Salvatore

32. Salvatore

32

SALVATORE

It’s twenty minutes later when the guard escorts Lorenzo’s silver-haired physician—a man well into his seventies—into Ivy’s room where I wake from dozing in the wingback chair in the corner.

The old guy takes one look at me, then her, and walks forward to dump his leather medical bag on the floor beside the bed, the clatter of noise making her startle in her sleep.

“Watch it.” I speak through clenched teeth. “She needs rest.”

“I specialize in health, not stealth.” He takes her in with emotionless eyes, further baiting my annoyance. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”

“She has multiple stab wounds. Small in size, but six in total—two in her left arm, another two on the side of her ass, with the most concerning being in the abdominal area. She’s been stitched up at hospital and the surgeon said there was no perforation. Only a minor intestinal graze. But I need her monitored to ensure there are no complications.”

He inclines his head, needing no further instruction before he digs into his medical bag.

Ivy remains asleep as he holds an infrared thermometer to her head, slightly whimpers when he places a pulse-reading device on her finger, then opens her eyes with a groan when he raises her uninjured wrist and attempts to guide it from the suit-jacket.

“Please,” she begs, holding the sheet to her bare chest as she retracts her arm from the sleeve. “I’m exhausted.”

“What’s her name?” The ignorant asshole stares down at her as he addresses me.

“Ivy.” It’s a chore to keep the snarl from my voice.

“And how long has it been since her surgery?”

“A few hours.”

He inclines his head and pastes on a brittle smile. “Hello, Ivy.” He secures a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm, then presses buttons on the portable machine placed on the mattress. “If your vitals are good, I’m going to be monitoring you every one to two hours. If they’re not, I’ll be back more frequently.”

She closes her eyes with another whimper. “I feel fine. I just want sleep.”

“That’s great to hear.”

He peppers her with questions—are you in any pain? Have you been able to eat or drink? Can you move unaided?

She responds with the least amount of syllables possible while he checks her bandages, the exhaustion in her tone a condemning punishment that claws under my skin.

It takes a few more minutes before the doc finally packs his portable equipment back into his bag and raises it at his side. “Her vitals are normal. I’ll take my usual room at the farthest end of the hall and return in ninety minutes. If anything changes, come get me immediately.”

I glower in response and the old fucker has the nerve to roll his eyes.

“She’ll be fine.” He walks for the door. “There’s no need to watch over her.”

I keep my thoughts to myself and continue glowering as he disappears into the hall.

“He’s right,” Ivy mumbles. “You need rest, Sally. You should go to bed.”

I return my gaze to her. “Evidently, it doesn’t take much sleep for your sassy attitude to snap back in place.”

She smiles, all cute and dreamy as her eyes remain closed. “The sass is engrained. It only disappears in peak times of trauma.” She rolls onto her right side, her loose hair splaying over the pillow behind her. “Now go. It’s hard enough trying to sleep knowing the woman who stabbed me is beneath my feet, but having you psycho-watch me is going to make it impossible.”

“What if you get hungry or need pain meds?”

“Then despite how intrigued I am to see what domestication looks like on you, I can get it myself. Movement encourages blood flow and all that.”

I wouldn’t care if blood flow encouraged warp-speed cell regeneration. I want to wait on her, her independence be damned.

I push from my chair and round the bed to where she lays, those dark lashes resting against the most beautiful skin. “Text me if you need anything.” I retrieve her cell from my pants pocket and slide it onto the bedside table. “I’ll leave your phone right here.”

Her eyes flutter open, a look of apprehension peering back at me. “You went into the basement?”

“Yeah. I went down there.”

“What did she say? Did she convince you that?—”

“She didn’t convince me of anything. You’re safe with me.” I give in to temptation and guide the stray strands of hair from her cheek back behind her ear, the silken texture doing nothing to abate the strange mix of feelings curdling beneath my ribs. “Get some rest. The doctor will be back soon enough.”

She groans but those big brown eyes remain on mine, calling me to her, tempting me to crawl in bed beside her and make this situation more of a mess than it already is.

