Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
IVY
Gone.
Blood drips from Leon and onto the blue-patterned tiles Nonna picked out when she renovated the kitchen, or tried to. It was the first time I realized we couldn’t hire people people for maintenance because it would run too high a risk.
This was our safe space, and Nonna made sure we always knew it.
Get up. Do something.
Jord hits the floor beside Leon, a sound scraping out of him I’ve never heard before. It drags straight down my nerves.
Reaching for Nonna with a hand that won’t steady, his fingers freeze an inch from her sleeve. They snap back to his chest. If he touches her, it becomes real.
I can’t focus on anything. Nothing but Nonna.
Nonna’s lips part but her chest stays still. I glide my fingers over her cheek, dragging crimson over soft brown skin.
This isn’t happening. This cannot be happening.
“No.” Blood continues to spread beneath her head. I can’t fix this. I—“no, no, no.”
Get up. Do something.
I’m frozen in place, watching the world I knew drain away.
Leon’s voice cuts through the ringing in my ears. “Ivy.”
I shake my head. “Do something. You know medicine, you’ve—“
“Ivy.” His hand catches my wrist, grip tight. “She’s gone.”
My stomach caves, heat and bile clawing up my throat. I want to scream, want to break Leon’s jaw for saying it, want to rip thirty minutes apart and drag Nonna from that table before the first bullet blew through the window.
Instead I sink back on my heels, blood dripping from my fingertips onto my lap.
“Ivanya.” Daniel watches me from the other side of the room, hands loose at his sides, just as Asher strolls past the shattered window like he’s bulletproof.
They’ll never find them.
I know this like I know the weight of a Desert Eagle in my hand. Like I know the exact angle to sever a femoral artery. Like I know the sound a body makes when it hits concrete from ten stories up.
Whoever did this is already gone.
Punk drags in a breath. “She was laughing. Five minutes ago she was laughing.”
My throat closes.
Death used to be a simple thing, until it landed on our doorstep.
Luce opens her eyes but doesn’t look at Nonna. She looks at me, hazel gaze steady. “You know what we need to do.”
“No.” It rips out of me. “We don’t touch her. We don’t—”
“Ivy.” Leon crouches closer, palms open between us. “You know this was him. Le Boucher—”
“Emeric wouldn’t do this!” I stand on unsteady legs. “If—if he wanted her dead, he would have—she said—”
Jord surges to his feet, chest heaving. “You make too many excuses for that monster. Fuck, Ivy! That codex is fucking rooted inside of you like a bad weed!”
“Stop.” Punk flinches at her own sharpness, shoulders pulling in. “Nonna wouldn’t want us fighting and Luce is right. We need to re-calibrate.”
They know. We all know. This wasn’t random. This was a message.
Leon drags his hands down his jeans, leaving scarlet streaks across black denim. “Then you need to call Emeric. Before he finds out through other channels, because if this was an ordered hit, he’d know.”
Footsteps hit the porch.
Asher fills the doorway, rain darkening his hair. Scanning the room, those pale blue eyes find Nonna first before they lock on me.
His face changes, the last scrap of ease going cold, and I swear the air in the room turns thin.
“Gone.” His jaw sets on the word. “Whoever it was is gone.”
Dropping into a crouch beside me, glass crunches under his boot.
His hand closes around the back of my neck, locking me in place. “We’ll find them.”
That’s a promise in the only language I understand. Violence.
Water pounds my shoulders, shifting from pink to red to clear as I scrub Nonna’s blood from my skin. With every pass of my hands I shudder, the world tilting as her final words cycle on repeat.
“Le Boucher will take care of you Ivy. He always has, he’s the only one you can trus—“
It’s nothing new. I know he takes care of me, I know he’s built these systems for our own good. The rest of the family don’t get it. Can’t see past the monster to find the man.
My forehead hits the tile as water continues pelt against my shoulders.
I should call him. I need to.
The bathroom door opens. I don’t need to look to know who owns those footsteps. They’ve always been weighted and deliberate. Back then I chalked it up to athleticism.
Now I’m wondering if I had it wrong from the start.
“Venom…” His hand flattens against the shower glass.
I don’t answer.
The door slides open, and he stands there a beat, jaw locked so hard the muscle jumps. His eyes drag over me, stopping on my face, and whatever anger he’s been carrying cracks open.
His hand flexes against the glass.
Whatever internal battle he’s fighting flashes over his face before he gives in with a deep exhale and steps under the water fully dressed, shrinking the space around us.
Two fingers slip beneath my chin, tipping my face toward him. Water runs from his dark lashes, tracing the hard line of his cheek.
