Chapter 7
Asher
It's been two weeks since I left her, saying I'd be back the next morning. Two fucking weeks that felt like my damn heart was being ripped out of my chest. I'd had friends before. Fucking many. Hell, I'd been well acquainted with a social system, yet never.
Never had I ever felt the way I do about anyone the way I do Ivy.
Shit is fucked up and will have me checked into rehab.
I tell myself I’m over it by the time I hit Lake Shore.
I’m not.
I slam the doors to my Aston Martin, rolling my shoulders back, settling into the smug asshole I wear for her. Go in cocky, keep it light, pretend I haven’t spent two weeks thinking about her mouth.
Door opens, and every planned word evaporates.
She stands there in tiny shorts and a ribbed white tank that hides nothing, hair yanked into a knot like she did it while moving. Bare feet. Necklace I put on her shining at her throat, the white gold and barbed wire hugging her skin.
And her face. The right side of her face is fucked. Yellow-brown bloom under the concealer, skin swollen along the edge of her eye socket. Healing bruise, two weeks old, maybe a little less.
My first thought is kill. It’s not poetic. It’s not noble. It’s just that. A blade of intent dropping through my body, clean, simple.
Her eyes flick up to mine, and her mouth tightens. “Asher.”
Just my name. No smile. No soft anything.
I step forward on pure reflex, then stop. My gaze scans down her body—careful, clinical, hunting damage.
She shifts her weight. The tank rides up, flashing a band of mottled green and blue along her ribs, the hard ladder of bone under purple fingerprints.
My hand hits the doorframe before I know I’ve moved. “What the fuck is that.”
Her shoulders hitch, like she’s resisting the urge to step back.
“I’m not doing this with you,” she says. “Either come in or go back to your fan club, Wonderboy.”
I don’t move. My throats dry, and I'm about six seconds away from blowing everything the fuck up.
My tone is low. Level. “Who hit you, Ivy.”
Her jaw locks. “Get in the house, Asher. You’re blocking my door.”
I bare my teeth. “I’ll block your whole fucking world if I have to, Venom.”
Kicking the door closed, the wood rattles behind me. Her eyes flare, but she doesn’t flinch. Of course she doesn’t.
Rage climbs, slow and hot.
“Let me see,” I say, stepping closer.
“You’ve seen me plenty.” her eyes drop to my feet, countering. “Get over yourself.”
Focus, Asher. Pull your shit together. Be the smart ass she prefers so you can hide the feral monster that lives beneath.
My tongue glides over my lip. “Wanna take those clothes off for me, Venom?”
She stills, still backing up. “No.”
We both stop, standing there, a foot apart, air electric with all the shit we’re not saying. Her eyes are bright, mean. There’s a faint line at the corner of her mouth that wasn’t there last time. Sleepless nights, pain, or both.
“Where’s Parker,” I ask, head tilting.
She shrugs. “Not here.”
My eyes widen. “Where.”
“Last I heard he was in Dubai.” I can see her restraint waning. “Why?”
My lip curls. “Because I’m going to cave his skull in.”
Her brows rise. Barely. But it’s there. “Firstly, it wasn't Parker, you idiot. Second, you vanish for two weeks and show up ready to murder my husband. Adorable, Asher. Real cutesy movie of you.”
“Don’t fucking joke.” The words snap out. “Who did that to your face?”
She makes a frustrated sound and moves at the last second, letting me advance on her if I want like she hates herself for it.
The house smells like her—jasmine, soap, and coffee—and under it, the sterile hotel-clean of a place no one really lives in. Shoes lined up with military precision by the door. No Parker. No extra jacket. Just her sneakers thrown sideways like she kicked them off mid-stride.
I spin back to her. “Take the fucking makeup off.”
She actually laughs. It’s not nice.
“Wow. Bold. You ghost me—”
“—Ivy,” I growl, low.
She has the intelligence to stop. “What.”
“Who touched you.”
“Maybe I walked into a door. Isn’t that the script?”
My hands curl. “I’ll burn this whole neighborhood down before I let you make that joke again.”
“Relax.” She folds her arms, tank stretching over her chest. The gesture drags the fabric higher, and the bruise on her ribs shows clearer now. Deep, ugly, like a boot or a blunt handle. My gut twists. “No one’s burning anything. Except maybe the quinoa I forgot on the stove.”
I catch her wrist before she can drop her arms.
“Asher.” Warning.
I twist her hand, exposing the inside of her forearm. Old grazes, faint pink lines on tanned skin. Knuckles scraped, healing. One of them split, scabbed, cracked along the line. She’s hit someone recently.
Or something.
“You started street boxing in your spare time?” I ask. My thumb scrapes over a cut; she jerks but doesn’t pull away.
