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  It’s hard enough to fake it around the guys, but Scarlett knows me too damned well. She’ll be able to take one look at me and see that there’s something going on.

  At the same time, I can’t keep ignoring her. My best friend is persistent as hell, and if I don’t answer before too long, I wouldn’t put it past her to come barging into the house looking for me. That’s just the kind of ride-or-die chick she is, and usually I’m grateful for it. Now I’m not so sure it’s a good thing. If I see her, I already know it’s going to be hard to keep everything from spilling out. I haven’t told anyone what happened, and it’s eating at me, but I don’t know if I should bring her into this mess. It’s dangerous as fuck, and I don’t want her to get hurt.

  Goddammit. Everything is so fucked up, and I have no idea what the right answer is.

  My phone buzzes again. Blowing out a breath, I pull it out of my pocket, unlocking the screen and navigating to my messages. Six missed texts, all from Scarlett.

  SCAR: You sure were hustling at school today. Everything okay?

  SCAR: Do you wanna grab some food after classes today? Will your sexy caretakers let you out that long?

  SCAR: Mercyyyyyyy, why are you ignoring me???

  SCAR: Okay, seriously, I’m starting to get worried. Are you okay??

  SCAR: Are you in trouble? Are they trying to keep you from talking to me?? I’ll show up at that house and kick their asses if they’re trying to cut you off from your friends now.

  SCAR: Please text me back if you’re okay.

  That last one gets to me, and I know I have to say something. I’d be climbing the walls if our positions were reversed, and I can practically feel the worry seeping through the words on the screen. I hit the screen of my smartphone to reply and lie there with my thumbs poised over it for a solid minute, trying to think of what to say. I hate lying to Scarlett, and telling her everything’s fine would definitely be a lie. Nothing is fine about any of this, but I have no idea where to begin.

  After another minute of not knowing how to use my words, I give up on the idea of texting and just call her instead.

  It rings for less than a second before Scarlett picks up.

  “Oh my god!” Her voice comes out rushed and a little high-pitched. “You’re alive. Thank fuck. I was picturing you dead in a ditch somewhere, and here’s me, freaking out about getting a bad grade on an essay. What kind of friend would I be if that happened?”

  I immediately smile, because there’s just something about Scarlett’s relieved sass that cheers me up immediately. “I’m not dead in a ditch, I promise,” I tell her. “You saw me earlier today. But I’m sorry I worried you.”

  “You should be!” she insists. “You know I don’t care about double texting, or triple or quadruple or whatever, but I was just going to keep sending you messages until you responded. I barely see you on campus anymore. What the hell is going on? Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m okay.” There’s a moment of quiet while I try to decide how I want to handle this, but in the end, I know I can’t say anything I need to on the phone. I have to see her. “Can we meet up? Are you free now?”

  “Yeah, of course,” she answers right away. “Fuck, yes. I need to see you. You sound really fucking weird.”

  “I—I’ll see you soon.”

  “Okay. Like twenty minutes? The usual place?”

  “Yeah. Wait, no.” The coffee shop we usually hang out at is probably going to be too crowded. The college kids getting their caffeine fixes before settling in for a night of homework will be too much, and I don’t want to be overheard. “Let’s do that little park on Glen. It’s quieter.”

  “Sure. I’ll head out now.”

  We hang up, and I sit on the bed for a second, trying to decide how this will go—how I should handle it. I could tell her some of the truth, but try to keep it vague so she doesn’t know enough to get her in trouble. I could try to make up some story, but that goes right back to me not knowing how to lie to her. Either way, I have to say something, and everything in me wants to tell her the truth, just so I’m not alone with this crushing, heartbreaking secret anymore.

  Tears burn the backs of my eyes, but I blink them away angrily. Stuffing my phone and wallet into my pockets, I pull my shoes back on and head downstairs.

  Just my luck, the living room is deserted except for Sloan as I pass through it. He’s sitting on the couch with his laptop on his lap, and he looks up when I walk in. I can already see the hard look forming on his face the second our gazes meet, and it makes me bristle.

  “I’m going out,” I tell him quickly, wrenching my gaze away from his. I don’t even stop walking or slow down, still heading straight for the front door. If he wants to try to get up and physically stop me, then that’s on him.

  I almost hope he will, if I’m being honest.

  I’d love an excuse to fucking fight him.

  He’s never been above picking me up and moving me where he wants me to be, and hitting him in the face for trying it would feel so damn good right about now.

  But he doesn’t move from his spot, doesn’t even say anything, so I keep walking and let myself out of the house. I take a deep breath and then sling my leg over my bike, cranking it up and peeling out of the driveway off toward the park.

  The sun hasn’t started setting yet, but it’s shady and cool and quiet in the little park when I get there. Scarlett’s already there, sitting on a bench underneath a tree, looking at her phone. She glances up immediately when I near her, and she’s on her feet a second later, throwing her arms around me.

  “Thank fucking god. There was definitely a part of me that wasn’t going to believe you were okay until I saw you alone,” she says, pulling back to look me over with an assessing expression on her heart-shaped face. “I thought maybe one of your guys had turned on you or something and was making you say everything was okay when it wasn’t.”