“I won’t be far.” I leave her room and relocate next door, not bothering to take off my shoes or change clothes when I spread out on my bed because shit is going to get more real soon enough.

It’s half an hour later when the first text rolls in.

Bishop

You’re a fucking liability. Prepare for visitors.

Ten minutes later…

Matthew

Is there any situation that doesn’t get the Salvatore fuck-up treatment? I had plans today. Sitting in a helicopter to come sort out your mess wasn’t one of them.

Remy attempts to call— multiple times—before adding to my text cue.

Remy

Where’s Ivy? What the fuck did you do to her?

I should pack a bag and get her out of here, but there’s nowhere I can take her that they wouldn’t find. Not without having more time to prepare.

Instead, I retrieve my gun from the back of my waistband and palm it against my chest, snatching whatever sleep I can get.

I’ve barely dozed for more than twenty minutes when my cell vibrates with an incoming call from the guard stationed at the front door.

“What?” I growl in answer.

“Sir, your siblings and their partners are at the gate. I’m not sure if I should keep them out. Bishop is threatening to open fire.”

Of course he fucking is.

“Let them in.” I shove from the bed and freshen up in the bathroom in time to walk into the living area and take a seat on one of Lorenzo’s sofas as the room is inundated with unwanted guests.

Matthew glares as he makes his way into the room, Layla at his side. “You were told to lay low.”

“I don’t like unscheduled plans, Salvo,” Abri announces behind him. “And I definitely don’t appreciate leaving my daughter with the nanny unnecessarily.”

“That makes two of us.” Bishop snarls from the rear.

They infiltrate the room, fixated on me like mountain lions ready to pounce.

It’s Remy and Olivia who poke at my agitation, though, remaining at the archway to the open living area, Olivia’s attention fixed down the hall toward the bedrooms.

“Where’s Ivy?” she asks.

“Sleeping.” My tone is clipped.

“So something’s going on, but she’s not even awake to know about it?” She turns to my younger brother. “Remy, when are you going to tell me what’s happening?”

Layla excuses herself to use the bathroom while my dick-leashed brother placates his fuck buddy. Matthew answers a phone call. I take the pause in scrutiny as an opportunity to stalk to the kitchen and make necessary use of the coffee machine.

“What the fuck have you done?” Bishop’s voice is a murmured sneer as he settles behind me, all up in my personal space.

“What the fuck have you done?” I insert a coffee pod into the slot and shove my mug under the spout. “You called a fucking family meeting.”

“I got news Ivy was stabbed.”

“And?”

“And drawing attention to the fact you’re harboring the enemy’s daughter is one thing, almost getting her killed is another, but then Matthew mentioned you’ve got lover’s nuts for the girl, which makes this situation a whole lot more complicated. Lorenzo is going to fucking kill you.”

“You think I can’t handle Lorenzo?”

He scoffs. “I know you can’t. But my priority is Abri, and more specifically her hang-ups with her mother.”

I stare at the coffee machine as it sputters liquid gold.

“I read the fucking medical report,” he hisses under his breath. “And there’s only one bitch in the vicinity that has a knitting-needle fetish.”

I keep my mouth shut.

“If you’re tripping over your dick for this woman like Matthew thinks you are then I can’t imagine you let the attack on her fly, so what the fuck did you do, Salvatore?”

I grab my filled mug and turn to him, taking a lazy sip as I eye him over the rim.

The longer I stare the more pronounced his sneer becomes, his posture threateningly tight.

“Will you two hurry up?” Matthew growls from the sofa.

I raise a taunting brow at Bishop and start toward my trial by fire. “I’ve been summoned.”

He grabs my arm, making my coffee slosh onto the floor. “They don’t know everything,” he snarls. “I only told your siblings she was taken to hospital.” A vindictive grin stretches across his face, pulling at the scar barely hidden beneath the thick stubble covering his right cheek. “I wanted a front-row seat when they find out how fucking complicated you’ve made a situation you never should’ve been in.”

I hold his stare, attempting to ignore his judgment, but I don’t have a tight hold on my anger. I’ve barely got a loose grip.

