you into your gown,” he purrs, and I close my eyes against a shiver.

This is happening, actually freaking happening.

I set my mug down on the counter and exhale.

Yesterday felt like it lasted a century. I was afraid in ways I’ve never been afraid before. I was worried.

But I never doubted Havoc.

Never.

I won’t doubt them today.

“You sure I should wear my wedding gown to deal with Neil?” I ask, raising a brow in question.

“Oh, we’re sure,” Cal says, grinning at me. “Just trust us.”

And I do.

Always.

The hole that I decided against hiding in yesterday has now become the focus of our morning.

Neil Pence is lying in a beautiful black coffin at the bottom of it, the lid flipped open, the bloodred satin interior shiny and pretty and wicked. His eyes are neutral, his mouth stuffed with a gag, hands and ankles bound. He just looks at us like he isn’t afraid, like he doesn’t believe any of this is actually going to happen.

“Give him some time,” Callum says softly, his face painted silver in the early morning light. Fog drifts lazily around our ankles as I stand there in the black Lazaro wedding gown that I picked out with Oscar. My hair is still slightly damp from my shower, hanging loose around my shoulders. “They always break, eventually.” He smiles as he crouches down, staring at Neil with an intensity that reminds me of a blue-eyed wolf stalking prey. “Don’t they, Neil?”

Hael uses a long stick to stab Neil in the face, scratching him up a bit as he pushes the gag from the Thing’s mouth. He coughs for a moment and then laughs at us, like he’s still the one in charge.

“You don’t have the balls to kill a cop,” he jeers, a metal tank tucked between his legs. I’m not sure what it’s for. It, or the plastic bag tucked under his arm. He barely fits into the coffin with all of that, but I’m sure it’s not built for comfort.

I figure this is a scenario similar to the one with Donald, where the boys pretended to hang him from a tree. We aren’t actually burying Neil, but we want him to think we are.

“Bernie,” Vic says, glancing over at me. “I wanted this to be your wedding present. The best part of it all is that Neil actually drove himself up here to preview the attraction. Now, this gift was supposed to be from the five of us, but I feel like he deserves at least a bit of credit.” He turns back to my stepfather and smiles. “Seems fair, right?”

Oscar removes the revolver from inside his suit jacket and pulls the hammer back, leveling it on Neil.

“You going to shoot me, boy?” Neil taunts, still unfazed by the situation. “You’ll spend the rest of your life getting fucked up in the ass in prison. You ready for a life like that?”

“Listen up,” Aaron begins, ignoring Neil’s rambling. “We’re not without compassion. If we were, we’d be as bad as you.” He sighs and shakes his head, pulling out a knife and sliding down into the hole with Hael’s help. Aaron cuts the bindings on Neil’s hands then drops the knife beside him as my stepfather shakes them out with a twisted smile on his ugly mouth.

When Aaron turns to grab Hael’s hands for a boost up, Neil goes for the knife and tries to stab him.

Instead, he ends up with a gunshot to the thigh, his screams echoing around the empty graveyard. Up here, only the dead can hear his cries.

Hael pulls Aaron up and out of the hole, and we all take a step closer, so that we’re circling the space. The boys are all dressed in their tuxes for the wedding today. Most of their shirts are undone, ties loose or missing, but they still look fly in their pressed slacks and shiny loafers with metal skulls on the tops. Barker Blacks, I think the shoes are called.

I’m standing at the foot of the grave in my dress and combat boots with Victor opposite me in a pink tie. Aaron and Hael are on my right, Callum and Oscar on my left. At a nod from Vic, they all remove skeleton masks from their pockets and slip them on.

Even me.

I put the rubber mask over my face, my mouth a flat line, my face bereft of emotion.

“I’m going to kill you!” Neil wails, clutching his leg. “And I’m going to bury you, Bernadette, you fucking whore.”

“I think,” I say, crouching down at the side of the hole. “That you’re the one who’s getting buried today, Neil.” I wait for a moment as he struggles to stand up, clutching the knife like he thinks we’ll actually let him climb out and fight us. “This is for Penelope. You understand that, right? That you’re being punished?”

“You just wait, you little cunt,” he snarls, bleeding everywhere, struggling. It’s sort of pathetic, actually, how much he seems to want to live. For someone that does the things he does, he needs to accept that this is fate. This is how it ends. I wish.

But I mean … this isn’t a realistic way to finish things is it? Especially since Neil’s a cop?

“You have two choices,” Aaron continues finally as I stand up. It’s clear that Neil is not listening. “You’ve been provided with an oxygen tank that holds about six hours of air. You also have water and snacks. Then again, you have a knife.”

“What Aaron’s trying to say,” Hael adds with a sharp laugh. “Is that you can choose to use the items we’ve given you to survive a bit longer and prolong your own pain, or you can end it. That is our only kindness.”

“Close him up,” Vic orders, as efficient as always. He lights up a cigarette as Hael uses the stick—which I think is an old pool cue—to hit Neil in the face. With the injury to his leg, it’s pretty easy to knock him over. Hael then uses the stick to hook a bit of rope on the lid of the coffin, pulling it closed.

Just before the lid shuts completely, I see Neil look up at me, his mouth opening to spew vitriol. I don’t hear any of it. The lid closes and there’s a breath or two of silence before he starts to scream.