Chapter 25
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
IVY
PAST
“I know who Le Boucher Sans Loi is,” I say, my throat squeezing the words thin.
His whole body locks beneath my hands.
I keep my eyes on him. “I know who’s been hunting La Maison Du Mal for eleven years.”
Silence drags for several seconds before his mouth finally moves. “Who.”
Not so much a question more than it is a demand. I hold his stare anyway because I know. I know right now that it doesn’t matter what I was trained to do. I’d drop it all for him in a heartbeat. I’ve never been one to make the same mistake twice.
I clear my throat. “It’s Emeric, Asher, my boss.”
He stays fixed on me without a single flinch.
His head slowly shakes, whatever fight he’s having with himself slipping away as he lets out a lazy breath. “Emeric is one of the founding families of La Maison Du Mal, Ivy.”
What? I almost ask him to repeat himself, because…what.
I keep my mouth shut. Frozen where I stand, I let his sentence hang there between us. I need to absorb the words before I react.
He continues. “Everything you’ve done, every job, every kill, every piece of intelligence you handed him. You were housekeeping. You were part of a very long vendetta that Emeric has held over La Maison Du Mal for—“he pauses, before rolling his eyes. “I mean shit, for as long as time.”
The carving of the loyalty wings, how much he loved Nonna, how he saved me when I was thirteen years old and trapped in a pedophile ring that was run by fucking Parker.
I shake my head. “No, why?” But the answer crawls up through my chest before I even finish asking.
Seventeen missed calls.
His eyes shift to the side, muscles in his face hardening.
I swallow against the ache. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“I was going to.” He steps forward, his features tightening. “But you put a fucking bullet in me before I got the chance, Ivy.”
I open my mouth. Close it.
“And after that?” He rolls his tongue against his teeth, shaking his head. “I couldn’t trust you. Not until I knew you weren’t still under all the mind fuck of the Codex. Not until I knew Emeric hadn’t already hollowed you out and filled you back up with whatever the fuck he needed you to be.”
Silence.
Eleven years realigns through every memory. Every mission, every message, every time Emeric told me to trust the process with that calm tone. It made me feel handpicked for his design. It was all a fucking lie.
I curl my fingers into fists at my sides, biting crescents into my palms with my nails.
Asher scans my face, searching for the crack, the warning sign that I’m about to shatter into thousands of pieces that he can’t put back together. I don’t give him one.
“How are you talking right now?” I say, careful with my words. “If what you’re saying is true, then you know Emeric’s reach. You know he has eyes and ears over every fucking speck of this world.”
“You’re right, he does.” His eyes narrow, as he lowers onto the single sofa. “Everywhere but here. Veilarath Lane.”
My stomach dips. “What?”
Surely I misheard him.
Every second of this conversation is getting under his skin.
“He doesn’t have access to this island. Period. But we’ve let him in everywhere else.”
Everything he’s just dropped on me turns over in my head before I land on the one thing I need to address. “I know Parker is your father.”
He doesn’t even flinch, kicking his leg out with a low chuckle. “Who snitched?”
I search his face for the tell, the flicker of deceit. His eyes hold steady, borderline vulnerable.
“That doesn’t matter.” I shake my head. There’s no way I’m telling him it was his mom. “You’re… part of him.”
Leaning forward, he drags me closer by the backs of my thighs, and I drop to my knees in front of him.
With a finger pressed below my chin, he directs my face up to his. “Fuck that. Just because DNA ties me to him. Doesn’t mean shit. Hasn’t for a while.”
He starts to pull back but my hand flies out, catching his jaw to hold him in place.
“Stop,” I whisper, the walls inside my head trembling. “Tell me.”
Whether he tries to hide it or not, I see it.
Right there in the split second before he answers.
The hard set of his mouth. His eyes raking over my face for the hundredth time, and I know exactly what he’s doing.
He’s searching for the crack, the tell, the part where I feed him a pretty lie and expect him to swallow it like everyone else has.
He doesn’t trust me. I’ll be earning that back for the rest of my life.
“I love you,” I say, not only because it’s the most truthful thing I’ve ever said, but because it’s all I’ll ever be able to give him.
I lock my other hand around his neck, forcing his forehead down to mine. “You hear me? I don’t care what you’ve done. I just. I need to know if the son is—“The words stick to my throat, refusing to leave.
“Mmm,” Sarcasm drips from his chuckle. “Not so easy is it?”
I kiss him, so soft his lips barely feather mine.