I elbow past him and approach the rest of my jury, Remy now situated on the lone armchair talking to Matthew while Layla and Abri sit side by side on the sofa, Olivia continuing to hover in the fucking archway.

“Move away from the hall,” I demand, voice raised, tone incredulous.

Olivia stiffens. Layla, too.

“Calm the hell down,” Remy warns.

If only.

Their presence, Ivy’s injuries, the situation with my mother, the fucking baby—the noise of it all accumulates in my skull, making calm a foreign concept.

“Get her to move away from the hall or we’re going to have an issue.” I reclaim my seat on the sofa opposite my sister and Layla while my brothers eye me as if I’m a child throwing a tantrum. But again, it’s Olivia who siphons my restraint, standing mouth agape, her doe-eyed innocence so fucking out of place in this situation it makes me sick.

She shouldn’t be here.

None of them should.

Ivy needs time to recover. I need the same to work out a plan. And neither of those can be accomplished with these fuckers hovering.

“Grow up.” Matthew peers down his nose at me, his misplaced authority tipping my seesaw of stability.

I draw my gun, pointing it at Olivia. “Either she sits down or I place her on her ass.”

Gasps brush my ears. Remy shoves to his feet. But none of it penetrates the suffocating frustration clawing its way up my neck.

I should’ve put a bullet through my mother’s skull, watched her die, and gained some sense of closure. Instead, the itch to pull the trigger remains. I want to surrender to the chaos and let the devil take the wheel.

“Salvatore…” Abri slowly stands inching toward my gun’s aim. “Maybe don’t point your weapon between her eyes, and she might be more inclined to comply.”

“Don’t fucking move, belladonna ,” Bishop snarls.

“I’m fine.” She raises her hands. “ He’s fine. Aren’t you, Salvo?”

“Put the fucking gun down,” Remy snaps.

“Do it, Salvatore,” Matthew demands.

They all look at me as if I’m the scum of the earth. A thorn in their sides. It’s been this way for so long, it’s hard to remember any different.

“I’ll move,” Olivia whispers. “Just please put the gun down.”

Her voice is pathetic. A fragile, pitiful rasp that breaks through the mania.

She’s Ivy’s best friend. Her family. The one person under this roof I shouldn’t be pointing a deadly weapon at.

I lower the gun and swallow the remorse with a mouthful of coffee as Remy stalks forward, violence etched into his hardened stare.

I don’t have the opportunity to place my mug on the coffee table before the anticipated knuckles of his clenched fist slam into the side of my face, spilling boiling liquid over the leg of my pants as welcomed pressure consumes my skull.

I fucking needed that—the pain, the distraction—anything that can get my thoughts away from Ivy.

“If you ever point a gun at her again, I’ll fucking kill you.” He jabs a finger in my face. “I don’t give a shit if you’re my brother.”

He stalks past me as Olivia rushes forward, slamming into his chest and wrapping her arms around him while I test the movement of my jaw, making sure that fucker didn’t break it.

“Now hurry up and tell us what the hell happened.” He holds her tight, glaring at me over her shoulder.

“Fine.” I place my mug on the coffee table and wipe the spilled liquid from my fingers onto my already damp pants. “What have you been told?”

“That Ivy was admitted to hospital.” Abri slumps back into her seat.

“Excuse me?” Olivia bristles. “She’s hurt?”

I look away, the tendrils of anger reaching for me again. If she makes a move for that goddamn hall, I’ll?—

“You told me he wouldn’t hurt her.” Olivia shoves a hand against Remy’s sternum. “You told me she’d be safe.”

“Can we all take a fucking breath and calm the hell down?” Bishop crosses the room, moving between Olivia and the hall.

“And lower your goddamn voices,” I growl. “Ivy’s sleeping.”

“She’s worried about her friend.” Abri folds her arms over her chest. “But sure, let’s focus on volume control instead.”

“I want to see her.” Olivia backtracks toward Bishop. “ Now .”

“Sit the fuck down.” I tighten my grip on my gun, my palm sweating.

“What happened to her?” She raises her voice. “What did you do?”

Everyone adds to the verbal melee—snapping warnings, offering excuses, barking demands.

