Chapter 32 #2
He looks at the flower, then at me.
“I’ve been sitting here, trying to piece the puzzle back together now that I have all the parts.” I swallow. “Parker?”
One footstep. “Me. I ordered it in. Emeric called the hit on you all when he thought his plan of getting Amélie back so he could kill her wasn’t working. Next question.”
I scoff, touching a petal. “So much violence.”
Another step. “So little time.”
My eyes snap to him and he stops. “You stole my kill, but I’m not mad about that.” Kind of… I could get over it. “It’s the constant loop of lies. Did he die in pain?”
“He was awake the hole time. Until, well… the end.”
“Why?” I finally say, desperate for something to grasp onto. “Why?”
“For one, Venom, I’d been killing these motherfuckers since I first saw you hanging on that yacht—“Everything stops, but he keeps going. “—La Maison Du Mal wasn’t always like this. My father, Aléia, Emeric, they corrupted it the second they got the power they stole.”
I squeeze my fists. “So you ordered me to take Parker?”
“Yes.” His eyes widen. “I had to know you. More of you. Were you like him? Worse?” Pause.
“Then I saw you for the first time at his apartment. Alderic and I were fighting because he hated that he’d lost what little power he had.
Why the fuck do you think he sat there and took the relationship, took the marriage, took the bullet? ”
He tilts his head. “Because he knew better. He knew who I was because I told him right after sending him Emeric’s head, and he knew exactly what the fuck was going to happen if he didn’t follow my instructions. Ivy—“
“Don’t.”
I keep my feet planted on the ground because if I take one step toward him, I’ll take all of them. I’ll crawl inside that hoodie and let him stitch me back together with the same hands that built the lie.
I can’t do that. I can’t do him, or Leon, or Daniel, or any of them standing in that kitchen eating Nonna’s recipes and calling it loyalty. I need distance. From him most of all, and from everyone else right behind him, until I figure out which parts of me are actually mine.
“Don’t what?” he argues. “Don’t come near you? Don’t look at you? Pick one, and I’ll rip it apart just to fucking feel you.”
Those words would terrify any other woman. Any sane woman.
My chin drops. “I’m leaving, Asher.”
He doesn’t blink. “No, you’re not.”
“I’m leaving.” I fold my arms, gripping my own elbows through the cardigan so my hands have somewhere to be. “And you’re going to let me go.”
“Mmm,” his eyes slide to the side before coming back to me. “Try again.”
“I’m not asking permission.” My throat aches around every word. “I’m telling you what’s happening.”
Even if it’s going to kill me to do it.
“You want space?” His eyes narrow, jaw flexing. “Fine. You can have the whole east wing of the house. Or shit, I’ll sleep in the car if it means you stay, but—“
I shake my head. “It’s not about space.”
“Then what—Ivy?” His voice cracks.
Every second I stand here watching him fall apart tears me open too.
“Say it. Say the actual thing, Ivy, because I’ve been walking myself in circles wondering what the fuck else he put in that head of yours. What other memories you’ve been carrying that you didn’t know about before.”
“I—” The words scrape out. “I wanted to kill you, Asher.”
Tears build behind my eyes.
“And I felt fucking nothing. Do you understand? I stood there and I wanted to be efficient. Because that’s what he built, and it’s still in me, and I’m fucking terrified that it will come back.
That maybe Nonna’s trigger is only going to work until the next one.
How do I know he didn’t put a thousand in my head, Asher! ”
His expression remains blank. “I don’t care.”
“I know.” A laugh slips from my chest and I swipe the tears off my cheek. “You don’t care. You’d let me be that forever if it meant I stayed within arm’s reach.”
He goes still.
“You’d take any version of me,” I whisper, looking into the eyes of a man so beautifully dark he tricked even me. “Programmed. Broken. Whatever scrap he left behind. I mean god, Ash! I don’t even know who this girl is!”
“Then find her next to me.”
“Asher—”
“I’ll wait.” His knuckles graze my cheek. “Fuck, Venom. I’ll wait outside whatever door you slam in my face. I don’t need you fixed because you’ll always be fucking perfect to me. You’re right to think I’d take any version of you, because I fucking would. A thousand times over I would—“
“You lied to me.” The words leave me in a whisper. “Every single day since the second we met, you looked at me and you chose the lie. And I understand why. I do. But I can’t unknow it, and I can’t sleep next to it.”