  I can feel my face paling a little bit at her words, and she only has to take a look at my reaction to tell something’s up. She knows me better than anyone other than my dad. And since he’s gone, I guess that means she’s the only one left who really gets me.

  All at once, I just feel so heavy. The grief, the guilt, the worry—it’s all been weighing on me, and the effort of keeping up appearances has been taking its toll. Being around Scarlett makes it easy to drop the mask, to give up on pretending, and I know she can see it all on my face. She sucks in a breath and leads me back over to the bench, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “Jesus, Mercy.” She grimaces, her voice gentle. “What’s going on? I know something’s wrong. Don’t lie to me. Please.”

  It’s the “please” that breaks me in the end. I already wanted to tell her anyway, and having her ask like that makes it impossible to deny her.

  I suck in a breath, and it’s shuddery and almost painful.

  “Dad’s gone,” I whisper, slumping back against the bench. “Fuck. God.”

  I put my hands over my face, pressing my palms against my closed eyes until I see little colored lights in the darkness. It’s the first time I’ve said that out loud to another human being, and it feels a little like I just spoke the truth into existence.

  Like that single sentence made this all real.

  “What? What do you mean he’s gone?” Scarlett’s voice has an edge to it like she’s trying not to panic yet. Like she already knows exactly what I mean but is hoping she’s wrong. “He’s not…”

  I nod. “Yeah. He’s dead.”

  “How—how do you know?”

  “Because I watched Sloan shoot him.”

  Now it’s her turn to suck in a sharp breath, and I drop my hands to look at her. There’s surprise written all over her face, and pain in her eyes.

  She’s known my dad since we were both little. It wasn’t strange for her to be at my house several nights a week, asking him to make grilled cheese sandwiches or help us with whatever new random project we had deci
ded to tackle. I had one dead parent and one amazing one, and she had two shitty parents who could never keep their shit together long enough to put much effort into raising their daughter. So my dad took on that role often, always making her feel welcome in our house.

  He was a part of her life too, and now he’s gone.

  “I…” She presses her lips together and then shakes her head. Her blue eyes shine like she’s holding back tears. “How? Why? I thought things were working out. I thought…”

  I snort, but there’s no humor in the sound, not really. It’s just pain and bitterness and exhaustion at this point.

  “Yeah. I thought that too. I asked Levi to let Dad out of the deal, or at least see if he could find some way to do it, and he told me he’d talk to Gavin. I actually felt sort of hopeful after that. And then I followed Sloan, and he just…” I let out a choppy breath. “He met my dad, and they talked. Dad told him he needed more time to complete whatever errand the Black Roses forced on him, and instead of giving it to him, Sloan just shot him. I watched him fall. I watched Sloan shove his body into a trunk.”

  “Fuck.”

  Scarlett wraps a piece of her honey-blonde hair around her fingers, twisting it so tightly that her skin turns a darker pink. She’s staring at the ground in front of the bench, but I don’t think she’s really seeing it.

  I know exactly how she feels. I’ve at least had a few days to process the shock, although it still hits me like a ton of bricks every time I think about it.

  “You want to know the really fucked up part?” I clench my hands into fists. “The fucked up part is that I’m still there. In their house. Living with them. Walking around like everything’s normal. Like I don’t know my own father was killed by one of them—shot in cold blood.”

  Scarlett shakes her head, face pale. She’s quiet for a moment, and I give her some more time to process it all. It’s a lot, and in the back of my mind, I feel bad for not warning her that this was such a huge damn mess before I started talking. I know she was worried about me, but she probably wasn’t thinking it would be anything on this level of fucked up when she asked me if I was okay.

  But then, Scarlett’s never let me down before. No matter what I’ve been going through, she’s always been there.

  I can see her trying to shake off her sadness and surprise, pulling her best friend mask on so she can be there for me and process her own feelings later. I love her so much for that.

  “That’s… really fucking messed up, Mercy,” she says finally, and I laugh a little because she’s not wrong. She winces, turning to face me. “Oh god, I feel so bad now. I was joking about you hooking up with them and being in a harem or whatever, and I had no idea it was going to get this serious. This fucked up.”

  “I know.” I take her hand, threading our fingers together. “It’s not your fault though. We had no way of predicting what would happen. And I don’t know what Rory and Levi know. Maybe they’re a part of it, maybe they’re not, but at the end of the day, I guess it doesn’t really matter. They’re a part of this.” I wave my free hand vaguely to encompass me and the world in general. “The Black Roses are responsible for what happened to my dad, and Levi and Rory are both part of the gang. That’s where their loyalties lie.”

  Scarlett nods, chewing on her bottom lip. Her eyes aren’t as glassy anymore, and I can already see the shock and pain turning into anger, just like it did inside my own heart.

  “Yeah. You definitely can’t trust any of them.” She makes a face. “So what are you going to do?”

  I lean back a little, organizing my thoughts before I speak. It helps to talk this out with someone instead of getting stuck in my head about it all, going over and over the same ideas and plans a dozen times.