The noise increases along with the break-neck speed of my surging rage until Ivy appears in the archway, pale, drawn, and dressed in nothing but my suit jacket.

Everyone falls quiet. Me included.

She’s a vision of delicate ruin, her hair loose around her shoulders, dark bags under her eyes, a fragile hand clutching the lapels to keep the material from gaping.

Olivia runs for her. “Oh, my god. Are you okay?”

“ Careful .” I shove to my feet as the brainless woman collides with Ivy, jostling her backward with a rough hug.

I see red. I fucking feel it. Everywhere. The heat of fury scorches my veins and demands retaliation.

“Don’t even think about it.” Matthew sidles up beside me and snatches my gun. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

My animosity zeroes in on him, an unspoken torrent of protective wrath leveled in his direction. But the condemnation in his gaze softens, as if he sees past my need for violence to the obsessive reasoning beneath.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters under his breath, shoving my gun into the front of his waistband while Olivia continues to smother Ivy. “This is a problem. A huge fucking problem.”

“You should let her sit down.” Layla looks on in concern. “She seems fragile.”

“She is fragile,” I bite out.

Ivy winces and gains an arm’s length of space from her stage-five clinger best friend. “Sitting down would be great.”

I battle the urge to step in, to be the one who helps her to the sofa. Instead, I grit my teeth and move aside, letting Olivia guide her to the seat I just vacated.

“Can someone please tell me what happened?” Olivia crouches before Ivy, her doe-eyed innocence reaching a whole new level. When the silence stretches she turns that weak, unbecoming attention to Remy, then me.

“She was stabbed.” I lean forward and reclaim my coffee mug. Without something to occupy my hands I’m far too inclined to wrap them around her throat.

“Stabbed?” she gasps.

“I’m fine.” Ivy grabs Olivia’s fingers. “Totally fine.”

“ Totally fine ?” Olivia’s voice rises to a falsetto. “Are you high?”

“Probably a little bit.” Ivy shrugs. “Hospital drugs.”

Abri chuckles and Layla remains quietly pensive, while Bishop, Remy and Matthew commit to being stone-faced.

“It wasn’t like I was stabbed with a butcher’s knife.” Ivy squeezes her friend’s hand reassuringly. “They were only knitting needles. The puncture wounds are tiny.”

“Wait what ?” Abri pins me with a trauma-filled gaze. “Knitting needles?”

“Fucking knitting needles?” Matthew scowls at Bishop, relaying a silent message.

“Our mother did this?” Remy moves closer.

The raucous verbal onslaught reclaims the room—Olivia asking for clarity, Ivy placating her best friend, Abri demanding confirmation that Adena is still imprisoned, while my brothers sneer amongst themselves.

I’m over the theatrics. Wrung dry of the drama. I’m too fucking tired for this shit.

“It’s been handled.” I raise my voice over the noise.

“Handled how?” Abri asks in accusation.

Spitting facts isn’t something I’m prepared to do in front of Ivy. Not when I can’t predict how she’ll react.

“You’d better open your fucking mouth, Salvatore.” Abri lunges off the sofa. “Or do you expect me to find out for myself?”

I keep my mouth shut as Ivy’s expression turns from unsettled to anxious. She doesn’t need this added stress.

“You’re such a dick.” Abri turns on her heel and power-walks for the hall.

Remy follows.

Soon they’re stalking from the room toward the basement—Bishop, Matthew, Layla—all except Olivia, who remains knelt on the floor in front of Ivy, who stares at me with such pleading desperation it peels layers of armor from my charcoaled soul.

“What did you do?” she whispers.

“I managed a threat.”

“Managed?” Her eyes glisten with moisture as Olivia glances between us, watching our interaction as if it’s a tennis match.

“That’s what I said, mi reina .”

Ivy lowers her gaze to her lap. “Should I be making plans to flee?”

“No matter what he’s done, I think the response to that is a resounding yes. ” Olivia climbs to her feet. “Let me get you out of here.” She grabs Ivy’s arm. “Come on. I’ll help you up.”

“She’s not going anywhere. But you will if you don’t take your hands off her.” I root my feet in place before I can make good on my threat.

