Chapter 5
CHAPTER
FIVE
ASHER
Twenty minutes of watching this fucking screen. Twenty minutes of reminding myself why I need a brother. Why I shouldn’t bury him in the backyard.
Jesus. I gotta pull my shit in.
Maybe it’s been thirty minutes. Or maybe I stopped counting when Atlas made her laugh and flipped my murder switch.
I focus back on her, where she’s on the bed, gesturing in that animated way she does when she’s forgotten to perform.
Leaning back in my chair, I roll a pen between my fingers.
Fucking Atlas. Always so charming and smooth.
She wouldn’t usually fall for it, but I can’t tell anymore.
This Ivy looks soft and unguarded as she laughs at whatever dumb shit he just said.
This was the version of her I got when no one was looking.
Or maybe, this was just simply what she wanted me to see.
My jaw locks.
Why the fuck am I sitting in my office with a hard dick, watching my brother try to flirt his way into my...
She shot you.
She let you bleed out.
She fucking lied.
She’s a puppet.
My fingers trace the thick scar banding my throat. There’s an old saying, les amants maudits. It’s more story than saying, but comes down to one singular thing. Fate. The rest is some romance about born enemies who can’t stay away from each other.
Bullshit. It’s all fucking bullshit.
Romance has fuck all to do with love. There’s nothing pretty about love.
There’s no fucking butterflies. There’s pain in equal measure.
Romance is the commercial, love is the sale.
And I’m supposed to be the idiot who falls for the whole thing because she’s got eyes that bring me to my knees and a mouth sent to this earth just to torture me.
Atlas says something and her smile dies. Her shoulders straighten, stare unmoving. She’s concealing all her fears—despite her argument that she has none.
I know this tell.
I know all of her tells.
That’s the problem with falling for someone built to destroy you. You memorize the shit you shouldn’t because they’re all the things you love about them.
I know her better than I know myself.
And she used every fucking detail against me.
My phone buzzes on the desk. Camille’s name flashes, a string of messages I haven’t answered. I’ll let her wait. Let her wonder. She’s useful for exactly one thing right now, and it has everything to do with pissing off my little Venom.
Ivy shifts away from Atlas. She’s still talking, still moving, but it’s all performance now.
Ah. I see. She’s talking about me.
I see it when her mouth moves while her shoulders stay carefully neutral. She’s giving him just enough truth to make the lie sound real. That’s what she does. That’s what they trained her to do.
I crush the pen until it snaps.
Atlas heads for the door. As soon as she’s alone, she’ll do what she always does when she thinks no one is watching. Let the mask slip. And I’ll be here. Watching.
Always fucking watching…
A sharp knock hits the door, severing my thoughts. Sinead pushes through before I can respond. Very few people can enter this room without permission, and Sinead is all one of them.
They drop a parcel on my desk, ignoring Ivy moving across the monitor. Not that I hide anything from them anyway. Sinead already knows more than anyone else ever will, because why? Because fucking trust.
Ain’t that a funny thing…
“It was dropped at the gate,” Sinead says, nodding to it with a pierced brow.
I look up at them between inspecting the label. “By a courier, or a mail man?”
Sinead doesn’t answer which is an answer on its own.
I tear open the wrapper until the familiar box peeks out. Pressed into the leather are the words La Maison du Mal.
My fingers follow each letter, the design hand-drawn and old as fuck. I wonder how many people came before me and sat in this same spot.
I flip open the case, revealing the family blade. It’s about six inches long, curving at the tip. Dark leather wraps the handle, oiled to a shine.
Hello, old friend...
It’s been a year since I held it. Fifteen since my father did.
Before I can shove the memories away, salt water clings to my throat, and the deck is shifting beneath my boots. I grip the leather of the chair, only feeling the cold metal railing from the yacht instead. Waves strike the hull with a crack, dragging me back into the present.
Sinead gives me a weighted smile. “The House always likes to remind us of the torment they’ve created.”
I chuckle, because ain’t that some truth…
Atlas strolls through the door, carrying her scent along with him. Like she fucking marked him just to torment me.
My hand tightens around the knife as Atlas scans the desk, the open case, the monitor still lit with Ivy’s room, before zeroing in on me.
His mouth curves, because he’s Atlas and he can’t fucking help himself. He must say some dumb shit since Sinead burst out laughing.
I say nothing, keeping my stare locked on the screen where Ivy’s moving around her room. When the silence is almost awkward, I look back down to the knife.
Sinead jerks a thumb toward the door. “I better go check on Daniel. Make sure he’s comfortable.”
Atlas steps deeper into the office, kicking the door shut with his heel. “You gonna tell me why you’ve got her room up like a fucking livestream,” he says, quieter now, “or do I get to keep making jokes till you grow a personality again?”
I roll the knife once in my palm, setting it on the desk beside the journal I should really do a better job at hiding. “You seem real comfortable in there.”
Atlas leans one shoulder against the wall. “It’s Ivy.”
I look at him. “And?” His reply explains exactly nothing.
He doesn’t break away. “And it’s Ivy, Asher.”
On the monitor, Ivy pauses with the brush halfway through her hair, as if she can feel me watching.
