Chapter 10 #2
Before I can speak, he straightens and vanishes, taking his cold stare with him.
Blood gushes behind my ears, drowning out Nonna’s voice.
Her hand covers mine. “Where did you go?”
“Nowhere.” I shake myself out of my own pity. “I’m here, but I have a question.”
Neither of us stops. Just two carefully built machines, designed to lie and kill.
“Did you know?” I flick a stray potato skin off my hand into the pile. I don’t need to elaborate. She knows.
“What do you think?” She wipes her hands on her apron, pausing to look at me.
I tighten my grip on the knife. “I think—”
The front door crashes open, Jord shoving his glasses up over his head. “We’re hommmeee! Chaos has arrived!”
As always, perfect timing.
Mismatched plates crowd the table as candles drip wax down their stems.
Luce swirls her wine across from me, laughing, and my chest eases for a moment.
I spent the rest of the day doing anything that kept my hands busy and my eyes off Asher. It was all very mature. An excellent display of my healing journey. Truly.
I told myself I wasn’t avoiding him.
I’ve always been better at lying to myself than to him.
Asher pulls out the chair beside me, replacing all the oxygen in the room as he lowers himself into it without breaking conversation with Jord.
His sleeve drags across my arm when he reaches for his glass, and my pulse forgets every useful thing it’s ever done.
My thighs lock when his wrist passes mine, close enough that his cologne and clean skin cut through the garlic and wine and candle smoke, blood running hot behind my eyes.
I’m fine.
Everything is fine.
I’m absolutely not measuring the distance between his throat and Nonna’s good fork.
Then he chuckles against the side of my neck, those almost-white blue eyes angled toward me for half a second too long.
He fucking knows what he’s doing. The man knows every curve of my body like he was the one who built it.
Jord throws his hands wide, almost leveling the salt. “No, no, no,” he says, face lit up. “She didn’t just hack into it. She lived in it for three days before anyone noticed.”
Punk jabs her fork at him, teal hair swinging. “It was a municipal server, Jord. Municipal. Stop making it sound like I breached the Pentagon.”
Jord leans forward like he’s a damn defense lawyer. “You were fourteen!”
Punk rolls her eyes. “And it was a parking violations database. I was trying to get Nonna’s ticket dismissed.”
Nonna raises her glass from the head of the table and tips it toward Punk. “And you did.”
Laughter rolls through the room and I let it pull the tension off my shoulders, shaking my head at the memories of little Punk.
Asher shifts, the warm weight of his thigh sliding against mine.
I stop breathing.
He doesn’t move, just stays there with deliberate pressure.
Asshole.
I reach for my glass, fingers a fraction too tight around the stem.
Nonna aims her fork at me. “Tell them about the time Ivy climbed onto the roof. Sixteen years old, middle of winter.”
I sink back into my chair, angling into Asher without thinking. “No, truly, we don’t have to do that.”
She ignores me. “She wanted to see the stars better. So she takes a bottle of my good wine and a blanket and climbs out her window at two in the morning.”
His hand slips from the table and lands on my thigh. I clear my throat, heat traveling with his palm as it slides inward.
“I fell asleep and woke up covered in snow,” I say, doing my best to not sound breathy.
Nonna laughs into her napkin. “I found her at dawn. Blue lips, hypothermia setting in, still clutching that empty bottle.”
I fix my eyes on Luce. “Worth it though. The stars were perfect.”
Asher hides a grin behind his glass, gaze flicking to me. “Yeah, Ivy and stars seem vaguely familiar.” He leans in like we’re the only people in this room. “Right, Venom?”
I don’t pull away. “It was also my birthday, so...”
The mask slips for a moment.
I face forward, scanning until I find Daniel at the far end of the table. His eyes meet mine with a small dip of his chin.
Sinead lounges in their chair, tattooed arms folded, smirking at something Jord says. Typical Jord. Of course it would be him that tugs at the hard edges of Sinead.
Sinead shakes their head, amused. “You’re all fucking disasters. How are you still alive?”
I lift a shoulder and reach for the bread. “Spite.”
Luce raises her glass, mouth tugging. “And Nonna.”
Asher spreads his fingers and draws my thigh closer to his, and my body refuses to settle the fuck down, which only makes me hate him more on sheer principle.
My knee brushes his, tilting the room.
He traces circles over my skin, each one making me burn hotter and hotter.
I swallow my wine in one gulp, ignoring Luce’s obvious gawking from across the table. She’s always had the mercy of an executioner when I’m making bad choices.
Asher brings his mouth to my ear. “You’re getting quiet, Venom.”