Ivy sighs. “Calm down. Both of you.”

“Ive…” Olivia pleads.

“I know.” Ivy nods. “I get it. Let’s just wait and find out what’s going on first.” She guides her stare back to me. “Unless you want to fill us in before everyone returns. I’d prefer to hear it from you.”

And I’d prefer to be the one to tell her.

If only we were alone I’d explain. I’d make her understand.

But Olivia doesn’t look like she’s going to fuck off anytime soon and the thunderous clap of footsteps approaching along the hall doesn’t leave me much choice as Abri reemerges with a face bleached with fury.

“What the absolute fuck ?” She storms for me, Bishop close on her tail. “You fucking killed her?”

Ivy gapes. It’s all I see, all I focus on as my sister closes in and launches her palm across my face with a resounding thwack.

“You sick son of a bitch,” she screeches, retracting her arm to prep for a second slap. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“ Belladonna .” Bishop grabs her around the waist, hauling her backward.

“ You’re such a piece of shit, Salvatore ,” she screams. “ You know how long I’ve wanted her dead. You knew the reasons. And then as soon as something inconveniences your life, you decide you have the right to take her out instead of me? Without even mentioning it first? Who does that ?”

I grind my teeth through the burn leeching across my face. “You weren’t the only one deserving of vengeance.”

Her eyes flare. “You think your reasons outweigh my own? She almost killed my child and Bishop .” She writhes in his hold as my brothers and Layla enter the room.

“It was a dog act, Salvo,” Remy mutters. “You should’ve at least spoken to us first. Especially since I assume you used some of my Pento.”

“Spoken to you?” Incredulity breaks through my restraint while rage and retaliation demand freedom. “I’m the fucking head of this family now. I’ve earned that position. I don’t need your goddamn permission.”

“You didn’t earn anything.” Abri elbows and bucks at Bishop. “We all know you were the fucking favorite. You had the world handed to you.”

I take the verbal blow with a raise of my chin, blood boiling, vehemency stewing. “ The favorite ?”

“ They took you on vacations without us ,” she yells. “ You were off jet-setting while I was doing their dirty work .”

“That’s more than I ever got,” Matthew adds.

I shoot a death stare in his direction. “You know nothing, so stay the fuck out of it.”

He glowers. “I’m just saying, it sounds like you were afforded things that none of us ever were. And given what Abri’s been through, she has a right to be pissed.”

It’s all of them against me, like it always has been. It shouldn’t feel any different than the norm. It’s what I’ve lived with since my teenage years. What I consciously facilitated. But the sight of Ivy’s pained eyes before she hangs her head has my insides all twisted.

“It’s not like any of us wanted her alive.” Remy stands behind the opposite sofa, shaking his head. “This is yet another example of your thoughtless self-indulgence, and I’m sick of it.”

“It’s fucking selfish—that’s what it is.” Abri squares her shoulders, still battling Bishop’s grip. “And I hope Lorenzo shoves you in that cell next.”

I bark a laugh. After all the skin I’ve put in the game to try and stop hers being on the line. After the living nightmares I endured, and those that still haunt my sleep.

“I’m fucking selfish?” My question is a rabid snarl, coated in the resentment I’ve harbored for years. “Take a look in the goddamn fucking mirror.”

“I look in the mirror every morning,” Abri bites back. “And I feel none of the disgust that would plague me if I was staring at your reflection. You were the poster child for the monsters we knew as parents. They treated you like?—”

“ A target ,” I roar. “ They treated me like a fucking target, Abri. ”

She bristles but doesn’t quit fighting Bishop’s hold.

“You think there were vacations outside of forced business trips?” I accuse. “Grow the fuck up and work on your critical thinking. Why would they take me on a fucking vacation?”

“You told us they did,” Remy argues.

I cut my gaze to his. “And whenever someone tells you something do you ever spare the time to rub two brain cells together to determine if what they’re saying is even the slightest bit logical?”

He frowns. “You were the next in line to take over. You got special treatment.”

“Did I?” I raise a brow. “Or is that what I told you I got?”

