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“It’s all here. Years’ worth of it.”
The implications are enough to boggle my mind. Every single member of Havoc House had to provide either embarrassing or criminal collateral as part of their Initiation, usually both. Every single graduating class going back to the beginning.
Except for us.
Without the Initiation, any leverage the alumni thought they had on us disappeared in a puff of smoke. But now the tables have turned. Not just turned, but completely upended into a new world order.
We could make them do anything.
Gigi catches up almost as quickly as I do, but she thinks to ask the most important question. “How is this possible?”
An itch starts up along my spine, a flutter of awareness that momentarily distracts me from the treasure trove in front of me. “Show me the card.”
She rushes back into the living room where the card still lies on the carpeted floor. On the front flap is a picture of a koala bear, its claws clutching a shaft of bamboo in a death grip. A preprinted slogan above its head encourages us to Hang in There.
Gigi stares at the image for so long that it looks like she’s in a trance. I gently take the card from her hands and open it. Inside, it’s mostly blank. The card is one of those where you write your own message.
The cursive words are a recognizable scrawl, looped letters I’ve seen before. I’ve seen it in the pages of a journal and the last note tossed haphazardly over his shoulder as their father sped us away from the flames of Club Havoc.
Judging from the way Gigi has frozen beside me, she also recognizes the handwriting.
So she reads the message aloud, voice catching on the last words.
“Long live Olivia Pratt.”
Epilogue
Five Years Later
“This has to be how sausage feels.”
Drake looks at me in obvious amusement as I struggle out of my dress. “You’re the one who refuses to wear anything that has an empire waist.”
With a gasp of effort, I manage to push the tube dress down my hips and toss it aside. “Empire waists make me look like a cupcake. I’ll take exploding tube of biscuit dough over that any day of the week.”
He reaches for me with a lascivious grin. “Keep talking. You’re making me hungry.”
I slap his hands away before he can get any ideas. I never would have guessed that Drake Van Koch had a fetish for bellies the size of pumpkins, but you’d think he was the one with raging hormones. “Keep your hands to yourself until I’ve showered, at least. I’m a sweaty mess.”
“I’ll wash your back.” He swoops in and lifts me up in his arms, ignoring my whoop of surprise and battering hands as I order him to put me down. “Alright, fine. If you insist, I’ll get the front too.”
His hand passes over a too sensitive nipple and I can’t fight off a gasp of pure lust. Sex should be the furthest thing from my mind at this point, but somehow Drake always manages to convince me it’s a great idea.
At forty weeks, six days and however many aching minutes pregnant, my body has officially turned on me. Johannesburg is lovely in the winter, mid-70’s and sunny, but my treacherous body turns me into a melted puddle of human flesh after about five minutes out of the air-conditioning.
Between the weird cravings and inexplicable tears whenever a Celine Dion song plays over the radio, I am thoroughly ready to get this baby out of me.
Pregnancy is not something my body will ever get used to. This might be the second time I’ve gone through it, but the sensation of growing another human being inside me still feels as impossible as it did the first time.
“You’ve got maybe ten minutes—” A shriek in the hallway cuts me off. I laugh as Drake’s face falls. “Make that ten seconds.”
He sets me down and gets a robe wrapped around me, just as three feet and thirty pounds of demonic energy barrels into the room.
Baby Olivia, named after the aunt she has no idea ever existed, shrieks as soon as she lays eyes on her father. “Daddy, Daddy. Hide me.”
“Where is Angie?” he asks in a sing-song voice as he swoops his two-year-old daughter off her feet before she can barrel headfirst into the nightstand.
“It’s her day off, remember.” I’d actually forgotten about it myself, but at least I have pregnancy brain to blame for my forgetfulness. “The night nurse is staying over. I might have forgotten to tell her we can’t play hide-and-seek in the house because Livi gets too creative with her hiding places.”