“Well are you?” I try to keep the desperation out of my tone but I’m fucking dying here.
His jaw locks. “You shouldn’t even need to ask me that shit.”
He pulls back, ripping the air from my lungs.
I’ve seen every face he owns. Rage, laughter, the soft one he watches me with when he thinks I’m asleep. But he’s never pulled away physically.
Shit. I’m so far gone I’m going to check myself into rehab at this point.
I rest back on my heels, swallowing past the throbbing in my throat.
The sun starts to set in a hue of sorbet, deepening his tanned skin as shadows darken along his cheekbones.
“What is it you think I was doing with Parker?” He asks, shocking me. “And don’t fucking bullshit.”
I shrug, because I truly don’t know. “Being a son who wanted to know his father?”
He holds me in place. “And how long do you think I’d been his son for?”
I tilt my head. “I’m going to go with all your life because well, that’s how—“
“—Venom,” he snaps but it’s gentle. “Now isn’t the time.”
I breathe out a sigh. He’s right.
“I don’t know. I guess I don’t know why you both lied and didn’t just say you were his son. Unless,” I lift a single finger. “Parker didn’t know you were his?”
“—You can do better than that,” he answers dryly.
Asshole.
This is going to be a long day. “I don’t know. Fill me in.”
He drags a hand down his face. “You’ll figure it out, Ivy.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper, but he tries to move out of my grip.
I force him back down to me. “I don’t need to know.”
His eyes widen. “You do, but it just can’t be me to tell you.”
“I know you’re not like him, Asher.” Guilt weighs down my words for even asking him that in the first place. “I saw it every single day how much you didn’t engage with him, I just want to know why. Why you put yourself there if you despised him so much?”
His hand slips behind my head, as if he’s afraid I’ll run. “I was there for you, Ivy. Not him. Not Camille. Not anyone else but fucking you.”
My brows cross. “What?”
He traces the choker over my neck, and my eyes fall to the faint scar on his.
“Mine. You’re never leaving me.” The words rip out of him and the muscles in his neck tense when he swallows.
I place my hand over his as my answer.
His grip on the chain tightens. “That’s an order, Ivy, not a declaration.”
“Okay!” I answer quickly, because I know. I know I can’t leave him even if I wanted to. And I have wanted to. Many times. “So, La Maison Du Mal, is this another family?”
He pushes up to his full height with a dry laugh, like the idea is so fucked it’s almost funny. “I wish.”
“Why would you wish? Playhouse isn’t something I’d wish on anyone.”
Which means he’s either more fucked up than I thought, or he doesn’t know enough about what I do.
Time slows as he turns over his shoulder. “Because killing one-thousand trained assassins would be much easier than going up against even just one member of La Maison Du Mal.”
Nothing. I have nothing to answer back to that, so I stand in place, mouth open.
I force myself to move forward. “Okay, so what do we do?”
“You believe me?” he asks, his eyes softening, as if I’ve given him something he’s wanted all along.
I dampen my bottom lip. It’s not like I have a choice, since my soul decided to trust him long before my heart did. “I believe you.”
Threading our fingers together, he tugs me onto his lap.
I swing my legs over to either side so I’m straddling him and bury my hand in his hair.
“Mmmm, fuck you feel good.” his eyes roll back, tension rolling off him with every twitch of his muscles. “We have to break up.”
I pull back. “What?”
“I was on the phone with him today. That’s who you saw me talking with. Emeric has been in hiding since the beginning. No one has seen him. Except you, of course.”
“So what did he want?” It makes sense more than him not replying to my texts. I would have sat with that for weeks, months, if Asher didn’t just tell me this.
“He wanted me to kill you.”
His mouth snaps shut, and the next words push through gritted teeth. “The Houses see you all as a problem. One they have no interest in fixing, so he wants you all dead. Obviously this appeases Aléia since she wants me with Camille.”
My vision blurs. I trusted Emeric. No, more than that—I was damn loyal to him.
“We have to bait him out of hiding,” Asher continues, his hands landing on my thighs. “Public fucking breakup. Leave you out in the open for him, in his mind, unprotected, since I buttered them up enough to think the only reason you were married to me was so I could kill you myself.”
I try to put even more distance between us, but he catches my face, forcing me still. “Which if you haven’t figured out already, is bullshit.”
I wish his words washed away the ache in my chest, but they don’t. Too much has happened.
He searches my eyes. “I fucking love you, Venom. Now, are you gonna play?”