“Don’t act like somebody fucking died,” Vic continues, pressing a scalding kiss to the side of my head that does nothing to dry the sudden rush of hot heat between my thighs. “We’re living in a luxury apartment on the eleventh floor. We’ve got round the clock security; the girls are safe. Mason is dead.” Victor pauses at the sound of his phone buzzing, glancing down at the screen with a wry smile on his lips.

“Ophelia?” Oscar guesses, crossing his arms over his chest. Seeing him in the Oak Valley Prep uniform won’t be much different than seeing him in his usual suits but for the color. Seeing any of the others in a jacket and tie … that’s going to rock my world. At first, I’ll probably hate it, then I’ll probably get off on it, and then … who knows?

“Ophelia,” Vic confirms, answering the call and putting it on speaker at the same moment. “Mother.”

“You wicked little monster,” she hisses and while I would normally say something like that and mean it as a compliment, I’m fairly certain Ophelia Mars intends for it to be an insult. “Mason Miller? Inside the club of all places? Now, how on earth did you manage to pull that one off?”

Vic sits down on the larger sofa, putting his phone on the coffee table in a strange déjà vu moment where I think of him sitting in Aaron’s living room, talking to Mitch Charter in this same manner. Full circle, baby. But trying to compare Ophelia and Mitch is laughable—they’re not even in the same league.

“Mason Miller?” Vic queries, and then he laughs as his mother huffs an exasperated sigh. Meanwhile, Hael wanders over to the fridge—carefully disguised as one of the cabinets—and opens it, searching for something to eat. It’s empty, obviously, and he shuts it with a pained sigh. “Oh, that’s right. That pervert we killed on Friday. Tell me: at anytime while you were riding Maxwell Barrasso’s dick, did you not consider that we were going to retaliate for what happened at our school?”

“Your message was received loud and clear.” Ophelia pauses here, and I swear, I can hear the sound of her pacing in high heels. “Tom is dead.”

“Not by our hand,” Victor says, leaning back in his seat as I drop down next to him, Cal perches on the arm, and Hael and Aaron accept piles of garment bags that Oscar hands over to them. “That was Mason’s doing. Are you terribly upset? Oh, wait, you have no heart. That’s a virtual impossibility.”

“Son, do not test me right now.” Ophelia stops her pacing. I can almost see her in my mind’s eye, torn between being pleased at the development of the annulment and furious over Mason’s and Tom’s deaths—both of which she’s going to blame us for, regardless of what actually happened. “How is your new school? You know, I have a lot of regrets in my life and not sending you through the Oak Private School System is one of them. You belong there, Victor. Your blood is as blue as any other student there.”

“Mm, it’s almost like you think I give a shit about any of that. I’m not a golden retriever, Ophelia, a dog that you bred for its curly coat and pretty eyes. I’m your son, a son that you paraded in front of perverted men when Ruby stopped giving you money.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Victor,” Ophelia says, and that’s when I see it. For the very first time. A real and true and genuine crack in Vic’s self-control. He grabs the phone from the table, his knuckles turning white as he squeezes it too hard, hard enough to crack the screen.

“Dramatic?” he whispers back, his voice so low and dark that I actually shiver in response. Oscar pauses in his sorting of the uniforms to look back at Vic, exchanging a brief look with Callum as he does. “You’re calling me dramatic because I didn’t like grown men touching me when I was a child? You think this is funny?”

“Don’t think I don’t know that you’ve been living outside of your father’s place,” Ophelia continues, throwing the rules of the trust into her son’s face. “And what’s this I hear about an apartment on campus? Do you want to lose this thing so easily, Vic?”

“You filthy bitch,” Victor snarls back, rising to his feet, still clutching the phone. His left hand clenches and unclenches at his side as he grinds his teeth together. “Do you really think you can peg me on a technicality? You know as well as I do that Ruby’s trust allows me to live on the campus of an educational facility. I’m going to win this game, and I’m going to win it with my hands wrapped around your motherfucking throat.”

Vic throws his phone as hard as he can against the far wall, shattering it to pieces as he storms away from the couch and I scramble to take off after him.

“Vic,” I start as he yanks open the front door like he’s going to leave the apartment.

I move up behind him, unsure if I should actually touch him or not. He’s bristling now. He’s on fire. He’s … coming apart in a way that’s probably healthy but also a little bit scary. Wield it like a weapon. It’s like, all these years of holding back that temper, of saving it, of collecting those flames into an inferno, and Victor is getting ready to unleash it.

