“What the hell?” Tom exclaims, lacking the exceptional genteel of his lover. His swamp-green eyes widen with fear as he takes a step back, sloshing what I think is a mojito all down the front of his suit and cursing. David’s eyes go wide, and I see him swallow down a lump of fear, his gaze flicking to me.
“Oh, God,” Leigh groans, covering her face with her hands as Victor rises slowly from the sofa to stare his mother down. From the shadows, Callum, Oscar, and Hael creep, weapons at the ready. In a move that’s purely for dramatic effect, Hael shoves a new magazine into his pistol and grins.
“What is this? A coup?” Ophelia asks with a tinkling laugh. I move to stand beside Victor, for once fully aware of the plan. Sometimes, I don’t think the boys even mean to leave me out; they just work so well together that they can plan shit on the fly.
“No, mother,” Vic says, reaching out to touch her necklace. His flint-like eyes move up to her face. It’s fascinating to see the two of them nose-to-nose like this. Makes me realize how strong his mother’s side of the gene pool is. Likely, if we had a kid, they’d look just like the two of them. “This is a beautiful necklace. I guess you brought it as a wedding gift? You know, since you didn’t get me and Bernie shit.”
“You call that a wedding?” Ophelia chokes out with another laugh, this one much more caustic. “At that termite-infested nightmare of a house?” She reaches up as if to push the blade away, but Aaron presses the knife in harder, turning the ruby pearl into a stream that slithers down the front of her neck.
With slow, careful movements, Victor removes the necklace from his mother’s throat and then turns to me. He kisses the shell of my ear as that musk and amber smell of his curls around me like smoke.
“I’m going to give you the world,” he promises, fastening the necklace and then stepping back so suddenly that I’m left feeling dizzy and breathless. Vic turns to Aaron and nods. “You can drop the knife,” he says, and, with some great reluctance, Aaron does.
Ophelia touches manicured mauve nails to her throat and pulls them away to stare down at the bloodstains on her fingertips.
The house is silent, but for the faintest echo of a movie coming from upstairs.
“So,” Victor begins, taking my hand in his and sliding his thumb across his grandmother’s ring in the laziest, most sensual sort of way. Even with Callum, Hael, and Oscar positioned around the room with guns, with Ophelia’s black eyes staring at me, with Aaron’s tired-looking frown, I’m excited by it. Pretty sure that’s Vic’s intention, anyway. “Mommy dearest, we both know you can’t really have me killed—despite my jokes to the contrary.” Victor looks down at me with a soft expression on his face. If it actually reached his eyes, it might be cute. “If I die before receiving my inheritance, the whole pot goes to charity.”
My brows go up as I look toward Ophelia. For someone bleeding by the neck, she looks remarkably regal in her satin gown.
“So … to lose the money to your mother, you have to fail to graduate or move out of your dad’s place then?” I ask and Vic grins.
“Or get divorced,” he adds, and then he throws back his head and laughs.
“Or commit a felony,” Ophelia adds, crossing her arms under her breasts and looking around the room at the other Havoc Boys. “Which I’m fairly certain you’ve just done. Tom, finish your drink and let’s go.”
Aaron moves forward with the knife, but Victor waves him away.
“Tit for tat, Mommy. You’re apparently involved in a child sex-trafficking ring.” Victor runs his fingertips over the necklace on my throat and steps back. He tucks his tattooed fingers in his pockets as Ophelia stares at him with a face as cold and impassive as Oscar’s. My eyes flick over to the man in question, but he just seems bored with the whole scenario.
As if he can sense me looking at him, Oscar’s gray eyes find mine and we end up staring at each other. Does he remember being inside of me? Does he know how deep he cut me by running away? Instead of getting pissed off at everything, I need to learn to listen to my emotions.
Oscar’s attitude is making me sad.
So fucking sad.
I’ve been voiceless for so long that when I realized I could speak out, I went in the opposite direction. Every little thing out of my mouth has been dripping vitriol and rage. After all, I have a lot to hate these boys for. I can’t see inside their heads; I’m not a mind reader. I need to open up a dialogue with them.
I look back at Ophelia.
“All your fancy friends, too, I’ll bet,” I say, letting that vitriol and hate I was just talking about spill across my mouth. Why direct it at the guys when I have other targets? “You won’t say anything about this. You’ll leave this house and start a new plot against Victor. Why don’t you go now and start planning? You’re fucking up our honeymoon.” I let my smile turn into a white-toothed grin. Like husband, like wife. “Thanks for the necklace, by the way. It’s lovely.”
Ophelia smiles at me, the expression a match for mine. She hates her son almost as much as I love him. I say almost because there is no touching this toxically beautiful thing that Victor and I have.
“We have an entire year to play games with each other,” Ophelia purrs, leaning in close enough that I can smell her perfume, like coffee, vanilla, and white flowers. Some expensive fragrance, no doubt. “I’m looking forward to it.” She quite literally snaps her fingers as she stands up and Tom stumbles to do her bidding, shoving his empty glass back in Coraleigh’s hands as he scrambles to keep up. “Come along, David.”
David—one of the only two guys outside of Havoc that I ever slept with—shoves up to his feet, casting me one, last, strange look on his way out the door.
“What the hell was that about?” Hael asks, pointing between the front door and my face. I glance back at him, trying to school my expression, but I must be a terrible poker player because he narrows his brown eyes on me. A bit of jealousy sours his expression, but I don’t … dislike it. Is that wrong?
Even if it is, I don’t give a shit.
“Bernadette fucked that guy,” Victor says, lighting up a cigarette and giving me an inscrutable sort of look. “That sweet cunt of yours better not get us into trouble the way Hael’s dick has, or I swear to god, I’m off to Fiji and I’m never coming back.” He gestures in Coraleigh’s direction with his head. “Callum, let her use the bathroom and then tie her up again. We’re going to stay the weekend.”
Victor Channing is a dark, masculine god. I don’t think there’s a straight woman on this earth who wouldn’t look at him and feel the need to worship at least some aspect of his body. His personality, on the other hand, might leave something to be desired.
“Want to tell me about David?” he asks, shirtless and gorgeous and looking over his shoulder at me with a cruel, possessive twinkle in his obsidian gaze.
“David,” I start, sitting on the edge of a king-sized bed in one of the five motherfucking guest bedrooms in this monstrous house. We’ve left the Vincents their room to spend the night in. I mean, they’re tied up, but at least they’re in their own bed, right? “I met him at a Prescott party, and we hooked up one time.”