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“It wasn’t my place to say anything,” Ivy replies curtly. “If Bram wanted you to know, he’d have told you.”
Seb sits up and mutes the television. “Wait, what?”
“Give us the room, Seb,” I instruct.
“But—”
“No arguments,” I yell. “Now.”
His cheeks redden. “Since when do we have secrets?”
“We don’t have time for this,” I growl. “Now, leave. That’s an order!”
Seb looks torn, but he obeys, marching off and slamming the door hard enough that a painting falls off the wall. We really need to stop slamming the doors.
“You should apologise to him,” she says. “You can be a grade-A arsehole sometimes.”
“Don’t forget you’re only here because I’ve allowed you to be,” I say, crossing my arms.
She laughs. It’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh in days, and it tinkles through the air, reminding me of how fucking good it sounds. Then my walls come slamming down again, reminding me of her deception.
“Are you trying to intimidate me?” she asks. “Or was there a point to this temper tantrum? If you want to say something, then say it.”
“You clearly manipulated Bram when you were in the dungeon,” I say. “You had a history, and you exploited him.”
“I didn’t ask him to jump in front of a bullet,” she says. “I never expected him to do that.”
“Bram’s a soldier,” I say. “He’d have done it for anyone.”
That’s not true, but I won’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that.
She folds down the corner of the page to keep her place and puts the book down. That’s another strike to add to my list of why Ivy Penrose is not the right girl for me. I keep my books pristine and take great care not to crack the spines. Sometimes, I even kept them in special packaging.
“How long are you going to keep this act up?” she asks.
Her question takes me by surprise.
“What act?” I demand.
“This ‘holier than thou’ act,” she says. “You’re acting like the Dukes are angels, yet we both know that’s not true.”
“You were going to kill us,” I remind her. “What did you expect? Us to throw a murderer a welcome party?”
“I never expected you to whip out balloons or party hats,” she says wryly, “but I expected more than this. I thought you were a man of honour, but I was wrong.”
“You’re judging me?” I splutter in disbelief. “After everything you’ve done?”
She shrugs nonchalantly. “I’m not an idiot. I get why you’re angry. But you’ve been so focused on everything I’ve done wrong that you haven’t even tried to understand my point of view.”
There’s a reason for that. I refuse to give her another reason to make me weak. She’s torn my barriers down once, and it can’t happen again. Not when she’s our bargaining chip.
“You’re a psychopath and compulsive liar,” I snarl. “That’s all I need to know.”
“Tell me something, Freddie.” She stands and stares me down, not backing away in the face of confrontation. She’s not afraid. “How am I any different from the Dukes? You favour loyalty. I did what the Killers Club asked without question. I killed people, so fucking what? Sue me! You can’t tell me that’s something you don’t do, too. I know what you did to Adam Brentwood. You’re no better than the Killers Club. You are worse.”
She steps closer, so close that there’s only a few inches between us. Her warmth makes my skin tingle. Blood races to my cock as my body betrays me. I need to pull myself together. Fast.
“We could have let you die at the Killers Club HQ,” I say, refusing to show the effect she has on me. “But we didn’t.”
