Chapter 25
Ivy
Iblow the stray strands of hair out of my face. “Hello!”
“Did I make you run?” Leon laughs, uncoiling all tension in my muscles.
One week. It's been one week.
“Only you!” I huff, dropping onto the large L-shaped sofa. The cushions swallow me whole, and I let them.
Building a house in the middle of the woods has always been my goal. Jord jokes about it constantly—how I need to let one of them build beside me so we could have tiny villages. A commune of killers. How fucking quaint.
I'm not sure I trust his taste in partners.
Every person he's ever laid flat has either ripped him off, cheated on him, or tried to fuck one of us.
The pattern would be funny if it wasn't so goddamn predictable.
We always remind him of the secrets he keeps, how we live a life that doesn't allow something so flimsy as love to exist.
Love. The word sits wrong in my mouth even when I don't say it out loud.
Unless the love is shared in house. That's the only exception. The only safe place for something that soft.
“How you holding up?”
If he wanted to know that answer for real, he'd ask a different one.
I unbuckle my shoes and kick them to the other side of the room.
Flames from the fireplace ripple through the chilly air with a push of a button, and soft music begins to play through the speakers. I haven’t been home in years.
“I’m holding.” My feet sink into the plush carpet as I head through the open plan living room and toward the kitchen. Hushed lights dim as I check the cupboards and fridge. “I didn’t have a choice, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Mmm.” I hate when he does this. It’s so non-committal and further draws back my earlier mention of never glamorizing someone in our world.
“I’m putting you on FaceTime so I can cook.” And watch your facial expressions.
Setting my phone down onto a recipe stand, I tap the camera button before sliding open a drawer to find a heavy skillet. “Jord stocked up while I was on my way!” My toes hurt as I reach up for a new can. “I don’t know how I live without him.”
As I lay everything out on the bench beside my phone, my timing is impeccable as I catch Leon eying me with pursed lips. His brown eyes remind me of warmth, safety and home.
“I’m offended,” he mutters, leaning in his wingback chair. The city is closer from his vantage point, offering the perfect background behind him.
My brow curves upward in snap judgment. “I don’t care. Are you in the office?”
He almost smiles. “Thought I’d get a head start on a few things.”
“Mmhmm.” Now it’s my turn for vague answers.
Leon fights back a grin. “I hate when you do that.”
Biting my lip to stop my laugh, I pull a sharp knife from the stand and position it over a bell pepper. “I’m fine, Leon.” Silence weighs heavy. I know what he’s doing, and my two overbearing best friends requested it.
They don’t think I’m okay. They think I’m at risk of being contaminated and that The Butcher is going to whisk me away to Narnia to ensure I don’t fuck another lion.
“No, you’re not.”
The blade hammers the board as I flip and twist horizontally until tiny cubes lay out in a display of green and red. “I am. I feel fine.”
Silence again. I refuse to look at my phone, because I know once I do, I run the risk of getting distracted.
My knees quake as a subtle warning.
“You loved him.” I catch my weight by gripping the sink as my chest caves inward and my damn heart begins to free-fall like a pathetic waste of meat.
Cold. Convince. Lie.
Cucumber next.
I prefer these long or grated—did Jord get carrots? I turn to the fridge and check. A little bag of orange sticks out, and a smile spreads as I snatch them.
I bite into one.
“Ivy, you need to see someone.”
My chewing slows as chunks clog my throat. It would be my luck to die this way.
Tearing off another chunk, I lay it on the chopping board. “I’m fine.”
“I have someone. She’s in-house, so you don’t have to worry about weaving through the filters. It’s someone you can see for yourself. Truly. She’s spoken highly of within the circles.”
I stop chopping, focusing on the phone screen. My throat constricts painfully, tears threatening to spill.
No! You will not show any weakness. What he says is not true. You will not expose yourself to this.
Even if it is Leon who I share a bond with that runs deeper than blood—forged in gunpowder residue and the metallic taste of survival. The kind of connection that only forms when someone pulls you from the wreckage of your own making, piece by shattered piece, and doesn't flinch at the sharp edges.
Even if it is Leon who taught me that safety could exist in someone else's presence.
Who showed me what it meant to have someone check the shadows before you entered a room, not because you couldn't handle what lurked there, but because they refused to let you face it alone.
The same man who sat with me through withdrawal shakes and never once looked at me with pity—only steady understanding.
Leon, who became my anchor when I was drowning in my own violence. Who crawled into my bed at 3 a.m when the walls closed in and the nightmares inside my head would become too much.
Too loud.
Too weak.
Who learned which whiskey silenced the noise and when to pry the glass from my grip.