Atlas follows my gaze, holding still for a second before turning back to me.
“You know,” he says, his voice light but careful, “I read a story about this once. Obsession doesn’t end—”
I let out a dead laugh, cutting off whatever else was about to spill from his mouth.
When he sighs loud enough that I know his common sense has failed, my eyes snap to him. “Don’t.”
One simple word is all it takes for him to back down. Never needed to raise my voice once to get my point across.
Atlas pushes off the wall with a whistle. “A gift from the holy ones?”
If I wasn’t still pissed about him smelling like Ivy, I’d probably snicker at the nickname.
Atlas tilts his head and swallows. “She asked about you.”
I glare at him. “I could tell.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Means,” I say, already over this conversation. “I know her better than anyone.”
“Asher,” his tone drops, arms lifting, and I know he’s about to deliver yet another reason to punch him in the face. “She cares about you. There’s no faking that shit!”
“That’s touching,” I drawl, and I’m about to start counting to ten if this asshole doesn’t back the fuck up.
He asks under his breath, shaking his head. “You’re being an asshole.”
“Good.” I bare my teeth. “Means she’s alive.”
His voice drops. “Whatever game you think you’re playing, you need to rem—“
A sudden shift on the monitor jerks our heads up.
Ivy is already dismantling the closet, wrenching dresses off their hangers and shoving garment bags aside in broad, reckless sweeps.
She knows exactly what she’s looking for, leaving silk, cashmere, and shit she hasn’t touched since the day I hung it up to pool in a mounting pile on the floor.
She keeps moving without a single pause, never once looking down at the mess she’s making.
This is a search.
I watch her hands as she clears sections, checking the seams and running her flat palms behind the stacked boxes. This is the instinctual reflex of a woman who knows dark rooms make for perfect hiding because she’s usually the one lurking in them.
Tsk, tsk, Venom…
Every muscle in my body turns rigid, the absolute insanity of my own possessiveness is about to end with a bullet in someone else.
Atlas says nothing. For fucking once.
She freezes, the sudden stillness yanking me forward in my chair. One second she’s ripping through the racks, and the next her fingers stall around something wedged deep between two garment bags, drawing it out with a hesitant slowness.
A white knit sweater.
She lifts it up, turning the wool over in her hands, and my whole body locks tight as I lean forward.
Does she recognize it? That it’s the exact one she wore on the yacht?
Shrugging, she puts it back where it belongs and continues on. Of course she didn’t recognize. That would require her to be in control of her own brain.
I slam my laptop closed before I fucking break it and Atlas lets out a long breath, “You wanna tell me what the fuck that was?”
“No?”
He grunts out a dry laugh, shaking his head at the floor. “Solid strategy.”
I shove back from the desk. “It’s worked great so far.”
“Has it?” Atlas asks, brow arched.
I need a fucking drink. Pouring two fingers of whiskey, I leave the lid off and rest my hand against the bar.
“If you got a point, Atlas,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. “make it.”
“I think you’re losing your way.”
My eyes snap open. Before I actually fucking swing, my hand finds the bottle again, leaving the glass behind because fuck it.
Taking a long swig of the expensive whiskey, I keep my eyes locked on his. When I no longer feel the fire in my throat and my stomach is about a second away from burning through my ribs, I lower it, swiping the residue off my lips.
“Camille’s on her way.”
His shoulders stiffen. “For dinner?”
My lip twitches. “To stay.”
Silence.
He recoils, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ, Ash.”
Why can’t he see the obvious reasons why I’m doing what I’m doing?
“It makes things easier.”
“For who!” He yells, spit flying from his mouth.
Me.
Nobody.
I lift the bottle like a cheers and shrug. “For The House.”
Atlas’s mouth twists. “Bullshit.” He must have grown an extra nut sack because now he’s almost up in my shit. “You think bringing your ex in here is gonna piss off Ivy.”
Another swig, this time filling my mouth until the whiskey burns my tongue before swallowing. “What I think is it establishes boundaries.”
“Also—”I add, sizing him up with a head tilt but not being completely serious. “Why are you in my face right now?”
All anger evaporates from his face as he steps back. Not a lot, because Atlas may be a gentler man than me, but he’s never been one to back away from a fight.
Laughter breaks the silence as his head tilts back.
“Man, your guys’ fans are gonna eat you both alive!
” All humor dies in his throat before his eyes slide back to mine, “Maybe you should just ask her about the incident so you can fight about it, have mad fucking sex, and move on instead of being so goddamn theatrical.”
A cold smile pulls at my mouth. “You really wanna defend her to me right now?”
“No.” He drags a hand through his hair, looking away for a split second before snapping back. “I want you to stop pretending this is about revenge.”
I shoulder barge past him because we’re done here.
Before I can reach the door his voice stops me. “You bring Camille into this game and I know you’re doing it on purpose.”
Actually, you don’t know shit.
“Regardless of my current issues,” I say through clenched teeth. “I still have an obligation.”
That should shut him the fuck up—
“I guess we’re pretending your hands are tied.”
Stepping backwards, I kick the door closed with my foot, closing us back in the room.
Now we’re fighting.