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“Because girls like her, people like you were, they fall between the cracks.”
“Yes.”
He rubs a hand over his face and cleans up, leaving the bowl of salad and the dressing. Then he checks the oven, and I’m hit by a blast of such savory deliciousness I almost swoon.
Mercer comes back to his side of the island. “Revenge for Ruby is revenge for those forgotten. All of them. The people not mourned. And maybe it’ll soothe some of the guilt over me not knowing she’d died.”
“Are you saying you have morals?”
“Not at all. I was one of those people. Just like the reasons I didn’t work with the class-A drugs isn’t a drive to be purer than other dealers, it was a smart choice. I could make money, and people not ODing meant more repeat customers. No-risk highs. It opens markets. Higher end, dance parties, rich people. I had a plan with that stuff.”
“You—”
“Ivy, let’s get one thing straight. I was a bad guy. No, I am a bad guy. It’s why you had that annoying little crush. I was a thug, and that appealed to Jaxson. He liked that I was a rebel, maybe because he was so constrained by your father for so long. I could connect him to all kinds of the drugs he wanted.”
“So you did them together.”
He doesn’t answer for a long time. “I did some. Liked some. Could feel that same lick of the high I get from D/s, if you want a comparison. But what I didn’t like is the addiction. Achemical addiction interferes with making money. I was a thug, hard, vicious, but I’m smart. So when I went to prison, I figured out how to get myself into a better life. The progressive prison, the rich who were in there for white-collar crimes. I made connections and I worked on myself. My skills. But you did almost end my life by turning me in.”
I stare at him, my hand shaking in my lap. “You turned things around.”
“I almost didn’t. Back then I was also self-destructive. I had to focus on coming back and destroying the one who did that to me.”
I push back in my stool and knock over the glass. He lunges to catches it. “Me.”
“Of course, fucking you, Ivy. But now we have a deal. You help me and…”
I’m cold. I don’t know why I’m so cold, but I am. The temperature in here is perfect as always. And I realize then that the coldness comes from within.
“And you’ll let me go.”
“When I’m bored with you, yes.”
My heart throbs hard. “What does that mean?”
“That I like fucking you. End of story.” He pauses, looks down at his watch. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
I rub my goosebump-pebbled arms. “Mercer. Jaxson would have lived if I hadn’t turned you in, if I’d have ignored the drugs Elise found, if I’d never told my parents about any of it. He’d have never enlisted, never gotten killed in action. I drove him to that end.”
“Ivy.”
“It’s true.” My shoulders quake, tears stinging my eyes.
He comes around, reaches for me, but I pull away. “And then I wouldn’t have had that fight with Dad. He wouldn’t have been so insistent on me marrying well and being theperfect, obedient trophy wife instead of a college girl who wanted to make her own way.”
“Your father was a pompous fucking fool. The degree has nothing to do with it. He just wanted to control you.”
“And then Elise?—”
“This isn’t helping you. It’s all done, Elise’s in treatment.”
“And Jaxson?”
“Living his best fucking life.”
“Living? He’s dead. Because of me.”
He shakes his head. “That’s what he would have told you, and you know it. I’m bored with this conversation.”
