20. Ivy #2
Emmett’s eyes flash with something that makes my entire body tremble with unease.
“I’m okay,” I rush to tell him, not knowing why.
Emmett’s eyes harden even further at my words.
“You’re bleeding,” he counters in a voice so cold, it makes me tremble.
Confused, I reach up to touch my face to see where I’m bleeding from the hard slap Senator Hughes gave me, but I find nothing.
Emmett’s eyes narrow at me, then with his thumb, he gently strokes my bottom lip.
When I gasp, my lips fall slightly open and Emmett’s thumb darts into my mouth, in front of everyone!
With his thumb he presses against my gums, and I wince. When he retracts his thumb, it’s a bit bloody, even though I just drank some water.
Emmett stares at the drops of blood on his thumb for a very long time.
“Emmett, I’m really okay!” I rush to say, sensing a brutal storm emanating from Emmett’s silence. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“And yet he still made you bleed,” is all he says as he turns away from me and looks at the gagged Senator Hughes.
“Tonight, I kindly advised everyone here not to forget their places,” Emmett starts, calmly standing in front of me, easily towering above everyone due to his stature, height and massive aura of power.
Everyone reacts to his words.
Beverly is holding Melissa tightly, both of them crying while Senator Hughes’s father is on his ass on the ground, glaring at Emmett with a mix of anger, fear, and shock.
“I would’ve remained cordial had you demonstrated some basic human decency and restraint, Senator, but then again, somewhere along the years of you being a rabid dog for my uncles, you inflated your own ability and ego, which is why tonight you dared to lay a finger on her .”
A chill unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before rushes through my body due to the soft tone in Emmett’s icy voice.
“Now, you know I can’t stand for that nonsense,” he says almost softly, taking a step toward Senator Hughes, who immediately shrinks away, with potent fear in his eyes.
“S-stop! You can’t get away with this!” Senator Hughes’s father cries.
“Let’s find out, shall we?”
Like a command was just issued to the dark forces, a group of silently ruthless men appear and lift Senator Hughes’s bleeding body.
A chain is brought in quickly and then tossed up in the air.
Like a weightless, meaningless thing, Senator Hughes’s body is hung up easily by his bleeding wrists with a strangely secure binding that makes me realize Emmett’s men are skilled beyond measure when it comes to torture if they can hang up a man who no longer has hands.
I look up and notice the several pipes running the length of the ceiling with hooks on them. Now from one of those hooks is a bloody, mutilated man barely conscious, dangling from the chain.
“Y-you can’t do this!” Emilio suddenly shouts.
Emmett’s gaze lands on Emilio, who is bristling with rage and shock. “Uncle, please wait your turn. I’ll get to you soon.”
“Y-you!” Emilio stutters angrily, pointing a finger at Emmett. “You don’t have the right!”
Emilio’s outburst only makes Emmett chuckle, then he turns to look at Vaughn.
“Do you agree with your so-called father?” Emmett’s gaze on Vaughn is considerably much colder, darker, and more sinister than ever.
“You lost!” Vaughn seethes. “You have no power or authority here!”
“Oh?” Emmett says, as if really perplexed. “Then the people who have the authority should do something about my impetuousness.”
Silence like a void space falls over the garden, even Senator Hughes’s muffled cries are now muted.
Vaughn angrily looks at his grandfather, as if expecting him to say something, but Grandpa Armando looks like he’s watching a Shakespearean play.
Emmett circles Senator Hughes’s body, then he finally stops in front of him.
“Senator, I have a few questions I wonder if you can enlighten me on,” Emmett questions quietly, like he’s talking about the weather. “Why did you stop her from telling the truth just now?”
Senator Hughes’s hand is removed from his mouth by one of the men.
His entire body is obviously weak, but the hatred and anger burning in his eyes is still there as he glares at Emmett.
“S-she’s my daughter!” he shouts. “I can discipline her however I want!”
“Your daughter?” Emmett says dramatically, as if stunned. “Is this true, Mrs. Hughes? Is your daughter this rotten pig’s child?”
Suddenly all eyes swing to my mother. She’s trembling and her lips are quivering.
“I-I…” my mother stutters, her eyes full of tears. “Please don’t do this.”
“Where are you going with this?” Vaughn suddenly steps in, his voice clear and loud. “Using cheap tricks just to stop my legitimate win is beneath you.”
“You’re talking to me about legitimacy?” Emmett says sardonically, then he glances at me.
An acute cold chill enters my bones.
“You lost, cousin,” Vaughn grits out, glaring at Emmett. “Before you rudely interrupted, we were about to complete the wedding ceremony. She’s marrying me, now back off!”
Emmett remains silent, not acknowledging him, but this enrages Vaughn further.