His hand drops to his side, and I can see the fight still working in him, the part that wants to force my hand.
“Don’t do this.” His fingers flex at his side, and the Hellébore tightens against my throat when I swallow. A winter rose for the woman he decided would survive anything.
Just not him.
My heel slides back across the damp floor. One step. That’s all I can manage.
“It’s too late. But you can do one thing for me before I leave.”
His jaw tenses, reaching for my face before stopping.
“What?”
“You can give me the details of who killed Nonna. I’m guessing they came from Aléia, but I want the who.”
It takes everything inside of me to not fall apart.
“Please,” I whisper, eyes dry.
He sighs, shaking his head. “Fuck. Yeah, I’m definitely gonna have to let you go after this because you’re going to hate me.”
I freeze.
“I killed him already—” he pauses, most likely waiting for my response.
Which wants to be murder but I’m trying to be a better person like fuck.
“—It was another Family. Hidden in the guise of a priest and his daughter. The priest did the hit and I got him right after. His daughter is still there if you want something, but as far as I last checked, she’s out of the life… ”
My mouth snaps closed, nails biting into my palms. I could. I could take this bitch out the same way Nonna was, but that would make me just like Emeric—lost in revenge. I can’t punish her for her father’s sins.
“You’re right,” I whisper, voice cracked. “You really are going to have to let me go.”
Stepping back, I leave the greenhouse and him inside it. I walk back into the house without bothering to scrape the tears off my face. No one will try to stop me from leaving. They’re smarter than that.
Am I pissed about him taking another kill from me? Yes. I have a feeling he’s done it on purpose, during a time of being careful to not trip the wires Emeric placed in my brain, but Aléia met my blade. Her daughter Camille won’t be so lucky. This one can be punished for her mother’s sins.
I wish I could tell Asher the rest of it. That Emeric made sure to steal one last thing from me as a back up. Something that would guarantee he’d never risk spending his life with me if he knew, because every family has to live on.
That much is absolute.
Antiseptic had a distinct smell. It coated the back of my tongue, taking over whatever they pushed into my vein.
A white light burns above me. The metal shade cuts the glare into a hard circle, bleaching the ceiling and the hands moving between my knees. My legs rest in padded stirrups, spread so wide my hips ache. Leather straps cross my ankles. Another pins my waist to the bed.
I try to lift my head.
The room rolls, and bile crawls into my throat.
Aléia stands beside a steel tray in a pale blue gown. Her hair is tucked beneath a cap, and a mask hangs loose below her chin. Blood freckles one glove. She watches the person seated at the foot of the bed, whose face blurs each time I blink.
The drugs smear everything into wet paint.
Parker. It’s fucking Parker—
Emeric waits beside my shoulder in a black suit, untouched by the white tile and stainless steel. He checks his watch while an instrument scrapes deep inside me.
Pain rips through my pelvis.
My back arches against the restraint, and a cry tears out of my mouth. Parker catches my thigh before it slips from the stirrup.
“Hold her,” Aléia says.
A hand clamps around my knee.
“What are you doing?” My tongue feels swollen. Each word drags across my teeth.
Emeric looks down at me.
I reach for him, but my wrist barely lifts from the mattress. A clear tube runs beneath the tape on my arm. The liquid inside it falls one drop at a time.
“Please.” My fingers curl toward his sleeve. “It hurts.”
Aléia places another bloodied instrument on the tray. Metal strikes metal, and my stomach clenches at the sound.
“She needs another dose,” Parker says.
“She needs to remain conscious,” Emeric answers.
A fresh bolt of pain splits through me. I buck against the leather until it bites my skin. Something inside my body pulls, then tears, and sweat runs into my ears.
Get up.
My legs twitch in their restraints.
Fight them.
My hands refuse to close.
Emeric leans over the bed and pats my hair, smoothing it back from my damp forehead.
“It’s okay, you won’t remember this for a long time.” His thumb brushes my temple. “We can’t have you creating more Monét’s or god forbid les amants maudits takes shape and we have a new generation of Delacroix’s. Even if it costs me mine.”