Chapter Thirty-One
Fluttering…
Wavering in place, I’m suspended in time. I feel like I’m floating…
I think I even mewl. God, I hope I didn’t.
That would make him think I’m enjoying this… Which I am not.
Surely I’m falling apart for a different reason. Not from his lips on mine.
Sucking tenderly… Scrambling my goddamn brain.
It’s over too quick, and when he pulls back, I fear he may have taken my mask with him. For a split second, I’m exposed, and it’s utterly horrifying.
Scrambling to get it back into place, I swallow and frown, watching him suck his bottom lip, savoring it for only a moment before he leans in and whispers, “I feel absolutely nothing for you.”
Just like that, I’m ignited in a rage stronger than a million blazing suns.
Jonathan came back to me, but with the caveat that he apparently feels like he’s in charge. Only moments ago, he stormed in here, accusing me of having his mother killed.
Sure, I expected him to do that. But before I could even explain, he sort of attacked me…
And he fucking kissed me.
It was so unexpected, I froze. Like when you grab a cat by the scruff of its neck.
I went solid; mortified, and bewildered, and… inconveniently warm.
It makes no sense. I know I’ve always been affected by him, and I can’t explain it, nor can I seem to expel it by demolishing him like a hurricane to his weathered old structure.
As it turns out, his concrete is quite sturdy. And he’s nowhere near as uncertain as I’d hoped.
Still, I didn’t think any of this actually meant I wanted, you know… that.
I didn’t even feel like me. For the roughly ten seconds that his lips were on mine, I wasn’t The Ivory anymore. I might not have even been Manuel Blanco…
I’m honestly not sure who I was, but he seemed like just some guy. A normal person, and a nervous one, at that. One who’s just as broken as the man kissing him. Maybe more…
Maybe a lot more.
I… hated it.
But I didn’t want it to stop.
As soon as it did, I was The Ivory again. And The Ivory is going to chew people’s goddamn throats out to make sure he never gets played like that again.
The fight with Jonathan is a blur of red wrath. He’s threatening me, and I’m threatening him, and I’m sure he thinks he’s won as he leaves me screaming in my office.
But we’ll see about that.
On my life, on everything I have, on my parents’ graves… He will rue the day he made me feel this. All of it, everything he’s made me feel over the last decade-plus… It will come crashing down on his pretty head.
No one makes The Ivory feel things and gets away with it.
You think you’ve been miserable for the last decade of your life, Velle?? Well, guess what, my pet?
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Apparently, we’re just acting like everything is normal.
It’s been a few weeks since Jonathan came back, and for the time being, we’re amicable. Or so I would have them believe.
It’s fine. I do enjoy when people underestimate me.
But they will rue the day…
I’m listening to a recording of Lemuel hate-fucking The Carver, after essentially breaking up with him—it was brutal—when I heat hushed voices outside of my office door.
Sauntering over, I whip open the door to reveal Kent and Yari whispering to one another. They freeze when they see me.
My apologies, am I distracting you??
“What’s the problem out here?” I grunt. They’re both gaping at me in between sharing nervous looks. My brow cocks. “Spit it out. What?”
“Okay, um…” Yari clears his throat. “We just… heard something.”
Dios mio, what now??
Famine? Pestilence? Is there a swarm of goddamn locusts headed for the East Wing??
Yari is clearly struggling, so Kent takes over. “Lio’s friend in Atlanta called. The Alvarez twins… are dead.”
Every ounce of blood drains from my face in an instant. My heart is no longer beating, I’m not breathing… I’m suspended in limbo.
No…
“W-what…” is all that comes out of me.
“They were killed,” Kent goes on, swallowing visibly. Watching as I crash to my knees. “By Trevel Fenwick.”
My face snaps. “Dr. Love’s patient??” He nods. “The one who was dating Avianna…?”
“We think,” he corrects. “But… yes.”
No no no.
Dios… por favor…
No.
I’m going to be sick. I fear that if I open my mouth, I’ll throw up everywhere.
But I manage it, just enough to croak, “Angel?”
Yari has literal tears in his eyes. “Jefe, I’m so sorry—”
Scrambling to my feet, I shove past them. “Fuck off,” I sniff, rubbing my eyes hard. “Um, just… give me a… minute.”
I rush to the nearest bathroom.
And I heave and scream until my lungs give out.
A few hours later, I’ve managed to compose myself enough to speak to Emilio—one of my lieutenants—and then his friend who runs for us in Atlanta.
He’s been attempting to gather information on the Alvarez twins down there; the ones we previously weren’t sure were my Alvarez twins. Arturo and Acacia’s kids.
Avianna and… Angel.
Pajarito.
