All I can do at that point is smile.
My stomach is a mess of black butterflies, reminding me that I am, in fact, still human.
I’m a seventeen-year-old girl who’s about to get married.
Of all the things that I am, that I’ve become, that one is definitely the strangest.
Without another word, I reach up and rap my knuckles against the wood.
Deep breath, Bernie, deep breath.
Callum opens the doors for me and Aaron and then steps aside, pressing play on his phone and sending spirals of beautiful music out of the speakers placed on either side of the porch. It takes a second for me to adjust to the sight of a wedding, a real wedding, before I can force myself to start walking.
Victor is waiting, his best man by his side. Hael Harbin grins at me and winks, giving me a little salute with his inked fingers. In his gaze, I can read so many things that have been left unsaid. It’s not my baby; I feel free; I want to move on with you, Bernie. He said as much before, when we had sex on the hood of his Camaro.
I glance at the white folding chairs on either side of the walkway. There are only a half-dozen in total, and I smile when I spot Kara and Ashley in the front row. Kara grins over her shoulder at her brother and gives us a thumbs-up, but Ashley just buries her head in the puffy sleeve of her cousin’s dress.
Heather stands in front of me, holding a basket of pink rose petals. She smiles at me, but I know that when she told me that she shipped me and Aaron, and not me and Victor, she was serious. I don’t know how to explain to her that I don’t intend on keeping just one for myself.
The breeze picks up around us, making the trees shiver and shaking off whatever leaves they have left. Heather takes that as her cue to turn around and start walking, dropping rose petals in her wake.
I follow after, nice and slow, my combat boots comfortable beneath the voluminous magic of my dress. With my left arm, I hold onto Aaron. My right, I tuck into the pocket on the dress, fingering the old, wrinkled envelope that contains my list.
Victor’s mother, Ophelia, is here, glaring at us. So is her sleazy car salesman-like boyfriend, Todd. I’m surprised to see that Vic’s dad is in attendance, too, and I just suddenly miss my own so much it hurts.
If he hadn’t died, things would’ve been different. Penelope would probably still be alive. But then, would I have met the Havoc Boys? Can I quantify my love for my sister and my love for the guys enough to compare them?
No, fuck that.
You can’t change the past, but you sure as hell can dictate your own future.
I start walking, my dress trailing in the patchy grass, Aaron by my side. I wonder if, like Callum mentioned, I smell like leather and peaches to him the way he smells like rose and sandalwood to me.
Ophelia wrinkles her nose at me as I walk past, her obsidian eyes so much like her son’s that it’s scary. She made Victor Channing. She’s just like him. We should be, if not afraid of her, then at least wary. Because she’s coming, I just know she is.
I do my best to ignore her, climbing the steps of the small dais under the trees. Aaron gives me one, last kiss on the cheek and moves to the side with Cal beside him, like they’re my bridesmaids or some shit.
“Welcome, friends,” Oscar says, the word friends dripping from his lips like a poisonous joke. We all know that this wedding is as much an attack on Vic’s mom as it is a union.
I turn to look at Victor, his face filled with tenderness and dark, possessive domineering, all at the same time. My breath catches.
We didn’t need a wedding to become one; we always have been.
He reaches out his hands to take mine, our HAVOC painted fingers curling together on either side.
“Marriage is a dark and desperate sort of union,” Oscar begins, the words of the ceremony penned by his own elegant fingers and promptly memorized. I notice that, for once, he doesn’t have his iPad by his side. “It’s one person begetting the soul, the love, and the sins of the other. It’s about forging a bond in legality that tries its very best to adhere to the age-old adage: blood in, blood out.”
Vic grins at me, and I grin back. Meanwhile, Hael snickers with laughter and the tree branches above us fill with a murder of crows.
How ominous.
“My only question to you today is,” Oscar continues, reaching up to adjust his glasses as he looks between us. “Are you willing to bleed for each other?” Callum steps forward to hand the wedding bands to us. They’re artfully tied to a black rose, using silken ribbons that remind me of Cal’s ballerina tattoo. “Victor, please repeat after me. I, Victor Channing, am an asshole who in no way deserves Bernadette Blackbird, but who, through some strange fault of the universe, will be marrying her today. I will bleed for her; I will die for her. I agree to marry her.”
Victor laughs, even as his mother’s cursing drifts over the fading sounds of the music.
“This isn’t some sort of sick joke! Who does he think he is, Tom? Huh? Who?”
But there is no law that says that your dick of a friend can’t make up whatever vows he wants.
Speaking of …
Vic takes the wedding band and then leans in toward me, putting his lips up against my ear.
“I have vows for you, but I’m not about to read them in front of my mother. But tonight, I want to tell you everything. And then I’m going to tear that wedding dress off and fuck you until you’re mine.” I scoff at Vic’s words, but how can I respond to that now, up here in front of my sister?
Instead, I wait for Vic to lean back and repeat Oscar’s words back to me as he slips the simple wedding band on my finger, joining it to his grandmother’s ring. Oscar repeats the vows and asks me to recite them, and I do.
I do.
When Vic cups the back of my head and kisses me, destroying me with that hot slice of sin he calls a tongue, I am lost.