I jerk free. “I’m fine.”
His face softens. “You’re bleeding.”
I look down, finding my knuckles torn open against the tile. When did that happen? I can’t remember. Blood stains the water around my feet, and my knees give way.
Asher catches me before I drop, fingers digging into my ribs as he hauls me up.
I want to fight him off. Want to claw at his chest for being here, for watching me break apart.
Arms slide under my thighs as he scoops me up, and we’re out of the shower before I can process, his foot kicking the faucet off on the way.
He sets me on the bed like I’m fragile, and I almost laugh because these hands he’s so worried about have ended more people than he can count.
“Tell me…” His knuckle drags slow along my jaw. “What did she say?”
Find the lawless butcher that terrifies most people but took care of us.
My throat closes around the truth. “She said goodbye.”
Asher slowly blinks. He knows I’m lying but can’t call me on it.
I should look away, maintain the make-believe boundary we both pretend exists, but then I remember what it felt like to not have him. His absence isn’t something I can handle right now, despite whatever hatred he has toward me.
Moving to his luggage, he grabs one of his shirts. “Arms.”
I obey without thinking as he tugs it over my head like I’m five years old, before pulling back the covers.
His brow lifts. “In.”
I push up onto my elbows. “I’m not—“
He glares. “Get in the fucking bed, Ivy.”
I slide between the sheets, curling into myself, knees drawn tight.
Don’t cry. Don’t you dare.
Asher climbs in and hauls me back against his chest. His arm locks across my ribs before I can even think to protest.
“What happens now?” His mouth moves against the back of my neck. “With Nonna.”
I sniffle, the fight draining out of my body. “There’s protocol.”
“Protocol.” His tone goes flat. I know it’s because he’s trying to make sense of my choice of words.
“Yeah.” I stare into the dark. “And it’s absolute.” Pause. “Even if we don’t want to...”
He doesn’t move, but his thumb circles my arm. “Wanna explain?”
My spine goes rigid. “I can’t.”
Not won’t. Can’t. The Codex doesn’t allow it. Emeric’s rules, and they’re carved into my back. Literally.
His arm tightens around me. “Ivy—”
“Please.” My throat works around it. “Just... not tonight.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then his grip tightens, pulling me closer. “Okay.”
I wait for more questions, more demands. They don’t come. Just his steady breathing, his heartbeat against my spine, the weight of his arm holding me while everything else falls apart.
His breathing evens out first. Sleep taking him in increments.
I count to three hundred. Then three hundred more.
When I’m certain he’s under, I slide out from beneath his arm.
He shifts but doesn’t wake.
I change quickly, black pants, black thermal, boots that don’t make sound. My hair gets twisted into a knot at the base of my skull. The Desert Eagle slips into its holster at my hip.
When I duck out into the dark hallway, I know which floorboards creak, and which ones stay silent as I guide myself down the stairs, through the kitchen, and towards the back room where we always gathered for the things that couldn’t be said in daylight.
Jord’s already leaning against the wall, arms crossed, face red from crying, and Luce sits on the old trunk, hands folded in her lap.
Punk shifts from the windowsill, teal hair catching where the moonlight spills in near Leon, who’s guarding the door.
Daniel’s eyes land on me, features softening even as the rest of him stays locked and ready for a fight.
“Took you long enough.” Jord drags the back of his hand across his eyes. “Are goodbyes harder when you can’t just shoot him?”
“Shut up!” My jaw clenches, but the anger drains out of me instantly and my frown drops.
I don’t snap. I don’t argue. Especially not with them.
Jord’s eyes glass over, but he stays quiet because he knows the same thing I do. There’s nothing worth fighting over.
Daniel steps forward from the shadows, hands loose and ready at his sides. “We have to remember protocol.”
He dangles a set of keys from his jacket, placing them on the table. “There’s a car waiting through the clearing on the other side of the cellar. Black sedan.”
Luce lifts her chin, doing her best to mask the pain. “Route?”
“Punk drives.” Daniel’s eyes find Punk on the windowsill. “Straight to the airstrip. No stops, no detours, no nothing until you’re wheels up.”
She slides off the sill, catching the keys Daniel tosses without looking. Her fingers close around them. “And you?”
“I stay.” Daniel’s gaze sweeps the room, landing on each of us in turn. “I’ll handle the house and await contact.”
Handle the house means handle Nonna. Means clean the blood off tiles. Means erase every trace of what happened here tonight so that when the sun comes up, this place looks like nothing more than a neglected Chateau. Means ensuring Nonna is buried with her family.
Means this is it.
My stomach drops.
“Let’s move.” I push off the table, heading for the cellar door.