Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 100493 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100493 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
I need to fucking ground myself.
His face changes, all warmth draining from him until those pale eyes go flat and distant. I know it because I wear the same look every time I choose the job over everything else.
I turn before the guilt can finish climbing up my throat.
“Ivy.” His voice hardens.
“Asher...” I mimic without stopping.
I need to get away... space... the mountain.
“Don’t, Venom…” One word. All it takes is one damn word and I’m ready to reconsider everything.
I stop, staring at the wall and thinking over the options laid out in front of me.
He knows. He has to know.
Does he? Does he think I’m running back to Emeric to tell him? Am I? I did the first time he tried to tell me…
Every organ in my body turns to ice.
I spin back around slowly, closing the distance between us in three steps, grabbing the front of his hoodie with both fists. God, this fucking hurts. Everything between us sits seconds from crushing us both. The secrets, the lies, the games.
“I know...” I choke on the words, unable to give him any more.
He angles his head a little, and it’s enough to push me forward.
“I know...” I force out, the burn in my throat swallowing half of it. “Who Le Boucher Sans Loi is.”
Asher goes still.
If I don’t spew it all out, it’s going to keep rotting. “I know who’s been hunting your family for eleven years.”
My hands slip, falling to my sides. “I know because I think I helped him.”
“Who?” He comes closer.
I hold his stare. “It’s Emeric, Asher. My boss.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
ASHER
I glare at myself in the mirror. Eyes dead, blood drying on my lip, and her words playing on repeat in my head.
Leaning forward, I spit in the sink and then wash it down, my head pounding with her words.
It’s Emeric. My boss.
I helped…
There’s a light knock on the door, and my grip on the faucet tightens until the pipes groan under my hand. I had to get the fuck away from her before I did something I couldn’t take back.
Another knock.
“Fuck off.”
“Asher, please…” Ivy’s voice tugs at my rage, and I swing the door open to find her standing there, eyes rimmed red, hair a mess, and fucking lip quivering.
How’d we get to this point?
“You want to know what this was?” I lean on the basin. I want to see her take these words, swallow them, choke on them—fucking whatever. “A job.”
Her brows pinch. “What?”
“You heard me.” I shove myself through the doorway and into the bedroom. “I needed to know who was taking out La Maison. Needed a name. Needed a face. Couldn’t exactly walk up and ask.” I shrug, grabbing my shirt off the chair, and yanking it over my head.
“What about before—”she starts to say, and the laugh that leaves me is vile.
“Fake.” I turn back to her. “The whole thing. Everything.” I hold her stare and don’t blink. “You think I’d fucking love you?”
Her mouth opens, and then closes, as all the color drains from her face.
“I needed you close.” I hear my own voice go flat and I let it stay there. “Needed to see who you answered to. Who gave you Parker’s name. And you told me. Eventually.”
Her eyes land on mine. “I told you because I trusted you. Because you told me—” she blinks, as if just remembering something. “Nonna. I saw the blood of the sniper. I saw, and you said…”
I smirk. “The sniper is alive.”
Her lips part, and I see the raw truth of it, because as much as Ivy thinks she can mask her feelings, she can’t. At least not from me.
“But you want to know how.” There are too many ways I can hurt this woman, and only one that will work. “I put a round through his shoulder from fourteen hundred meters in pitch black with a crosswind pushing east.”
My eyes narrow, prodding her to catch on. “Fourteen hundred meters, Ivy. No night vision. No spotter.” I pause, letting the math do its own work. “And I still managed to miss every kill zone in his body by a clean six inches.”
She trips over her own feet when she steps back, her eyes wide and glassy. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” I jerk back with just enough sarcasm.
“You’re lying.” Louder now, her hand hitting the doorframe. “Because I know you. The before you—”
“People like us fake everything.” I raise my hands. “That’s the job, Ivy.” Fatigue squeezes out the last words. “You already know that.”
She changes her mind, crosses back into the room in four steps and shoves me, both palms flat against my chest.
I don’t move.
She shoves me again, harder, and a sound tears out of her throat that isn’t quite a cry and isn’t quite a sob.
“Then finish it!” She screams, veins swelling in her neck. “If that’s what this is, if I’m just a loose end, then finish it. Do it right now. Stop dragging it out and just—”She must notice the bored expression on my face, because she stops.