“You didn’t kill him, too, did you?” I ask, because as far as I know, my father hanged himself. Then again, until recently, I’d assumed my older sister had shoved a bottle of pills down her throat and ended things. Some tragedies are not what they appear. “Dad, I mean. The way you killed Penelope.”

The words come up like bile, tainting my mouth and making my tongue feel sour. I crave to hold the hand of a Havoc Boy, any Havoc Boy, any at all. If I could just do that, wrap my fingers with one of theirs, I could stay calm, the way I have for weeks since I found out.

Weeks of pushing this down, walling it off, acting like it isn’t real.

I grind my nail into the scratched surface of HAVOC on the table, just to keep my fingers from digging into Pam’s eyes the way I did to James’. My other hand, I use to prop up my chin, to keep up the act, the one that says I don’t care about any of this.

I’m just Bernadette Savannah Blackbird, bad bitch and gangbanger.

Only … that’s a pipe dream. I wish that I could be that girl all the time, that I never felt sad or insecure, confused or angry. Devastated. Shattered. Broken up and bleeding. But I do. I feel all those things all the time—especially right now.

“Bernadette,” Pam begins, giving me another look as she pushes blond hair back from her face. She looks so young right now, and so sad. Pathetic, actually. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I mean that—in-between playing games with Neil and the Grand Murder Party—you killed Penelope. It isn’t even a question, is it? You did it. But how? That’s the thing that’s been haunting me at night, the one thing that I just cannot shake.”

We stare at each other for a long, long moment. As we do, I wonder if I haven’t made a mistake allowing Pamela to end up in jail. Now, with a huge court case coming up, and her guilt providing an avenue for the VGTF to pursue RICO charges—that is, gang-related charges—against the GMP, there’s no way for me to get to her.

I mentioned finding one of Stacey’s girls to do the dirty work, to hang her from her sheets. I may still do that.

Pam’s case is an important part of bringing down everything and everyone else: Neil (posthumously of course), his father, his brother, Ophelia, Maxwell Barrasso. Every rich fucker that’s ever purchased a child from the GMP and all that money they launder through Trinity’s mother’s foundation, Save Our Precious Children League. If she dies, the VGTF will assume that the GMP arranged it. I mean, they very well could be in the process of doing just that as we speak. I could get away with it. Is that what you really want, Bernie? Is it?

The answer is: I have no fucking clue.

“Did you hold a gun to her? Make her take the pills?” I keep staring at Pamela as bits and pieces of my sister’s journal filter through my head. She wasn’t planning on dying, was she? When she asked me things like, do you think you’d be okay without me? She was planning on running. Escaping. Going to Nan-motherfucking-tucket.

I close my eyes for a moment, my heartbeat thundering, head spinning.

I’ve held it together for five weeks since I learned about Pam’s involvement in Penelope’s death.

And yet, for the first time, I’m really fucking feeling it.

I need my boys, I think, fingers digging into the sides of the table. But I can’t leave yet. Not without hearing her say it.

“You wearing a wire or something?” Pam asks, looking me over like she can’t imagine any other reason for me to be here. There’s an immediate tension in the air because I’ve already taken note of the fact that she hasn’t denied my claim, hasn’t sputtered and slammed her hands on the table and turned that funny pink color she does when she’s mad. She isn’t mad at the accusation because … it’s true.

I laugh at her, but then I feel something salty and reach up my fingers to touch the tear on my cheek. Fuck. I’m crying. Even though I told myself I wouldn’t. Even though I promised that I wouldn’t do this.

“I’m not a fucking snitch,” I growl back, with so much vehemence that Pamela actually reclines in her seat. This woman who accepted ten-grand to marry me off to a gangster. Who, for years, ordered me around and screamed in my face and called me horrible names while hiding the blood on her hands. “Oh, how I wish I were right now, that I could sell you out and watch you scramble in front of the media. All your rich friends know now, don’t they? Why you’ve been arrested. And they don’t care. In fact, they’re hoping you’ll take the fall for it, so they don’t have to pay for playing sick, little games with stolen children.”

“You’re a little liar and whore, just like your sister,” Pamela tells me, her vitriolic words twisting inside my head like a mantra. Liar and a whore. But I’m neither of those things. If anyone at this table is, it would be her. “Marrying your father and having the two of you was the worst mistake I ever made. If I could go back in time, I would abort Penelope and leave your predator daddy behind.”

