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“Compromised?” I pause. “Why?”
Her cheeks flush, but not from anger, and she looks away.
“Why did they think you were compromised, Ivy?” Seb probes gently.
“Because I didn’t kill you.” Her eyes glaze over, looking from me to Seb. “Because they thought I’d started to care about you both, and maybe a small part of me thought they were right. I did start to care, or at least I thought did…”
My heart drops to my stomach. How could she care about us when she continued to lie? If she told us the truth, we could have tried to work things out, but she kept pretending to be the woman of my dreams. She kept lying.
She stands and shoves me out of her way, heading for the door.
“What about me, princess?” Callen asks, trying to stroke her shoulder as she tries to charge past him. “Did you care about me, too?”
“Fuck off,” she hisses, pushing him square in the chest and causing him to stagger backwards.
He grins smugly. “That’s not what you were saying last night.”
My head whips around to see him wearing an arrogant smirk like he’s won a gold medal. I want to wipe that expression straight off his face, and I see red.
Everything happens in a blur. I dive across the room, thinking with my fists. I throw a punch, using the power of my entire body to hit Callen’s jaw with a thwack. He topples to the floor like a tumbling Jenga block tower.
Callen tries to scramble to his feet, attempting to make excuses. “Boss, I can explain!”
I jump on top of him and pin him between my thighs before he can get away. I land another hit, sending his head slamming to the right. Seb grabs me, trying to haul me off him. With effort, Seb heaves me back long enough to give Callen an opening to roll away and get up.
“I guess I deserved that,” he mumbles.
He rubs his jaw, wincing from the pain, and readjusts his robe.
“You need to calm down,” Seb hisses in my ear. “Pull it together.”
Ivy leans against the wall, staying away from the action.
“Was it consensual?” I ask her.
“Jesus, Freddie!” Callen exclaims. It’s his turn to be angry, and he advances for round two. “Who do you think I am?”
I square up to him, and our noses almost touch. “After seeing what your brother did to her, I’m questioning whether I know you at all.”
“That’s enough!” Ivy intervenes, stepping in and putting herself between us. “Callen didn’t hurt me, okay? I told you he helped me.”
“See?” Callen spits at my feet in disgust. “That’s what I said.”
“And I saidyouhad to stay away from her,” I growl.
“You’re bickering like a pair of schoolboys,” Ivy says. “I’m not a toy you can play tug of war with. I’m a real fucking person with feelings!”
“Did you mean what you said, Ivy?” Seb asks. “That you’d started to care about us?”
“I was stupid, right?” She laughs bitterly and gestures down at herself. “This is where caring gets you: locked up in a dungeon with a monster who could have done anything to me.”
Seb’s gaze softens. He wants to believe her. Being in her company is stealing his reason away, and I recognise it because I can’t help wanting to feel it, too. But we can’t.
“We can’t trust her,” I bark, snapping him out of her trance.
“I don’t expect you to,” Ivy says. “If you don’t kill me, the Killers Club will. Alaric and Stephanie—his psycho blonde girlfriend who goes by the name Bethany—have made that perfectly clear. Whichever way you look at it, I’m a dead girl walking, so you can take me back to the dungeon until you decide to put me out of my misery.”
“You’re not going back to the dungeon,” I say. “After your stunt today, you’re staying with me. Where I can keep my eyes on you.”