I set my glass down before I do something idiotic with it. “I’m considering murder.”
He turns closer, his mouth ghosting against my skin. “Foreplay already?”
Across the table, Luce gives me a sweet little smile over her wine, and I know she’s saving this for later. The traitor.
Punk leans into the table, attention on Asher. “Tell him about the time Ivy tried to cook for Leon’s birthday.”
I lift an eyebrow. “We don’t talk about that.”
Jord toys with a crust and smirks. “The fire department came.”
Luce covers a grin with her hand. “Twice.”
Asher tilts his head and nudges my shoulder. “Now that I believe.” He shifts closer. “I was always the one cooking.”
I turn into him before I register how close our faces are. “If by cooking you mean cheating and ordering takeout, then suuureee.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, and there it is, that old, lazy grin. The one that used to knock all the fight out of me and apparently still can, because the whole world falls away in an instant.
My heartbeat thuds against my ribs as he drains his glass and slides in close, but I stop him with a hand on his chest. “Stop doing that.”
Asher grins. “Doing what, Venom?”
I glare at him, because if he keeps putting his body this close, I’m going to fucking climb it.
Threading his fingers into the back of my hair, he angles his head to the side and kisses me, tongue sliding past my lips.
And there goes my dignity. Out the window. Gone. Because his mouth is doing that thing it used to do, the thing I love to pretend I don’t miss.
My body answers before my brain can stop it, fingers curling into his collar and dragging him closer, like I have any right to, like I didn’t spend a year thinking I’d killed him.
He pulls back a fraction, breath warm against my mouth, that fucking grin pressed to my lips.
Everything snaps back into focus. I used to have more control. I do have more control. What the fuck is wrong with me where this man is concerned?
Luce mouths something across the table, catching my eye. “You okay?”
Not a single person here so much as blinks at mine and Asher’s little display of… whatever the fuck that was. Despite the erratic beating of my thirsty heart, I nod at Luce.
I can’t tell anymore if he’s forgiving me or punishing me.
Sound cracks half a second behind the impact, and the delay jerks my head sideways. Wood and glass spray across my cheek, and I’m already moving, dropping beneath the table to yank the strapped gun from where it’s kept for… purposes.
Another shot rips through the room. To find a vantage point, you must calculate the trajectory in reverse and then work out if you’re dealing with a single shooter or pair. The rhythm between rounds is uneven and spaced far apart, which means one shooter.
Standing to my full height, I lift my arm to unload when Asher clamps his around my throat, dragging me behind him as his other hand strips the gun from me so fast my fingers still curl like they’re holding it.
He fucking disarmed me faster than I could recite the damn Codex. Positioning himself between me and the shattered window, he locks onto the invisible target and fires once.
Twice.
Three times.
Silence.
Screams tear through the room, drowned in white noise.
Luce… it’s Luce screaming.
Asher stands motionless as his arm pins me behind him. No tremble in his frame, no frantic shifts of a man unfamiliar with the weight of a weapon.
Saliva burns down my throat, the room tilting under dust and adrenaline. This is a man built for violence, not sport.
He turns back over his shoulder, eyes dropping to me. Pupils darker, jaw locked, and veins roped along his forearms.
He isn’t scared.
My mouth opens but nothing comes out.
Luce screams through the ringing in my ears again. “Ivy! Nonna’s hurt!”
Shoving toward the head of the table, I feel his arm slip away, his fingers dragging against mine for a single second before letting go.
My knees hit the floor as soon as I reach her and I don’t think, don’t fucking process a single thing but save her.
I press my palm to her torso and gasp, blood spilling between my fingers the same way Asher’s did.
I blink.
This is different. This is too much.
Darkness closes in, the room shrinking to a black-rimmed tunnel. Control the scene. Lower your own breathing before you touch the wound, because panic is transmissible and bodies copy each other faster than language.
“Stay with me.” I press harder into her soft belly. “Nonna, look at me. Look at me.”
Blood spreads across the floor.
“Nonna?” Knives scrape down my throat when I swallow.
Her weak fingers find mine, still warm. “Ma petite...”
“Shhh.” I cradle her head, blood sticking her hair to my fingers. “Don’t talk. Save your strength.”
She gasps, pulling me down by the back of my neck until her lips touch my ear. She forces the words through the blood pooling in her throat and I catch every syllable.
“Le Boucher will take care of you Ivy. He always has, he’s the only one you can trust.” The words fumble through the blood pooling in her throat, but I catch every syllable. Of course I trust Emeric.
My mouth opens to answer, but she got goes stiff in my hands.
No!