“I need to take a walk,” he says, his dark eyes sliding briefly over to me. His expression softens enough that I know today isn’t the day he breaks. Not today. Not yet. But soon.

“Do you need me?” I ask, and Victor gives a visible shudder at the words, swiping a hand down his face. I want nothing more right now than to help him through this, the way he’s helped me time and again deal with my own over-the-top temper.

His obsidian gaze starts at my feet and rakes up my body, making me shiver and crackle like my skin is made of coals and his eyes are the flame that finally ignites the blaze. I didn’t know about the exceptions in his trust, the ones that allowed him to withdraw money for education, the ones that allow him to live here without breaking the stipulation that he lives with his father until graduation.

That means … all along … Victor could’ve left Prescott High and his drunk father and all of that bullshit behind. He has the grades to get in here, the connections. Even Ophelia claimed she always wanted him to go to school here (not totally sure I believe that, but I guess it might’ve helped her maintain the failing image of an aristocrat).

Anyway, I don’t have to ask why Vic didn’t leave.

It’s pretty goddamn obvious: me.

His love is far from selfish. Or, if it is, then it’s much more than that, too.

Victor very carefully closes the front door and turns around to look at me, dark gaze blazing in such a way that I can’t seem to help the soft gasp that falls from my lips. I’m not such a badass now, am I? Faced with the unrelenting magnanimity of his stare.

“Get your uniform on,” he tells me, and I can’t help the shudder that takes over me, making my skin ripple and ache from my head down to the very tips of my toes. Victor stalks off down the short hallway toward the bathroom before disappearing inside, and I let out a long breath that I didn’t even mean to hold.

“Jesus,” Aaron murmurs as I glance his way, studying the sharp masculinity of a face that was once boyish and sweet and now can only just barely teeter on that edge in the right lighting.

Several things occur to me then.

Aaron’s house is on the very edge of Prescott, straddling the official boundary of the Fuller neighborhood. He could’ve gone to Fuller High if he’d wanted, I bet. And Cal, he was talented enough that he could’ve run away all together, left this nightmare of a city behind. Hael could’ve quit school to work on cars. Oscar is too smart to be stuck in Prescott; he likely could’ve snagged the one and only scholarship spot that Oak Valley opens each year (each year there isn’t a school shooting, that is).

The only person who was truly and utterly stuck in Prescott High was … me.

“Excuse me,” I choke out, snatching the pile of bags and a single shoe box that Oscar has carefully gathered into a neat pile on the coffee table, and taking off for the bedroom nearest the bathroom. I slam the door behind me, putting my back to it and closing my eyes for a moment.

My heart races, and my spirit swells, and there’s nowhere for that energy to go but into my hands and fingers as I throw all the items in my arms onto the king-size bed against the far wall. It’s dressed plainly in white sheets, white pillows, and a matching down comforter. Is it wrong that my first thought is: will we all fit in here on this thing? Because the thought of being separated from any of my boys for any length of time makes me feel almost physically ill.

I shed my clothes as quickly as I can, yanking on a gray pleated skirt and a white button-down, a sky-blue satin tie, and socks that reach my knees. The shoes are last, these shiny black Mary Janes that remind me of the shoes Pamela used to make me and Pen wear on holidays, when we were still rich and she still pretended to give a shit about us, when Dad was alive and the Thing was a future nightmare I couldn’t have possibly fathomed.

As soon as I’m dressed, I tear out of that room like a bat outta hell and run straight into Victor’s strong, wet chest. He’s clearly just gotten out of the shower, beads of moisture clinging to his inked skin as he rests a palm on either side of the hallway, his obsidian gaze boring down into me.

“Bernadette,” he murmurs, and then he’s shoving me back into the room and pinning me against the wall. Victor’s mouth descends on mine, a slice of hot fury that burns me even as it soothes away all of my pain, all of my questioning, any lingering doubts that I might’ve had.

His tongue parts my lips like a spoken order, like he really is a king and I’m a loyal subject desperate to obey. Why I feel like this around him, I’m not sure, but I like it. When I’m with Victor, I don’t have to worry or wonder. He’ll take care of me, of us, of everything. In his arms, that’s where I feel the safest.

“Is there anything you need?” I whisper, trembling as he bands his strong fingers around my upper arms, making dents in the heather gray sleeves of the jacket.