If the tears break loose, if my hands shake, then every bullet I buried in his chest becomes a confession.
That I let someone past the barriers I'd spent years building.
That I was foolish enough to believe I could have something pure without contaminating it with everything I am.
My fingers tighten around the knife handle until my knuckles bleach white.
“I think I killed the only man I ever loved.”
The words slip out like blood through gauze—slow, inevitable, staining everything they touch. That damn trauma bond. The one that makes Leon the only person who can see me shatter and still call me strong.
* * *
The fighting ring becomes my home for days. Leon's fists find me again and again—jaw fractured twice, ribs splintered, collarbone shattered, windpipe crushed beneath his knuckles.
Every time, my body pulls itself from the dirt.
My foot pushes against the ground, setting the hammock into a lazy swing between the archway posts. Sunlight pours over us, warming skin that's more bruise than flesh now.
Leon stretches out beside me, lost somewhere deep in his meditation, his breathing even and controlled.
“Sorry about this week,” He murmurs softly.
I roll my eyes. “No, you're not.”
Back and forth.
Blood splatters litter the dirt patch in front of us.
He shifts in the hammock. Cracking one eye open, he fixes that dark brown gaze on me.
“I mean it, Ivy. I'm sorry. Did it feel good? Yes. Am I starting to see why they’re using my anger to sever the detachment from my mother and her job on that fucked up yacht? Yes. But that doesn't mean I don't feel sympathy for all of—” he pauses a moment, studying the bruises and wounds scattered across my skin.”—well. That.”
“It's fine,” I huff, sighing through the soft sway of pain the subtly reminds me that I’m not repeating a code or reciting information I know too much about.
We both shift over our shoulders when footsteps echo behind us. I wince when the stab wound on my side flares.
“It's happening…” I say, a new wave of fear washing through me.
Leon and I lock eyes. Wind cuts through the air and coils around my neck.
My feet land on the grass with a thud, the air in my lungs tightening with each inhale.
A hand finds mine, and I turn to Leon, the race of my heart slowly dying. His expression softens, the dark lashes that fan them swiping his cheek with every blink.
“You've earned this, Ivy.”
I know. I’ve earned it in more ways than I'll ever know.
Flower petals spill their colors through the dark night, vivid slashes of life against shadow.
He guides us toward the back where a barn rises from the earth.
I follow, down the stairs that seem to go on forever, until my legs burn.
By the time we reach the bottom, the air changes. Brine and sand. If summer was hidden beneath the earth.
Stone spreads before me, a cavern carved from rock that breathes with the sea. There's a chair, or throne, that sits right at the center of the cave, and behind it, waves throw themselves against sand.
“Sit, Ivy.” His voice is deep. Deeper than I remember, or maybe that's because I haven't seen him since I was fourteen and he pulled me and Nonna out of Parker's organization. Nonna says he remains off-grid, that he never leaves his house. Over the years, he's become an entity more than human.
Lowering to the throne, I place my hands on my lap.
This is it. Everything I've bled for, every bruise and broken piece of myself—it all leads here. The wanting sits heavy in my bones, undeniable as gravity.
Fingers curl around my hair, sweeping it away from my back. Deep breaths fill my lungs while I force myself not to seek comfort in who surrounds me.
Footsteps.
Hard.
Intentional.
Nothing. Not a word. Not a single word from him. I owe him my own life.
Tension ripples through the air around me, and my attention snaps to Leon, sitting cross-legged directly in front. Flames flicker through the night, warming my skin, but it's the words from the butcher himself that make the hairs on my arms rise.
“Ivanya, it has been many years, my child.” I don't move. Afraid that if I do, I'll break by thanking him for saving me. Thank him for taking me away from the vile things that were happening to me. And then I'd look weak.
I absorb his words and practice my breathing.
“The children will speak of you as they do me. Le Boucher Sans Loi—”
I gasp, but it’s not loud. He’s Le Boucher Sans Loi? I’d heard about him recently, and never thought to put two and two together.
He rounds the chair until shiny loafers appear directly below.
Fear follows him everywhere, for good reason.
Tales of Le Boucher Sans Loi haunt children on the streets of every European town.
They say he lived lawless, killing people who were in power for the sake of chaos, so the children were never scared he’d come for them.
They were afraid he’d come for their parents. Their loved ones.
Some even wrote letters, asking him to murder for them. Le Boucher Loi was the most feared monster that lived on the streets. Leon said he’d heard that he was building an army of assassins that were just like him. Soulless. That he was coming for everyone.
I guess in a way, now that I know this, it's true, and we're his apprentices.