Dios, my chest is caving in.
All these years, and I’ve never been able to track down Avianna. After I shut down the trafficking business, she sort of vanished. I always sort of assumed it meant she was dead, but we searched high and low for any record and could never find it.
Angelito, however, was obviously a different story.
I brought him to tears with my hands and my tongue, and my words. It was fucking rapture, followed by four years of chasing a ghost. Praying to every force of evil that I would someday get him back.
I’m unsure whether I could go on another killing spree, or sink down into the dirt and decompose.
All I know for sure is that I need this Trevel Fenwick. I need him here, now.
I need to make him pay for taking my pajarito from me.
Throughout my meeting with Dr. Love, I’m barely aware of what I’m saying. I can’t feel myself producing words. I know my mouth is moving. I think I can hear myself… But it’s all just… noise.
While inside, I’m still screaming.
I should have kept him the last time… I should have caged him when I had the chance.
Why did I let him go??
Whether I understood it or not, I could have at least grabbed on and fucking squeezed, like I did with Jonathan.
Yes, he fucking hates me now, but Angelito has always hated me.
At least I could have had him here.
Love doesn’t seem too keen on leaving, which is puzzling. After that session with Felix today, I thought he’d be a bit more eager for some space.
Either way, it doesn’t matter. He will go, meet with the doctor who replaced him as Trevel’s psychiatrist, find the murdering British fuckface, and bring him to me. Leave The Carver where he belongs, in a goddamn straitjacket being examined by sadistic doctors.
He eventually does leave, begrudgingly, and I immediately call Johansson.
“Dr. Love is gone,” I tell him. “I’ll need you and the team to take over with Darcey.”
He’s momentarily quiet. “Gone…?”
“Indefinitely,” I hum, pulling the knife out of my pocket.
Whipping it open, I run the blade along my fingers, jaw clenching so tight with rage for this Trevel Fenwick puta, that I’m bleeding without even realizing it.
“Start now. In fact, go find The Carver and bring him to me. I want to be the one to break the news about Lemuel.”
My lips curve. Delighting in the pain of others is all I have left.
I will use it to my full advantage.
“Very good, sir,” Johansson says. “I think I’m going to let Dr. Templeton and Dr. Hassan take the lead on this.”
I stop squeezing blood from my fingertips into a puddle on my desk for a moment and frown. “Were you not just bitching to me the other day about Love hogging Felix? Now I give him to you and you’re, what… too busy??”
“Well, I am working on the cartel men you brought in…” He hums.
True… He’s been overseeing the torture of Tammy’s murderers.
“More to the point, I would really like to see how Felix responds to Dr. Templeton’s methods, after weeks of being pampered by Lemuel,” he says.
Ah… now it all makes sense.
Leaning back, I lick blood off of my finger. “Well, alright then.”
Whatever you say, sicko.
Sitting in back of the butcher shop in Atlanta, I’m watching the kid swing back-and-forth upside down. He’s been like this for minutes, so chances are the blood is really gathered in his head by now. He’s crying and sniffling, choking on his snot.
I shake my head. This is the idiota who got me all worked up for days on end??
“I’m going to need an answer soon, Diego,” I hum, fingers steepled. “I don’t have all day, you know… I flew down here, took time out of my extremely busy schedule to come and get the truth. No more assumptions, por favor.”
Nestor grabs the hook Diego here is strung up with to stop its swinging.
Surrounded by pig corpses, and still the biggest swine in the room.
“Tell me what you told Emilio…” I stand up fast, sticking my knife up to his groin. “Now, or you’ll lose your hog.”
“It was… the w-wrong Alvarez twins,” he squeaks.
“How do you know that?” I growl. “You seemed pretty confident last time…”
“I w-was. But that was b-before I found out sh-she… used to be a he.”
A sharp bolt of new fury strikes me, reigniting my veins. I grab the kid by the throat and haul him up, holding him upright by his neck.
“What the fuck did you just say?” I hiss in his face. He’s pissing his pants. “Be very careful what you say next, puta. Or you will live to feel every last thing I do to you…”
“Her,” he snivels. “The dead girl’s n-name was Alice. Alice Alvarez, but she was b-born Alex. I’m so sorry, please don’t kill me! It was a mistake!”
He’s sobbing, but I’m not even listening anymore. I’m too busy doubling over inside this revelation…
It wasn’t them. It was never Arturo’s kids…
Angelito is alive. Well, he wasn’t killed by Trevel Fenwick.
Still, all of that freaking out over the wrong goddamn Alvarez twins?! I mean, what are the chances…
Jesus, does this asshole have any idea how many people were going to be cut the fuck open over his careless mistake??