He stares at me, unmoving, unblinking.

“What’s going on, Salvo?” Matthew asks. “What aren’t you saying?”

I turn to him, the one who escaped torment and left a space I had to fill. “What did you think would happen after you took off?” I stroll the short space between us to stop in front of him. “Did you seriously believe that after they murdered your girlfriend and you disappeared, they’d take a soft parenting approach toward their next successor?” I narrow my eyes. “I know that’s what you wanted to believe. You all did. But did you actually convince yourself it was true?”

I step up to him, wanting him to hit me. To round out the trifecta. To take the edge off this fucking brutal rage. “Name one time our father ever softened to adversity, you fucking coward.”

He recoils.

“Think about it,” I sneer. “What was a more logical path for him to take?”

Abri stills in Bishop’s hold.

The room falls quiet.

There’s only my bottled fury spurring my pulse into overdrive as Matthew humbles himself in silence.

“Are the puzzle pieces falling into place yet, brother?” I cock a brow. “I wasn’t offered an ounce of leniency in the years after your disappearance. Instead, I was manipulated, blackmailed, and fucking tortured into compliance far beyond what any of you had to deal with.”

“Then why lie?” Abri accuses.

“Good question.” I keep glaring at Matthew. “Why do you think? What was the only thing I had in my life that they could use against me? I certainly didn’t have much time for women. None of us had disposable money. And I couldn’t have given less fucks about the family business. That didn’t leave many options for their favored game of extortion.”

Matthew’s nostrils flare.

He knows.

“You did the same, I’m sure,” I accuse of him. “Most of the time I felt like I was following your lead because God fucking knows you must have kept a lot of shit to yourself growing up.”

His jaw ticks as the atmosphere in the room changes, the violent charge in the air losing its electricity.

“Explain,” Abri demands. “What are you saying?”

Matthew rakes a hand through his hair and retreats a step, breaking eye contact. “He’s saying he lied to protect you and Remy.”

“Lied? About what?” Remy approaches.

Matthew huffs a sardonic laugh and shakes his head, as if he can’t believe he didn’t pick up on it sooner. “Everything, I assume—what they did to him, how he was treated.”

The weight of everyone’s attention presses down on me.

I’d expected the truth to be some sort of set-me-free, emotionally vindicating moment. But everything still feels the same—my anger, the resentment, the shame.

“Bullshit.” Remy shoves my chest. “We all had the same base level of trauma—the restrictions, the financial slavery. You never mentioned additional torment. I had the fucked up fifteenth birthday, and we all know the added nightmares Abri went through. But you never said a damn thing. Not once.”

“Because there was nothing to be said. Words wouldn’t change a thing.”

“It would’ve changed my goddamn opinion of you.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “All this time I thought you were a prick for the fun of it.”

“Whenever we got along, they felt threatened.”

“Threatened?” Abri asks. “And what would they do when they felt that way?”

I throw back the remainder of my coffee, buying time, not having planned to ever go so far down this path. But they all stare at me as I hold her gaze, their pained curiosity tightening around me. Suffocating.

“They would get you to handle jobs instead of me.” The admission poisons my veins. “Everything you suffered was at the hands of my mistakes. Either because they didn’t trust my loyalty or I refused to blackmail, bribe, or kill someone they didn’t approve of.”

“You were killing people for them?” Remy accuses. “Since when?”

“Since Matthew left.”

“But I remember how you acted when Cole Torian murdered that guy in front of us.” He frowns. “You were as fucking shocked as I was.”

I incline my head. “I pretended a lot of shit wasn’t normal for me. But I went ahead and took charge of the body disposal and crime scene clean-up like a pro, right?”

“Fuck.” He drags out the curse as he scrubs a hand down his face. “I can’t believe this.”

I wish he didn’t have to.

I wish none of them did.

“Unfortunately, I can. They were fucking monsters.” Bishop places a comforting hold on Abri’s upper arms. “And I don’t like that I have to break up this defining moment of family trauma. But right now, we need to start prepping a game plan for Lorenzo. He’s due to arrive any minute, and there’s no doubt he’ll be homicidal.”