The harsh bite of truth colors every word of that, but I don’t flinch. None of that surprises me. Pamela has never liked being a mom. The very idea of it makes her feel trapped, like a butterfly with its wings torn off.

“Why didn’t you just walk the fuck away?” I ask, staring her down and watching as she curls one hand into a fist, digging those chipped fingernails of hers into her palm. The way she looks down at my perfectly painted and bejeweled nails makes it plainly obvious that she’s jealous. Control. It was all about control.

“Why did you even come here?” Pamela asks, but I’m shaking my head again, leaning in close to her so I can whisper.

“You answer my questions now or I’ll see to it that you don’t survive to your trial date.”

Our eyes meet, and I notice just the briefest hesitation in her gaze, like she isn’t sure if she believes me or not. It takes a while for the idea to settle, the idea that she finally has no power over me. She can’t make me sit in Neil’s lap or watch Coraleigh put me in the car to take me to the Kushners.

My throat gets so tight that I suddenly find it impossible to breathe. I’m choking. I’m choking and I am so goddamn sad. Why am I so fucking sad all the time? One minute, I’ll be fine. I’ll know how many good things I still have in my life and how goddamn lucky I am. I’ve made it to seventeen-going-on-eighteen without being sexually assaulted. It’s a miracle. Getting my Havoc Boys back is a miracle.

I clamp an arm over my belly as I try to hold back the tears.

The miscarriage is a distant, edgy thing at the back of my mind. I didn’t want a baby, so I’m relieved. And I feel bad for being relieved. But I also know that if I did end up with a daughter, I’d know exactly how to be the perfect parent: be the opposite of Pamela. Embody love instead of hate.

I sit up and fold my arms across the surface of the table.

“Why did you marry my father?” I ask, because I need to know all of this. And, in this last moment, if Pamela can give me a scrap of something to hold onto, I’ll let her live the rest of her days out in prison. Frankly, it would be a better punishment than death really. She’ll hate the food and the lack of designer clothing, the absence of nail artists from Oak Park, the lack of a hairstylist with experience working on Hollywood stars. She’ll hate this place because it will embody everything that she deserves: a desperate, empty, lonely cage. Forever.

At the same time, I know that my list of vengeance was not made for the people whose names ended up on it. It was designed for me, by me, and if you ever thought a personal vendetta was the only reason this story was penned, I feel sorry for you. If you thought all those soft and quiet in-between moments were filler, then you didn’t understand. If you disliked me because the ugly things inside of me made you see the ugly things inside of you, then you’re just as lost as I once was.

Not anymore.

Never again.

When Victor put that crown on my head, I knew that it wasn’t a reward for the violence, that it wasn’t a reward for bashing in James Barrasso’s head. It was a reward for reclaiming myself, for falling into my own skin and finding out that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Mixed reviews from critics stained with blood and tears,

The politics of a broken life are really just reality,

My words are what set me free, so if I have to be something polarizing,

Then that’s exactly what I’m going to be.

The poetry filters through my head, unbidden. I couldn’t stop it if I tried. Any attempt to hold back that twisted prose would leave me writhing on the floor in agony, poisoned by it. Consumed by it. So I don’t bother. I just tap my pretty nails on the table and let it come, memorizing every line of my mother’s face so I know exactly the type of person that I never want to become.

“I married him for his money,” Pamela says, sitting back in her orange jumpsuit and looking like a supermodel even with the faint purple circles under her eyes. She’s pretty, just like me. We’re both pretty and look at what a curse it is. The world simultaneously rewards and punishes pretty, doesn’t it? “I’d have done anything back then to get away from your grandparents.” She keeps staring at me, but like she has no idea who I am or why I’m here. “Does that answer your fucking question, you ugly little brat?”

The insult bounces off of me. She can hate me all she wants. I have people who love me, so guess what? The worst the world has to throw at me means nothing. Her ugly words can’t take away the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve got the one thing I’ve always dreamed of: acceptance. A place to belong.

“Why did you want to get away from them?” I continue, realizing that this is literally the longest conversation we’ve had in years. How sad is that? Maybe Pamela would’ve seen something to like in me or Penelope or Heather if she’d bothered spending time with us?

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Pam sneers, looking away from me toward one of the guards, like she might ask to be taken back to her cell. My turn to slam both palms on the surface of the table. My turn to get a look from one of the guards.