Forever trapped in Havoc.
We walk down the aisle together and head straight for his Harley.
The infinite black of my wedding gown ripples as we drive away. I’m not sure where we’re going at first, because my head is lost in both the clouds, and the soft earth in which we buried Neil Pence.
I’m not surprised, however, to find myself back at the cemetery.
Vic parks the bike, and I know what we’re here for.
Closure.
That’s what this is about: saying goodbye to Pen, saying goodbye to one of the monsters in my closet, and saying hello to whatever my next chapter is supposed to be.
Victor can’t keep his hands off of me as we stumble through the cold, quiet of the cemetery, our panting breaths the only sound here, the only proof that life still goes on, even when the dead lie quiet and sleeping.
We collapse on the grass at the edge of the woods, halfway between where we buried Neil, and where he—whether through action or design—buried Penelope.
My arms wrap Vic’s neck, desperate to keep his mouth on mine. I’d never imagined that marrying someone—especially at the age of seventeen—would be so fucking erotic. But standing up there with Victor Channing, his purple-dark hair slicked back, suit pressed and perfectly tailored, was foreplay of the best kind.
It’s left us both shaking and sweating, frenzied for another taste of our drug of choice: each other.
“You’ve made all my dark, little dreams come true, Bernadette,” he growls against my mouth, his hands planted into the green grass on either side of my head. Victor undulates his hips forward, rubbing our pelvises together and making me groan.
We buried the Thing alive.
The thought slithers into my brain, but it doesn’t disturb me as much as it should.
I am tainted. I am broken. I belong to Havoc.
Vic shoves the skirts of my Lazaro gown aside, reaching down and fumbling with his belt. He curses under his breath, dark eyes heavy lidded and liquid with sin and want. He frees his heavy shaft into his tattooed hand, giving it a few pumps as I look up at him from my back. Right this s
econd, he can have me anyway he wants me.
Before the wedding, I made my wants and wishes clear.
I’ll be Queen of Havoc.
We’ll finish my list.
We’ll crush the Charter Crew.
And with the way Ophelia was looking at me and Vic during the wedding, it’s obvious we’ll need to do something about her, too.
Victor leans over me, licking the side of my face before stealing my soul through my lips. His kiss is the most exquisite sort of torture, like licking the brownie batter spoon before you wash it. There’s just enough chocolate to tease, but the real dessert is in the oven; you’re just waiting for it to heat up.
“Make me yours, Vic,” I moan, giving into my sweet obsession for him. Usually, I’m too prideful to let him see how I really feel.
But not today, not during our first fuck as husband and wife of Havoc.
“Princess, you already are mine,” Victor murmurs, pushing my pale thighs apart. The sunlight makes my skin glow gold as he drives into me with his bare cock. We’re all about risk, me and Vic. Doesn’t mean it’s smart or right, only that it’s fact.
We ache for each other.
Our mouths clash again as Vic curls his big body over me, seeking a kiss but unwilling to stop the manic thrusting of his hips. His musky smell mixes with the earthy odor of freshly turned earth. There are no living witnesses to our consummation, but plenty of quiet spirits, watching two demons rut in a tombstone-ridden field.
Havoc’s boss sits up and looks into my eyes with two, dark pools of obsidian, his expression fierce and possessive, unforgiving and domineering in a way that almost scares me. Almost. To be with someone like Victor, you have to be able to match him, blow for blow.
I cup Vic’s head in my hand and, with very little pressure, manage to bring his mouth to mine again. That’s how easy he is for me to control; I only wish I had a leash to show the world the truth about how easy he is to command.
He fucks me even harder, the sound of our bodies joining echoing around the silent space. My own hips rise up, eager to meet his, stirring up a delicious sort of friction that I can feel in my teeth, my bones, my cunt.
My body throbs around Vic’s, squeezing him, rewarding him.
The emotions of the day twist around inside of me as Victor pleasures me with his cock, and then it all comes pouring out in one, last surge of emotion. Finishing my purge. I end it much hotter than I began, with an orgasm that rips through me like an electric storm, frying my brain, burning me from the inside out.
It’s violent and messy, when Vic gathers me close and comes inside of me, holding me to him, marking me. The scratches I’ve left down his back don’t hurt either; they very clearly say Do Not Fucking Touch.
Victor is panting above me, doing his best to regain control of both himself and his breathing. His head is bent, dark hair wet with sweat.
“I love you, Victor Channing,” I tell him, and he freezes. I swear, he even stops breathing. After a moment, Vic exhales and his tense muscles relax.
“I love you more, Bernadette, and I always will.” I frown at him, but he just lifts his head and lets his mouth twist into a villainous smirk. “Don’t argue, just enjoy.”
“You’re a fucking prick,” I growl as he rolls off of me with a laugh. I sit up, still dressed in my black gown, the fabric thoroughly fucked into the dirt and probably irreparably damaged and stained with cum.
Whatever.
It’s symbolic, right? The wedding dress, I mean. There’s a reason I got married in black.