“She doesn’t want you either! If she did, she would’ve chosen you!” he snaps.
This finally changes the expression on Emmett’s face.
“Is that so?” he asks softly, but it doesn’t feel like he’s asking a question.
It sounds more like a dare.
The kind you never make unless you’re tired of breathing, and it seems Vaughn knows that too.
“I’d stand down if I were you, cousin,” Vaughn says slowly, but the strain in his voice is clear. “Being a sore loser doesn’t look good on you.”
Something is about to go extremely wrong.
I’ve known Emmett for years and I can sense when he’s truly angry and right now, he’s beyond that.
Emmett’s posture is still casual, not defensive or in combat mode, but the look he’s giving Vaughn is like millennium-old icicles wreathed in violent flames.
I can’t help but step back from the potent murderous aura emanating from him.
Vaughn is the one holding the gun, but for some reason, it feels like Emmett is the one who has all the power to kill.
“Go ahead,” Emmett says ever so softly, as if goading Vaughn to pull the trigger. “Don’t you want to finish your surprise for me? The ambition of an illegitimate legacy is very interesting.”
Vaughn visibly shifts, affected by Emmett’s seemingly simple words.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you defied Grandfather’s order. Your appearance tonight doesn’t change anything that has already been agreed upon!” Vaughn states, his tone sounding off, like someone struggling to stay calm.
“And if I dare to change everything?” Emmett suggests sardonically. “Will you finally grow a pair and kill me? But then again, that’s too high an expectation for a dog that still gets commands from his daddy , the man who brutalized and then murdered his own mother?—”
An guttural growl from Vaughn cuts Emmett’s insulting words and before anyone can react, Vaughn launches at Emmett with force and speed.
But it seems Emmett was waiting exactly for that reaction as he meets Vaughn directly, without moving out of the way.
Vaughn swings out violently, intending to punch Emmett, but Emmett doesn’t give him the opportunity.
Moving faster than I can see, I hear flesh being pounded hard with sickening force.
Blood splatters onto the ground, then the labored grunts of a wounded man sound around garden.
When I blink, I see a sight that stuns me.
Vaughn is on his knees, with a busted, bleeding lip, and a rapidly swelling eye that’s also bleeding, but the strangest thing is how he’s clutching the left side of his torso, as if cradling his left ribcage.
Vaughn’s face blanches with pain. When I look at the man towering above him, I see a completely expressionless look that makes my heart jump with terror.
Emmett doesn’t look human at all!
He doesn’t look like he feels anything, nor care for anything.
Satisfied by this, Emmett pulls me away from Vaughn.
Vaughn is about to reach for my hand to pull me back, as if I’m the rope in a pissy tug-of-war contest.
Emmett stares down at Vaughn, and growls, “Put your fucking hands on her and see what sickening myth I create out of you tonight.”
A shudder goes through my body from the sinister feel of Emmett’s words.
Vaughn’s face blanches.
“Don’t do this,” he grits out, still frowning in pain. “She chose me.”
I see Emmett tilt his head slightly, with me now standing slightly behind him.
“That’s a foolish thing to say with your whole chest, cousin,” Emmett says with a deadly smile on his gorgeous face. “Who am I?”
The question sounds out of place, pompous, and ridiculous, but it has the opposite effect around the garden.
Even Vaughn’s face pales as he looks up at Emmett.
“Come on, cousin, tell them,” Emmett taunts mockingly, provoking Vaughn and his father further. “Who am I?”
Vaughn looks at Emmett with a murderous expression on his face, but when Emmett looks back at him, he visibly shudders and croaks, “You are the grand heir of this Family.”
The moment Vaughn says those words, a heavy, undeniable sense of absolute defeat starts emanating from him.
It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out what just happened.
The obvious ridicule, embarrassment, and humiliation Emmett just dished out to his cousin is so irrefutable that everyone feels it.
“So you do know!” Emmett says sarcastically, then he drops down to eye level with Vaughn and says something that scares the shit out of me. “Now, if you have the ability to mutiny against me claiming what’s mine, show me .”
Vaughn’s glare is withering and resentful, but Emmett only smirks.
“Now, let the official wedding start,” he announces.
“What?”
Emmett looks down at me, a tight smile on his handsome face. “You’re marrying me, baby.”
If someone doused me with gasoline and set me ablaze right this instant, I wouldn’t be as shocked as I am at Emmett’s declaration of steel.
“W-what?” I croak.
“I’m marrying you,” he states clearly for all to hear. “Because you, Ivy Marie Easton, are poison, and I’ll be damned if I ever let anyone else have you. It’ll only be me for you.”
And just like that, his word becomes law.