  “They don’t know I know about Sloan killing my dad, and I’m trying hard to make sure it stays that way.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up a little. “What? Why?”

  My heart beats faster, a surge of adrenaline spiking through me as I speak. “They’re acting like nothing has happened, so I am too. The longer they don’t know that anything has changed for me, the better.”

  “I don’t get it.” She shakes her head, and I can see the worry and confusion on her face. “Don’t you want to get out of there? And if there’s no reason for you to stay, you should get out of there before—”

  “I want to make them pay, Scar,” I interrupt. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay and ruin them from the inside. I want them to know what it feels like to lose the things you love and be helpless to stop it. I wanted to get back at them when they first started fucking with my dad, but I want even more than that now. I want to take them down. For good.”

  “Holy fuck. Mercy.” Scarlett squeezes my hand, giving me a serious look. “I know you’re pissed off, and I don’t blame you at all for anything you’re feeling right now, but… shit. What you’re talking about is crazy.”

  I swallow, my stomach churning. “I don’t care.”

  “But you can’t do something like that all by yourself,” she presses, lifting one leg onto the bench so she can turn toward me more fully. “You’re just one person, you know? You’re not even in a gang yourself. The Black Roses control at least half the city. They have people everywhere. Even if you manage to fuck with the three guys you’re staying with, there’s no telling what could come down on you from the rest of the gang in retaliation. The only people who have a chance at taking them down as a whole would be like… the Jackals.”

  I open my mouth to argue with her again, to tell her that I don’t give a shit how hard it may be or how likely it is that I’ll die in the attempt—I’m still going to try.

  But then something clicks in my head.

  She’s right. She’s completely right.

  It would take me a long-ass time to gather enough info and gain enough leverage over them to take them down on my own. But the Jackals, the other major gang in Fairview Heights, have manpower and firepower and whatever other kind of power is necessary to take a group like this down.

  The two gangs are already at odds with each other, so it’s the perfect setup. They’d probably jump at the chance to have the Black Roses out of the way, if only they had the insider info necessary to make that happen.

  And I can be the one to give that to them.

  I can use my position as a prisoner in the guys’ house to dig up shit on the Black Roses, then let the Jackals do the dirty work.

  I smile, feeling hopeful in a way I haven’t since I watched my dad die. That’s what I’ll do.

  I’ll get the Jackals to help me.

  6

  Scarlett and I don’t stay out for much longer. After talking for a few more minutes, she hugs me and makes me promise to be careful, and more importantly to stop ignoring her texts.

  I make that promise without hesitation. Having someone else who knows what’s going on helps me feel less like I’m battling this alone, and talking to her helped me find a path through this that will be better and more likely to succeed than anything I came up with on my own.

  Once I get back to the house, I head upstairs quickly, thankful when I don’t run into any of the guys. Slipping into my bedroom, I make a beeline for the attached bathroom and splash some water on my face. Then I towel off and look at my reflection in the mirror.

  “Jesus,” I mutter, grimacing.

  It’s no wonder Scarlett and Rory—and, hell, even Levi—only had to take one look at me to know there was something going on. It’s all there for them to see if they look hard enough.

  Pain and anger burn like twin flames in my eyes, radiating out to the downturn of my lips. The trauma I’ve been feeling is on full display, my face revealing way too much about my internal state.

  I told Rory a half-truth about my mother’s death to deflect him from his questions about what was wrong with me, but it shouldn’t have come to that in the first place.

  If I want to be serious about this plan that’s developing in my mind, I can’
t spend another day moping or hiding. I need to make moves and find a way to get into the guys’ confidence. I can’t hold them at arm’s length anymore.

  Before my dad’s death, things were developing between me and all three of them. I never meant for it to happen, but I can’t deny it to myself. Some kind of attraction was growing, blurring the lines between friend and lover and enemy. It’s sort of easy to see how it happened with Rory and Levi, but there was some kind of fucked up push-and-pull happening with Sloan, too—although we both tried not to admit it.

  At the time, I told myself that I couldn’t let it keep happening, but everything is different now.

  It seems like a long time ago that I was worried about dropping my own guard around them, but now the shoe is on the other foot, really. I need them to drop their guards around me.

  So whatever was happening between us, whatever was breaking down the walls and blurring the lines between collateral and something else, I have to lean into those feelings more.

  Before we parted ways, Scarlett promised to put feelers out and find someone who’s got an in with the Jackals for me. Someone who can put me in touch with one of their gang members so I can strike a deal with them and offer info that can help the Jackals take down the Black Roses.

  But if I’m going to strike that deal, if I’m going to get them on my side in all of this, I have to have something to bargain with. They won’t lift a finger unless I have some information for them, something they can use and act on that will make listening to me worthwhile.

  I’ve been hoping to unearth useful information about the Black Roses since I was brought to this house at the very beginning of this mess, but now it’s more important than ever. And there’s no way I’m going to get anything worthwhile by hiding in my room.

  So I have to act, plain and simple. I have to be proactive and get the ball rolling so this can be over and done with. My dad never dragged his feet when it came to doing something for me, and I’m going to put the same effort and dedication into getting revenge for his death.

  It’s what he deserves.