Chapter 31 #3
“No, you don’t,” he replies with too much calm for someone I just fucked up.
He catches my other wrist, forcing both above my head until there’s nothing left between us but his bare chest pressed to mine.
“I’ll kill you.” Tears stream down my face, blurring my vision. “I swear to God, I’ll—“
“You won’t.” The words are warm against my mouth. He’s everywhere. His weight and his scent pulling me back from wherever I’d gone.
“Let me go.” My voice cracks around the rock in my throat. “Please.”
He swallows, wincing. “Never.”
His grip tightens on my wrists, his other hand sliding into my hair, tangling in the strands and pulling my head back until I have no choice but to look at him.
Blue eyes stare down at me, steady, his split lip still bleeding where I hit him.
“I told you.” His thumb strokes along my hairline. “I’m never letting you go.”
A shudder runs through me, and my hands go loose against his chest.
“He was my father,” I sob, sniffing. “How could he?”
Asher’s arms tighten around me. “I know, baby. I know.”
It sounds ridiculous, to mourn a man who was a monster all along, but the little girl who thought he was the world had no idea what he was.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” My fist hits his chest, barely enough to feel it. “Why didn’t you just—“
“Because we couldn’t! We didn’t know what the fuck his trigger was. No one did but him!” His hand cups the back of my head, pressing my face into his neck. “Fuck, Ivy. I lived one million different deaths and I’d live two million more if it meant you no longer lived in the house he built.”
He taps my head.
I chuckle, mimicking Emeric’s tone. “There was a house that needed to be built, but first, it needed the foundation and the walls, strong enough to keep everyone and everything out. Until it was time to play house.”
I shake my head. The rhyme was there the whole time and I never saw it. “He built my mind as a house and focused too much on the construction of it while Nonna was filling it with love. Humanity. Friends, and family traditions…”
He kisses my cheek softly, just a brush of bloody lips.
“You need to let me fix your wound,” he whispers. “Are you gonna let me if I release you, or are you gonna try to kill me again?”
The warmth of his chest against mine makes it worse, the guilt settling in my bones.
I put a bullet in him. I—I
He looks down at his hand, at the mess between us. “If you wanted to dabble in some bloodplay, Venom.” The corner of his lip twitches into a smirk. “You could have just asked.”
I don’t laugh.
When he starts to lift his weight off me, I clamp my hand around the back of his neck and hold him there.
He goes still, his breath warm against my lips.
“Ash,” I whisper, my ribs compressing. “I can’t.”
“Ivy?” Luce whispers from behind me and I freeze.
Luce’s hazel eyes catch mine over Asher’s shoulder.
Her face crumples, and she takes one step toward me before stopping with both hands curled against her stomach.
“I’m here,” she says.
Asher turns his head enough to see her, and the movement brings his mouth against my temple.
My skin crawls.
His hands have held me through nightmares. They’ve cleaned blood from my body and tucked blankets around my feet. Those same hands kept Emeric’s name buried while I slept beside him.
I loosen my fingers from Asher’s neck.
“Ash, move.”
His gaze returns to mine.
“You’re bleeding.”
“So are you.”
“Ivy—”
“Get off me.”
His jaw locks. For one second, I see Le Parrain staring down at me. The man who can order executions between snowboard runs and smile at the camera for all his fans.
Then his grip opens.
Asher lifts himself from my body and keeps one hand over the wound in my side until Luce drops beside me. Blood coats his palm, bright against the lines of his skin.
I push onto my elbows.
The room sways, forcing me to close my eyes.
He is Le Parrain.
Emeric is my father.
Asher knew.
Each fact carries a hundred memories behind it. Every time he kissed me instead of answering a question. His face above mine in bed, blue eyes holding steady while I handed him pieces of myself he already understood better than I did.
A laugh scratches at my throat, then dies there.
It isn’t a matter of if I love him. My body proved that before my mind caught up. It recognized him in every room, searched for him through every crowd, and ran toward him with the same instinct that reaches for a blade.
It’s forgiveness.
Luce slips an arm behind my back and helps me sit. “I’m going to fix you up. You can hate me later.”
Asher stays on his knees beside us.
His split lip starts bleeding again. I did that. The cut across his chest is mine too. Blood slips from his palm and drops to the floor between us.
I stare at him until his face blurs.
“Venom.”
I pull my legs beneath me and lean into Luce.
He reaches for my cheek.
I turn my head.
His hand stops inches from my skin, fingers curling toward his palm.
Around us, everyone has gone silent. I don’t even know who’s all here. Camille exists somewhere, but I don’t have the room left in my skull to care.
“I want to go home.”