She gaped at him, knocking over her diet soda in an attempt to save her precious upholstery.

“The aspartame sweetener in that drink is a known carcinogen. Hell, it’ll probably kill you before my cigarettes do me, but you don’t see me shoving that shit down your throat. Get fucked and have a nice day.”

Clearly, he’s in a mood.

I almost … like it.

“Let be me real honest with you right now, Bern,” he says, making my name into something foreign, hot to the touch. I shiver. “I’m not afraid of Pamela Pence.” Vic scoffs her name like the sound’s dirtied his tongue, dulled some of that hot ember to ash. “She can snap if she wants, I don’t give a good goddamn.”

“It’s not her I’m afraid of,” I say. Lie. Some dark, little part of me will always be afraid of my mother, will always be that little girl crying because mama’s manicured nails dig too deep, pinch too hard. Go sit on Daddy’s lap, she’d command as I pulled away with what little strength I had. He’s not my daddy, I’d scream back, and then I’d be forced there anyway, onto the lap of a pervert whose touch lingered too long, whose smile cut too deep … I choke a little, and Vic notices.

He notices goddamn everything.

“The cop,” he says, his voice hollow.

I nod.

We don’t talk for a while, and I find myself glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the house, searching for any sign of his father. That guy gives me the serious fucking creeps. Why Vic stays here is beyond me.

I decide to ask.

There are no secrets in Havoc right?

Bunch of bullshit, surely, but if they’re willing to play the façade in my favor, I’ll take it.

“Why are you still living here?” I ask, and when Vic’s gaze passes up to mine, it’s like watching the moon eclipse the sun, cutting off all the light but somehow making it more beautiful in the process. “You could have your own place. Shit, you could live with Aaron if you wanted. Really, anywhere away from your father would be an improvement.”

“It’s all part of the deal,” he says, reaching out to take my hand, fingering that ring on my finger for the first time. He looks at for a while, really looks at it, until I can’t take the tautness in the air between us and snatch my hand back. “In order for me to get my inheritance, I have to live with my father until I graduate.” His face darkens, storm clouds sliding across an expression that’s already too dark, too mysterious, too steeped in shadow. “Get married. Stay married for one year.”

That’s the part that really surprises me.

I have to resist the urge to hit him.

My teeth grit in frustration.

“You never told me we had to stay married for a year.”

Victor’s eyes darken and narrow, and he slides that tormenting gaze my direction. Just trying to maintain eye contact with the man exhausts me. He’s both a complex storm of emotions, and the complete and utter void of a blue, cloudless sky, all at once. Difficult to read, impossible to predict.

“We’ll stay married for life if that’s what it takes,” he snaps out, losing that practiced cool for just a fraction of a section. With a deep inhale, and an emptying exhale, I feel his taut muscles loosen beneath me, the anger in him draining out with a single breath. I can’t even imagine, having that sort of control. My heart flutters, and my fingers curl reflexively. I might be sitting on his lap, but Victor Channing and I are both stupidly similar and worlds apart.

Conundrums. Hypocrisies.

That’s us.

“Did you think this deal had an expiration date?” he asks finally, and I frown.

“I’m not big on thinking ahead at all,” I admit. It’s true. My life has never been the sort where I could stop and smell the roses, wonder what might happen tomorrow, or what could happen in the future because I’m always worried about now, surviving this exact second and hoping in the darkest recesses of my heart that there might actually be another. Of course, I don’t say any of that out loud.

Vic just stares at me for a moment and then runs his huge hand over his face.

“What?” I ask, because all of his non-verbal communication says he’s not very happy with me. The way his hand drops from my waist, the way his fingers curl around the end of the chair arm. “You asked me to be Havoc’s … girl.” I choke on the word a little and feel my body start to shake with that old, familiar anger. “Did you expect me to be happy to be here? Was that part of the deal, too? Because if it was, I didn’t hear it.”

His face tightens up, but he manages to maintain that ironclad control.

“You’re lashing out with anger in an unfamiliar situation, I get it. Been there, done that. Learn to leash it up and set it loose when you decide, and you’ll find it much more satisfying to control the rage instead of letting it control you.”

“What are you, a fucking shrink or something?” I snap, grabbing up the pack of cigarettes and removing one with shaking fingers. Vic holds up a lighter as I slip it between my lips, igniting the tip.

“We didn’t ask you to be Havoc’s girl, we used to be a Havoc Girl. Big difference, Bernadette.” Vic pushes me off his lap without warning, and even though he doesn’t push hard, I end up stumbling, sprawling into the grass and losing my cigarette in the process. He leans down to look at me, like some sort of king perched up on a throne, and I find myself scowling. “Blood in, blood out.”

“You keep saying that!” I shout back, pushing to my feet and wondering if I could take him on, too, beat his ass like I did Oscar, wrap my hands around his throat. It’d probably feel good, wouldn’t it? To take revenge on him the way I’m asking him to do to everyone else in my life who fucked up along the way. “I should’ve added your name to your own list, sicced you on yourself.”

He laughs at me then, and I find that I really am a slave to my anger. When Vic stands up, I throw myself forward without thinking, slamming into him. He doesn’t budge. It’s like ramming my shoulder into a brick wall.

A hot, muscular, scary sort of brick wall.

Victor grabs me by the arms and pushes me back, slamming me into the trunk of the tree the way he did his father last week. He doesn’t hurt me the way I know he could, but the force is enough to knock the air from my lungs.

So now I’m panting, shaking, standing there and looking into eyes so black they may as well be endless pools to drown myself in.

“Keep a hold of that anger and use it elsewhere. We’ll find you an outlet.” Victor doesn’t release me, his fingers tightening ever so slightly, his ripe mouth turned down in a frown. “When we asked you to be a Havoc Girl, Bernadette, it meant you became one of us. There is no expiration date on this deal.”

“And if I try to leave someday?” I hear myself ask, not quite believing there ever will be a someday. No matter what Vic says, I feel like my life does have an expiration date. I might not like it, but that’s just the way this harsh, ugly world works.

“Bernadette, don’t try me,” Victor says, and then he releases me, stalking over to pick up my still burning cigarette from the dry grass. He swipes out some stray embers with his boot and tucks the smoke between his lips. “How long have you been standing there?” he asks, and I lift my head to find all four remaining Havoc Boys standing near the driveway.