3. Ivy
Ivy
THE PRESENT
“I will use you in every way I desire and the first thing you will do is marry Vaughn.”
Haunted, stunned, and confused, I stare at the now unfamiliar green-eyed man in front of me, feeling numb from what he just said.
“What?” I croak.
His chiseled jaw clenches, flexes, and then loosens as I stare, but his lips remain pressed together in a tight line.
“You want me to… t-to marry Vaughn, your rival?” I stutter, my voice sounding like it’s coming from the depth of a grave.
“I want you to do as you’re told,” he simply says, completely unfazed.
Meanwhile, everything in me is breaking down, exploding, tearing apart like a nuclear bomb just dropped in my soul, leaving a path of toxic destruction in its wake.
My knees weaken.
My heart groans against my rib cage.
A low buzzing sound starts in my ears, I have to close my eyes and shake my head, but the familiar strings of a migraine coming on start strumming to the beat of my shock and heartbreak.
“Wow,” I whisper to myself, trying to stabilize myself as the realization I have been avoiding for years comes barreling at me like a freight train. “Just… wow.”
“Is there a problem?” Emmett’s voice is low, cold, and indifferent.
How come I never knew just how indifferent he was?
Why did I always fantasize about the way he looked at me? Talked to me? Spoiled me?
Why did I never see just how cold he is until now when I’ve just signed away my life?
“Is there a problem with your first task?” Emmett asks again. This time I notice his large, deft fingers clutching the edge of the papers we just stamped our blood with.
I look up to take in his ethereal, handsome face, but I can’t see him clearly now. Not with my now blurred vision.
No! Don’t you dare cry! He’s not worth a single tear!
I shake my head. “No. There’s no problem. I’ll do whatever you want me to do for the duration of this contract,” I mutter like a robot.
I can feel his cold, piercing gaze on me, penetrating me my skin, but I just grip the hem of his shirt that I’m still wearing and hold on for dear life.
He grabs a glossy fountain pen from somewhere, unclips it, and silently offers it to me.
With the weight of my suffering, I walk over and grab the pen and jot down my signature next to the bloody fingerprints, sealing away my life to a monster.
Before I can put the pen down, he reaches for my hand. A zap of electricity shoots through my palm and up my arm as he takes the pen from me and adds his own signature right next to mine.
“Where’s my copy?”
“We’ll share this one. Our blood is on this one and only copy, so there’ll only be this one in this world,” he says gruffly, but I can’t stand it.
“I don’t want to share anything with you.”
His gaze snaps to me. “What?”
“You heard me. I’d rather we go our separate ways from now, since I’m now engaged to be married and all.”
Emmett’s eyes narrow, his nostrils flaring like an agitated bull.
“Unfortunately for you, that’s not going to happen.” He grinds out. “You and I are tied together forever. You can’t escape me, Angel.”
“Ivy!” I snap. “My name is Ivy! I never want to hear that noose of a nickname ever again!”
The icy silence that falls in the room after my rant is so cold, I shiver.
But I can’t back down now. I hold my head up high.
“Are you threatening me?” he asks in a clipped tone.
“How dare a mere toy threaten the strong?” I mock. “But you will regret it.”
He eyes me steadily, not fazed at all.
“Make sure you give it all you’ve got, Angel ,” he says hoarsely. “Because after you, it’ll be my turn to dole out the repercussions that come with breaching our vows.”
“O-our vows?” I stutter.
“You can only belong to me,” he states hoarsely. “And the punishment for attempting to break them won’t be pretty.”
Now, that was a threat… with far more potent results than what I can do.
I need to get out of here.
“Is there anything else?” I demand, my voice dry and so, so low, it feels like it belongs to a stranger.
“You wait for the next instruction.”
“Instruction?” I scoff, then laugh. “Of course. My life is now dictated by you, so I guess you’ll be the one instructing me on how to reel in your rival. Including when I should spread my legs for him, be his se?—”
“Say those venomous words, I dare you!” Emmett’s green orbs are like blazing, liquid emeralds, burning a hole into me, but I don’t care.
“Am I wrong?” I spit out past the thorns in my throat. “By selling me to your cousin, isn’t this exactly what you want me to do? Be your whore?”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” Emmett grinds out through clenched teeth. “Demeaning yourself in front of me won’t give you the results you think it will.”
In this moment, I have never hated anyone as much as I hate this jerk.
“Please, I don’t expect a damn thing from you!” I snap. “I let go of the flimsy notion that you’re capable of anything human, let alone civil, a long time ago. This, selling people, setting up horror shows, this is all you, you psychopath!”
