“Why’s that?” He took the bait again.

I grabbed his left hand, his darling, moneymaking hand—funny how we were all left-handed in this business—insured for two million bucks, and found his pressure point, squeezing hard. He shrieked in pain, tears running down his cheeks. I raised his hand to my chest, shoving my hand forward until I heard the crack of his thumb breaking. Satisfaction shot through me. Revenge.

Our eyes met, and his were so shocked and horrified, I wondered what he’d feel like when I had my knife at his throat. Expressionless, I made a ninety degree angle with his wrist, moving it to the other side of my chest. With my forearm on his elbow, I applied pressure until I heard his arm snap. He screamed to the fucking roof before I shoved him against the wall and let him drop to the ground. Whimpering, he stared at his twisted thumb and the bone poking out at his elbow. I darted to his desk, grabbed my untouched cup of coffee, and poured it onto the floor beside his sagging body.

“Oops,” I said dryly. “Better be more careful. You could slip and break your other arm, too. Worse still, you could have a fatal accident. Now that’d be a shame.”

His eyes were blurry with tears, his body shaking and arching with pain. When your entire existence is hanging by a thread, by the revenge you seek, you sometimes ask yourself if it’s worth it, if you’ll ever get the satisfaction you’re after.

The answer is yes.

I was hard as marble and ready to remind Lenora she was not in the business of depriving me. I turned around, leaving Harry high, dry, and ruined for the next year or so, artistically speaking.

“Tell anyone what happened, and rot in jail for the rest of your life,” I reminded him as I slammed the door behind me. The wail he let out soaked the walls of the castle, and all I could think was, Once upon a time, I cried just as hard, and I didn’t even shed a fucking tear.

I spent the rest of the day working, ignoring the sound of the ambulance upstairs as Harry was rushed to the hospital. When the clock hit seven p.m., I went back to my room, took a shower, and headed straight to Good Girl, skipping dinner. I felt on edge. Each day we hadn’t spoken had left a gap. If all it took to pacify her ass was telling her happy birthday, I guessed I was willing to bite the bullet.

I mean, I knew her birthday had been shitty, so this was plain courtesy at this point.

The thought that Lenora might have plans with Pope occurred to me, but did not deter me. Pope was an ongoing issue, but I could handle him.

I was at Len’s door when my phone started ringing for the thousandth time today.

Dad.

What was his problem? I’d spoken to my mom three times since breaking into Harry’s house, expecting her to mention that Dad wanted to talk to me, but she never did. One time she’d tried to give him the phone, and he’d said he’d call me later.

The fact that he’d kept something from his wife (Dad never kept anything from Mom) made me uneasy, and that meant the conversation we were going to have wasn’t one I was eager to participate in.

I hadn’t been planning to ghost him tonight, but fuck, I wasn’t going to turn around and take the call. I needed to devour Good Girl to make my Bad Life a little less miserable.

I knocked, knowing full damn well I wasn’t in any position to barge in anymore. She wasn’t the same girl from six years ago. Although, privately, I had to admit, both versions of her turned me on.

Sweet and innocent.

Feisty and psychotic.

A combination that made me want to dick her more than I wanted to keep said dick away from anything remotely intimate.

“Come in,” her sweet voice called.

I’d started pushing the door open when it occurred to me that the invitation was likely for Pope, who had been visiting her on the reg, and not for me.

What if she’s naked?

She fucking better not be. I’d slap her ass silly after I fucked her.

But I was experiencing something strange and uncultured called restraint. I didn’t want her to throw my ass out of her room like leftover Chinese takeout again.

“It’s Vaughn,” I said as wryly as possible, waiting for her to shoo me away.

A few seconds passed before she answered.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” she responded blandly.

What was I fucking waiting for? Goddamn.

I pushed the door open, hoping to find her working or reading or converting to a religion where she could only have sex with people named Vaughn Spencer. Instead, she was perched against her drafting table, wearing something I’d never seen on her before: a silky black nightgown tied together with a powder-pink ribbon at the tits, a slit revealing her milky side-ass.

Standing like that, she looked like Aphrodite, rising from the sea, fully formed and made to godly perfection. Confident. Gorgeous. Pleasurable and lustful.

And knowing that wasn’t the case—that she had an insecure, irrational side to her—made her even more desirable and raw.

“Shit,” the word was breathed in awe.

I frowned, waiting for her to complete the sentence, then realized I was the pathetic motherfucker who’d uttered it.

She crossed her legs at the ankle, looking at me funny.

“You may pick up your jaw at any time, Spencer.”

I blinked, resisting the urge to say something offensive and disgusting. It was an instinct, but that wasn’t the way to her pussy, which was my final destination tonight. So what if she called me out for wanting to screw her?

A thought occurred to me—an alarming one, at that. Namely, having full-blown sex with her. And maybe even enjoying it. She was the kind of girl who would never throw it in my face if something went horribly wrong—like if I put my junk in an unauthorized trunk accidentally. Not to mention, she was a virgin, too.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Fuck.

“Vaughn?” She tilted her head, waiting for signs of life from planet My Goddamn Brain.

I clapped my chin up with one hand, pretending to put my jaw back in place. “Happy?”

“Very.” She pushed off the table, walking toward me.

I stood there, waiting for the catch. She’d told me not to come here again, and I knew better than to think she’d changed her mind. Lenora was a lot of things. Flaky wasn’t one of them.

“Close the door after you,” she whispered into my face when we were toe-to-toe. “Then get in my bed.”

And the stupid, horny, teenage asshole that I was, I did.

“I said if you pushed me, I’d push harder.” I clucked my tongue, striding to Vaughn in my sexy lingerie. “Actually, I said it many months ago, when we were still seniors. Remember?”

Because I do.

Vaughn sat on my bed. The metal headboard behind him was round, thin, and perfect for my plan. I produced the handcuffs Pope had given me from my nightstand drawer—I hadn’t dared ask where he’d gotten them—and straddled Vaughn’s narrow waist, feeling his abs contracting under his shirt as he sucked in a breath.

His throat bobbed, but his lips stayed pursed and sullen. He had this upper-class quality about him no new-moneyed man could buy—a rich boy’s pout that stirred something between your legs.

Mine, anyway.

He watched me through hooded, predatory eyes, probably thinking my plan was to kneel like the rest of them and service him chained to my headboard, unable to push my hair out of my face. He was predictable, and entirely too used to getting what he wanted.