blooming across my face. He looks at me like he wants to kill me. Maybe he does, I don’t know, but this is Havoc. Blood in, blood out. Who knows what might happen?
“I want Bernadette Blackbird to be …” I almost say my girl, but I don’t. That’s not a fair price for anyone. Everything we do, it has to be for Havoc, for the benefit of Havoc. “Our girl. A Havoc girl.” I stab my cigarette out in the built-in ashtray on one of the theater chairs. That’s how old this place is; the chairs haven’t been replaced since the early nineties. “I want her to be one of us.”
“You’ve lost your fucking mind,” Aaron snarls at me, visibly shaken. He runs his fingers through his chestnut hair and looks down at me with violence brimming in his gaze. “You can’t wish that on her.” He slaps the back of one hand into the palm of the other for emphasis. “You can’t want that for her.”
I just shake my head, turning and putting my palms on the edge of the stage. Without much effort, I haul my body up and over the side, rising to my feet in front of the kid I used to protect on the playground. He’s come a long way since then, but he’ll always be little Aaron fucking Fadler to me.
“But I can. And I do.” I smile. It’s a patronizing smile, I’ll admit, but I can’t help it. When it comes to Bernadette Blackbird, I’ve never been very rational. Once, in the tenth grade, when I was pretending to hate her, and lying with every breath I took, Sheldon Ernst murmured something about how sweet her cunt must taste.
I beat him until he couldn’t stand.
Because I’m jealous.
And I’m in love.
I’ve always been in love with that girl.
Now, without any guilt or regret, she can be mine.
I intend to see that through.
“Don’t do this, Victor,” Aaron pleads, gritting his teeth, his hands curling into fists at his sides. I just keep smiling at him. If he wants Bernadette, he’s going to have to fight harder than that. In a surprising move, he falls to his knees and puts his hands together in a prayerlike position. The move pleases me far more than it should. I must be wicked. “Please. Don’t bring her into this mess. Our lives will never be normal, and that’s all she’s ever wanted.”
I stare down at him. Maybe he thinks I’m being cold or apathetic; I’m anything but. On the inside, that careful numbness I’ve tended and stoked for years is starting to disintegrate. I feel alive in a way I haven’t since I locked that girl in my closet.
Does she know I used to press my palms against the outside of that door, put my ear to the wood and close my eyes, just to hear the sound of her? When she cried, I broke. When she screamed, I shattered.
“You don’t really want to rope Bernadette into all of this?” Callum asks, but I don’t turn around to look at him. Instead, I keep my focus on Aaron. Despite his outward appearance, he’s the one I need to watch, the one I need to worry about.
Bernadette loved him, probably still loves him. This’ll destroy them both, I bet.
“Come on, boss, that’s taking it a little far, don’t you think?” Hael adds, but I don’t look at him either. He always acts on impulse, and even if he can be brutal in a fight, he’s too soft on women. Bernadette, in particular.
I crouch down in front of Aaron, putting us on eye level with one another.
“I think that Bernadette has had her chance.” Aaron’s mouth opens and closes in response to my statement, but he doesn’t actually say anything. Maybe it’s my eyes? Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I have no goddamn clue who the man is that’s looking back at me. My brown eyes seem black, like a reflection of my heart. “We did our best, but you know what they say: if you love something, let it go, and if it comes back, it’s yours forever.”
“That’s such bullshit,” Aaron grinds out, on the verge of angry tears. He wants to kick my ass right now, more than anything. Last night, when I was gripping my cock in my hand and dreaming of Bernadette’s narrowed green eyes and pursed lips, I wanted to kick my own ass.
She’s going to bleed for this; she’s going to hurt.