“Let go.”
“That a yes or a no?”
“It’s a go fuck yourself.”
I drag her closer by the captured wrist until her body clips my chest. Her breath ghosts my throat. Her eyes tip up, green and burning.
“Tell me who hit you,” I say, low. “Or I’m going to walk out that door, find your husband, and break every finger he uses to sign a check.”
Her lips part, surprise ghosting across her face before she kills it.
“You think Parker did this.”
“Who else.”
She snorts. “That’s cute.”
“Not answering is an answer.”
“I’m not a fucking savior.”
“Finally, something we agree on.”
We stare each other down. Her pulse trips under my fingers. Mine’s worse. Heat runs up my arm, the urge to yank her in and smash my mouth on hers riding shotgun with the urge to put someone in the ground.
She yanks her arm, tries to break my hold. I tighten it. She hisses.
“Last warning, Asher.”
“You’ll what,” I say. “Bite me?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Who. Hit. You.”
Her nostrils flare. Then she breathes out hard, voice flat.
“A guy tried to take my bag, all right? I wasn’t looking. Dark street, wrong corner. He got a hit in, I got it back, end of story. I fell on my ribs. Happy now?”
Every word is a lie.
“That’s the story you’re going with?” I say.
“The truth’s so boring, I know. I should’ve said it was a Russian spy or a cartel hitman, right? Really get your dick hard.”
My brow lifts. I'm impressed. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m fucking hilarious; you’re just rusty.”
She wrenches hard. I let go before I actually bruise her worse.
Her arm drops to her side. She rubs her wrist and glares at me.
“You don’t get to show up after disappearing and interrogate me about my face like you’ve earned that right,” she snaps. “You’re a guest in this house, remember? My husband’s guest. You want to alpha around, go do it in your own glass tower.”
“You think this is about my ego.” I laugh once. It tastes like copper. “You look like someone used you as a speed bag; forgive me for having an issue with that.”
Her smile thins. “You’ve seen me worse.”
Yeah. Curled on my couch with mascara tracks and a migraine, shaking from a nightmare she refused to name. Drunk in my hoodie laughing at memes with her legs over my lap.
“You think I’d forget?” I say.
“No, you just ghost.”
I go still.
“What.”
She crosses the room, putting the kitchen island between us. It’s a stupid, meaningless barrier, but my body responds like she just pulled a knife. Her movements are stiff, measured out of necessity. Rib. Fuck. Every reach and twist must hurt.
She grabs a glass from the drying rack, fills it from the filtered tap, not looking at me.
“Two weeks,” she says, water running. I wait for her to continue, and when she doesn't, I feel the next words before I say them.
“I had shit to handle.”
“Wow. Strong communication. Gold star. You leave a Post-it? Smoke signal? Thought not.” She takes a long swallow of water, throat working.
The movement tugs her tank again. My eyes drop to the bruise before I drag them up.
“So now you show up here, act like my face is your property, and what? You want a thank you? You want me to cry about how scared I was?”
Her words land like punches. I take them. I have it coming.
“I’m not asking you to cry,” I say. “I’m asking who put their hands on you so I know whose teeth to knock in.”
“God, you are so fucking arrogant.” She tips her head, eyes sharp. “Maybe I put my hands on them first. Maybe I’m not your little breakable thing, Asher.”
“You’re nothing of mine.”
The second it’s out, I want to rip it back. Her mouth twitches and goes still.
“Message received,” she says quietly. “Took you long enough.”
Silence drops. The hum of the fridge, the faint hiss of the AC. My own heartbeat loud in my ears.
Fuck.
“Ivy—”
“Don’t.” She lifts a palm. “Don’t do the thing where you pretend you didn’t mean it. You meant it. You meant it when you left too.”
“I had to go to—”
“I don’t care,” she cuts in. “I don’t care where you went, what you did, whose bed you used as a landing pad. I’ve known you ten months. You don’t owe me shit.”
I step closer to the island. My hands press to the cool stone, tracking a thin vein of gray. Anything to keep from reaching for her.
“You’re walking around with someone’s fist on your face, and you don’t want me to give a shit?” I say. “That’s cute.”
“Stop calling it cute. You sound like every condescending man I’ve ever met, and I married one, so my quota’s full.”
I know I should turn around, leave, do all the shitty fucking things I need to do that doesn't include dragging her further down the pit with me.
But maybe I want it.
Maybe she does.
Maybe we'll have to see who's left standing after this all ends.
* * *
June brings heat that sticks to skin and a family dinner that feels like walking into an ambush.
My mother's birthday. Usually, it's a celebration. This year, it feels different.
The penthouse thrums with bodies and bullshit. Champagne flows like it can wash away what we really are.