Victor turns onto his back and lights a cigarette, passing it to me as I sit there with my attention on the gravestones all around us. Somewhere beneath us, there’s a dead—or soon-to-be dead—cop. A dead stepfather. A dead rapist.
I’ll never know if Neil Pence actually killed my sister or not. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Because he ruined her, with his lust and his greed and his narcissism. He ruined the person I loved most, and I will always love the sweet taste of vengeance in my mouth.
Confucius says, dig two graves before embarking on a journey of revenge.
Well, bitch, I’ve already dug more than that. What next?
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, finishing the cigarette in my hand and stabbing it out into the grass beside me. Victor turns toward me, his own smoke still clutched between his lips, and smiles.
It’s not a very nice smile.
It never is.
“Whatever you say, my love,” he growls, shoving up to his feet and looking down at me. Vic, his shirt undone, his tattoos glowing in the sunlight, stares down at me with smoke curling from his lips and grins.
I take his outstretched hand and he hauls me to my feet.
Vic then pulls a small pocketknife from his jacket, cuts his palm, and offers the blade out to me. I take it, slicing my own palm and curling my fingers through his, our wedding bands brushing together. We look at each other, past our clasped hands, and he smiles.
“Blood in,” Victor tells me with a nod of his chin. “Blood out.”
Together, we walk hand-in-hand through the gravestones toward Vic’s waiting bike.
1. stepdad.
I take the tube of red lipstick from my purse and pop the cap off. Victor waits beside his Harley, the back decorated with a Just Married sign, cans and flowers tied to the saddlebags and dragging. I wonder which one of the boys found the time to do that? It had to be one of the Havoc Boys; Victor would never let anyone else near his ride.
The eyes of my new husband are dark as he watches me kneel down on the pavement in my wedding dress, silence rolling through the cemetery as the sounds of our moans fade into a distant memory. My hands are dirty, staining the old envelope as I smooth it out in front of me.
I don’t bother reapplying my lipstick. Instead, I use the pretty pink color of it to cross out the first name on my list, obliterating Neil Pence from my life, my mind, and the endless abyss of my pain.
Fat, juicy tears fall from my eyes and splatter against my wedding ring, the ink of my HAVOC tattoo, and the crinkled piece of paper that holds all my worst memories in simple words and titles.
“I’m sorry Penelope,” I whisper, wishing she were here with me, missing her with every breath. You’d have hated Vic, huh? I bet you’d be just like Heather; you’d ship me and Aaron, I’m sure. He always got along well with you, didn’t he?
“Bernie,” Vic says, gently commanding me. Just the way I like. Just the way I hate. I can’t decide if I should be his queen, if he should be my king … or if we should rule together. We have a long way to go.
I tuck the list—and the lipstick—into the pockets of my black gown and stand up.
Victor waits for me by his bike, reaching out to put his big, warm hands on my hips so he can pull me close and kiss me in a stray shaft of sunshine. His mouth tastes like iniquitous love and romantic sin, all twisted into one dark, wicked tongue.
His fingers fist in my hair, bringing me closer so he can consume me with that impossible venom of his, its taste as sweet as the peace I feel inside of me. I had to fill that dark void to quiet the voices crying out my seemingly endless and infinite pain.
I should feel sorry for Neil, but I don’t.
Not in the least.
“Let’s go, wife,” Vic says, flashing me those white teeth of his as he grins big. “I haven’t fucked you near enough to satisfy my inner demons.” A shiver takes over me, but I’m not displeased by Victor’s words. He’s right: we haven’t had near enough of each other.
“Can we play some music?” I ask, and he nods. His Harley’s hooked up with a sound system that fills the cemetery when he turns it on, letting me choose the song that will forever define this moment for us.
I decide on “A Little Wicked” by Valerie Broussard.
Victor hands me a new leather jacket in hot pink that he gets from one of the saddlebags, the word Havoc scrawled across the back. It’s like, the dark version of the Pink Ladies jacket from Grease. I sli
p into it and then climb onto the Harley behind him, wrapping my hands around my husband’s strong waist.
“You ready for this, Mrs. Channing?” he asks me with a dark chuckle. He knows I’m not changing my name, but whatever.
I have no idea where we’re going, but it doesn’t matter because Vic is driving. He loosens his tie, lights a cigarette, and kicks the engine to life beneath us.
“I’m ready,” I tell him as the song oozes from the speakers, perfuming the air with sound. Victor takes off down the curving road toward the street and, as we pull onto it, the Camaro and the Bronco slide into formation behind us.
And off we go.
Havoc on a fucking honeymoon.
All bets are on and I’m throwing my money at the possibility of mayhem.
No, no, the certainty of it.
To Be Continued …
The Havoc Boys, Book #3
Flip the page for a sneak peek.
Chapter One
Vic’s hands are hot as he grabs my pelvis in inked fingers, thrusting into me with deep, long strokes, sweat beading on the glorious lines of his chest and trailing down to the spot where are our bodies are inextricably joined together.
“Oh, fuck, Bernie,” he groans, throwing his head back, a glorious dark king trapped between my thighs. I own him, just as he owns me. It’s a give and take sort of situation, neither of us really willing to accept that we’re equals just yet.
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