“Are you only realizing that now?”
His response stings.
“Yes. I’m the na?ve fool who believed you were maybe someone who had a line that you’d never cross,” I seethe. “Turns out that you’re nothing but a sadistic, pathetic, lifeless bastard!”
His nostrils flare in anger.
Good. I want that anger. It’s evidence that he’s not as untouchable as he pretends to be.
“What? Did I strike a nerve?” I mock. “If you’re going to kill me for what I just said, then spare me the torture of anticipation and just do it!”
Emmett suddenly tenses. I feel the bristling anger from him, all of it focused squarely on me.
Yup… I drove him to the edge.
Good.
“Is death so simple to you?” Emmett asks gently.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end almost immediately.
Caution! Tread carefully!
While this alarm blasts in my head, I quickly chuck it away and ignore it. My tirade much bigger than the danger I’m in.
“I fear nothing now, thanks to my stupidity and your manipulation. Not even death.”
This seems like the wrong thing to say as Emmett’s entire aura shifts in front of my eyes.
“You don’t fear death?” he asks slowly.
Four simple words, but as they leave his sinfully wicked mouth, unease rolls down my spine.
Emmett chuckles, but it’s humorless, cold, and empty.
“After you brazenly threw yourself at that bastard, letting him touch you, kissing you last night, entertaining his nonsense to partner with him, was that your lack of fear as well?” Emmett asks softly.
Something has gone wrong.
If I wasn’t watching him closely, I would’ve completely missed the way his entire demeanor and expression shifts to an unrecognizable icy mask of fury.
Before, when we used to argue, he’d still be composed, but now…
I stare up at his drop-dead gorgeous face, noticing the way his sharp, chiseled jaw is clenched with tension.
“My fear of death was made invalid by you,” I state, saying anything I can to maintain my poise. “Have you forgotten?”
“No, but you must’ve forgotten what I’m capable of.”
“Please, Emmett,” I scoff. “I know how heartless you are. Once I was foolish enough to believe your cruelty wouldn’t extend to me, but now I know better, and guess what? I just don’t care!”
Before I can wrap my mind around what just happened, Emmett is right in front of me.
He wraps a hand around my throat and before I know it, I’m pressed up against the wall, being strangled to death.
“You don’t care, do you?” he growls in a voice so sinisterly low, it melts something in my insides, which is insane because at any moment this man can crush my windpipe and make me seize from existing.
“You’ve grown bold, Angel. So bold, it’s going to get you and everyone you love killed in the most brutal way.”
“A-are you t-threatening me?” I splutter, my voice hoarse and dry as I struggle to speak past the tightening grip. “How the mighty have fallen!”
“Do you feel empowered by taunting me?” he questions calmly, his face so close to mine, I can feel his hot, minty breath on my face. “Did you feel confident when you decided to fuck me up?”
I can only stare at him, fighting myself to keep my hands at my sides.
I don’t want to fight his hold on my neck.
I don’t want him to see the fear flaring beneath my bravado, so the only thing I can do is pretend.
But most of all, I don’t want him to see just how heartbroken I am over what he wants me to do…
I don’t want him to see how the hope I’ve been secretly carrying that he would fall for me too is shattered, so I taunt, throwing my life away by angering him.
I go to the little corner in my head where I pretend like I have all the power.
“Then do it,” I whisper mockingly, glaring at him. “Kill me. Make me pay for fucking things up for you like the coward you are!”
It’s a gamble that I’m willing to bet I’ll win.
But that’s another point of stupidity for me because Emmett’s hold tightens just as fast as his eyes turn from forest green to black, dangerous and unfathomable.
A murderous aura suddenly takes over between us.
Waves of soul-churning chills move through my body as fear rolls through my veins afresh, reminding me that Emmett really can do anything.
His hold tightens to an incredibly painful point that I start choking violently.
My vision starts blurring and my oxygen is effectively cut off.
He’s really going to kill me!
I try to wait for him to let me go, but his grip only tightens even more until my fight-or-flight reaction swiftly kicks in.
Weakly, I reach for his hand at my neck with both of mine and start scratching, fighting for him to let go, but he only holds my gaze and doesn’t let go at all.
In that moment, I see the complete darkness in Emmett.
All the humanity I always thought he showed was all just a cover… That’s not who he is at all.
No one can go from a perfectly serene persona to a violent disposition in a matter of seconds like this, but yet, here he is, proving me wrong.