The only man whose madness could match Bane’s.

Baron ‘Vicious’ Spencer.

The whole place was buzzing with ringtones, women gossiping in St. John pencil skirts and men arguing in sharp suits. Ivory-colored granite and antique dark-brown leather adorned the reception lounge of FHH. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered the perfect view of ugly, beautiful, fake, real, raw Los Angeles in all its glory.

And there, in luxury, in indulgence, in power, I came face-to-face with the man who was deemed a legend at All Saint High, so much so that even over a decade later, they’d named a bench after him—Vicious.

“If you are going to plagiarize a whole article about the stock exchange, at least don’t steal it from the fucking Financial Times. Who hired your ass as head of PR? Who?” The man with the sleek raven hair and dark indigo eyes threw a batch of documents in a horrified-looking young man’s face. The papers rained down like hail, not confetti. Vicious’ jaw ticked as he stabbed a finger into the guy’s ironed shirt.

“Fix this shit before you box up the two and a half pictures of your fucking family you probably brought here to domesticate your four-by-four-inch office, dickface. And do it by five, because when I sit down for my six o’clock meeting, I want to act like it never happened. Am I clear?”

Although nearly every person on the floor had gathered in an open circle to watch the show, no one called Vicious out on his rotten behavior. Not even my father. Everybody seemed too scared of him, and while I felt really bad for the PR guy, who mumbled that his name was Russell, I didn’t want to start off my employment by pissing more people off.

“Please, sir. You can’t fire me.” Russell nearly dropped to his knees. It was nothing short of torture to watch. I shrank into the sensible black wool dress with a French designer tag I’d snatched from my mother’s closet that morning and tried not to flinch.

“I can, and I am, and fuck, where is my coffee?” Vicious looked around, tapping his finger on his lip. He had a wedding band on his left hand. You’d think marriage would have made him mellower. You’d be wrong.

Suddenly, the commotion stopped. The throng of suits sliced in two and in walked three men I recognized all too well from the financial magazines lying around my house.

Dean Cole, Jaime Followhill, and Trent Rexroth.

The first two were merely decoration, standing on either side of Trent, a few inches shorter, and leaner, and generally less God-like. It was Trent who had the room, who stole the show. He wore a baby blue button-down shirt and light gray slacks. He looked like sex, he walked like sex, and I was obviously not the only one to think so, because at least three women in my vicinity let out breathless giggles.

“Spencer.” Trent regarded him coolly, clutching a Starbucks in his hand. “Is Aunt Flow in town? Tone this shit down. It’s eight a.m. on a Monday.”

“Yeah, what crawled up your ass, V?” Dean Cole chimed in, his wide smile making the room significantly warmer and less daunting.

“Language,” my father boomed beside me, clutching my arm tighter. I’d forgotten he held me in place. He’d first started manhandling me at sixteen, when I showed up at his house with two rings in my left nostril, and moved to bruising grips when I’d decorated my lower torso with a huge back cross. It was never too bad—as I said before, rich people don’t hit their children—but we both knew he did it because I hated standing next to him. The fact he’d sometimes leave bruises was probably a nice bonus in his eyes.

The cross wasn’t about religion. It was a message, marred with bold, black ink.

Do. Not. Cross.

“Dudebro is fired. I want his laptop on my desk by noon. Not to mention all his passwords, company phone, and parking pass, which I will give to someone more worthy. Maybe the fucking kid who delivers us fruit baskets every morning.” Vicious waved in Russell’s general direction, snatching one of two coffee cups from Jaime’s hands. My heart tightened.

Trent kicked what I assumed was his office door open silently. I probably shouldn’t have felt sheer glee at how they’d all dismissed my father. “No one’s getting fired today. Besides, we have bigger fish to fry. In my office.”

“A—fuck your fish. And B—don’t order me around,” Vicious finished his coffee in two swallows and handed the cup to the person nearest to him. “C—coffee. I need more of it. Now.”

“Vicious…” Jaime cleared his throat as the guy holding Vicious’ cup quickly ran to the elevator to get him a second Starbucks.

“The man copied and pasted a Financial Times article to our site. We could have gotten sued, or worse.”