watching me with an inscrutable gaze. He grins, like he always does, but there's something missing, some key ingredient to his usual cocksureness. “The hell are you doing anyway?”
“Maybe you're not the only one who likes to watch?” Hael quips back, and I swear to god, you could hear a pin drop in that room.
“For the love of the devil's cock,” Oscar murmurs, which is actually a pretty fucking unique expletive. “I knew this would happen.” He moves over to my discarded shirt and picks it up off the floor, thrusting it out to me with a curled lip, like even the thought of touching something that was on my body disgusts him. Pig. I take the shirt, but I just use it to clean the rest of the cum from my fingers, staring Oscar's gray eyes down like I've got nothing to lose.
No, wait, not like I've got nothing to lose. I'm already there.
“You see a pair of tits and forget what's going on here?” Oscar snaps again, drawing Vic's sharp gaze. “The Charter Crew is at your house, Hael.”
“Fucking what?!” Hael snaps, breaking out of his strange reverie. He tears his eyes from me and then rakes his tatted fingers through his hair. “You got the boys on it?”
“They're on it, but we need to go,” Vic says, that booming voice of his cutting through the bullshit in the room. That's not a request; it's an order. I chuck the cum-covered t-shirt at Oscar's face, but unfortunately, he's a dexterous motherfucker and manages to catch it. Once he does, he drops it like it's hot and then scowls at me.
At least that's something, right? An actual expression of emotion.
“Bernadette, stay here with Aaron and Callum.” Vic moves to turn away, but I'm already standing up and facing him down, naked in a sea of tattooed demons. There are five very dangerous, very pretty men in this room with me. But the way they all look at me? I've never felt more powerful.
“You messed up by failing to show me that video; I'm coming.” Vic works his jaw for a moment, but then just shakes his head at me.
“You're going to be the goddamn death of me, Bernadette. Get dressed. You have two minutes, and if your ass isn't sitting bitch-seat, you're not going.”
I flip his back off as he storms outside, leaving me to stalk past Hael and up the stairs to grab my clothes. After I get dressed, I head out the front door and down the driveway, passing by Oscar as I go. He watches me, turning those gray eyes of his down to mine when I pause beside him. On impulse, I lean in toward him and lift up on my tiptoes, careful not to touch him.
It’s clear he doesn’t like to be touched.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t get off on seeing me with Aaron,” I whisper with my lips hovering near his ear. He scowls at me, but I’ve very clearly found a weakness in him that can be exploited: he doesn’t notice me slip his revolver out of Hael’s open trunk. It’s in a black leather gun case that I very quietly slip beneath my own leather jacket.
“Get away from me, Miss Blackbird,” Oscar purrs, in the most vitriolic way possible. But fuck him, mission accomplished. He clearly has no idea how much I mess him up. He must really freaking hate me.
Doesn’t matter, I got what I wanted, smiling as I move around him toward Vic’s bike.
I feel almost maniacally excited at the prospect of violence. After all, if I'm shedding blood, I don't have to give a second thought to what happened with Aaron. Or why Hael Harbin, of all people, was watching.
The Charter Crew—Mitch's insane motherfucking clown posse—are waiting outside this small white cottage in a shady part of town. Well, I think the cottage used to be white. The exterior walls are in desperate need of replacing; the bottom row of siding is covered in moss and clearly succumbing to the elements. Oddly enough, there are flowers planted in neat rows on either side of the walkway, some fall-blooming yellow thing that I'm pretty sure is an Oregon Grape.
Vic pulls right up into the middle of all that shit on his Harley, knocking the kickstand into place with his foot and then lighting up a cigarette, all before ever turning off the engine. Hael is right behind us, driving his Camaro right up and over the curb to park in