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“Well, maybe you should be.”
“Why?”
“If you don’t, this kind of stuff will eat you up and kill you.” She leaned closer. “And when I say you should look for forgiveness, I mostly mean from yourself. You need to show yourself the kind of love others would show you if you asked for it.”
“Fuck, Kree,” I muttered, taking a swig of my drink. “I’m not asking for love or fucking forgiveness. I own my shit. I did it, and I’ll fucking live with it.”
“Yeah well, you’re not living with it, King, if you’re sitting here in a bar asking me about guilt at 2:00 a.m. So have a think about that, okay?”
I was fucking done with this conversation. Moving off my stool, I said, “Let Kick know what shit you want from your house tomorrow. He’ll get it.”
She called after me as I left, “Think about it. I’m not always right, but I’m right about this.”
She wasn’t right, not if she thought I needed forgiveness. Men like me didn’t deserve that.
I made my way to the kitchen but got distracted by the door to Ivy’s room. The light coming from under the door shed a tiny sliver of light into the dark hallway, catching my attention.
Against my better judgement, I closed the distance to her room and entered it.
She was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, but turned her head to look at me. No smile, but the hard edge to her seemed to have disappeared. Now, she just looked broken.
My chest squeezed.
Fuck.
I sat on the bed and held her gaze. After a few moments, I asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Tired mostly.”
“Do you need anything?” Winter had been keeping an eye on her and had told me she still wasn’t eating much.
“No.”
The lifeless tone to her voice worried me. Ivy used to shut down on me when something devastated her, and this was the tone I knew well from those times. It was the sign she was tapping out, and I’d be fucked if I’d allow that.
My jaw clenched as I thought about all the shit her husband had put her through. “How many times did he do this to you?”
Her eyes closed and she rolled to her side and curled into a ball.
“Ivy,” I demanded, my voice harsher than I meant, “tell me. How many times?”
She shook her head. “Don’t, King. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“What? Three times? Four? Five?” My voice grew louder as my desperation to have this conversation intensified. I needed to fucking know. “How many fucking times?”
Her eyes snapped open and wild, angry energy blazed from her. “Why? There’s nothing you can do about it now, so there’s no fucking point going over it!”
“There is a fucking point because I’m going to make him pay. Tell me.”
She stared at me for a long beat, and I wondered if I was going to have to drag this information from her, but finally she said, “I’ve had six miscarriages. Four were because of him.”
I shot up off the bed and paced the tiny room. “Fucking hell! I will fucking wrap my hands around his throat and take his last fucking breath.”
Ivy sat up on the bed, resting against the wall. Her exhaustion clothed her, and I fucking hated him for that too. “Just let it go, King. I’m not going back to him. He can’t hurt me anymore.”
I stopped pacing and directed my gaze back at her. “You’ve got that fucking right—you’re never going back to him. And I won’t fucking rest until I make sure he can never touch you again.”
A long sigh fell from her lips. “Can you please pass my painkillers and the glass of water that are on the table?”
