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“I kill people that deserve it. You hurt innocent girls and boys. You scar them for life unless you end their lives,” I say. My accusatory tone has faded, and it’s replaced by a sadness I can’t control.
I haven’t forgotten Fylox’s state when he first joined us.
He was broken beyond repair.
He’s a man now, but it took a monstrous amount of work to get him here. And he still has his issues.
“You paid Smolyakov to spy on Ivy, didn’t you.”
“I did,” Hugh confirms.
I hold the bottle of death like it’s going to slip from my hold.
Which it won’t.
“Why him?”
“I sent him here, Jordan,” Hugh confesses. “I paid him to come here. He was going to kill Aris Wraith while he was in his coma, but we decided against it. There was no use for it after Aram’s death. Aris wasn’t our main problem. It was Ivy, and she worked in the same hospital as he did. Lived in the same building. I had her under control at all times.”
“He did it out of loyalty?”
Hugh lifts his chin. “Money, my friend. People like Smolyakov don’t understand the concept of loyalty. I caught wind of him at one of my parties in London. Smolyakov likes the young boys, doesn’t he? I fetched him as an asset in London, and he proved valuable in the end. Smolyakov traveled across the world to fulfill my mission. I paid him well. He let me know that Ivy grew particularly interested in one of the boys out of the program. She has a lot of clients from the program.”The program. My breathing turns heavy. Fylox was part of said program. Ignas. Apparently, Ivy, too. “You surround yourself with a lot of ex-program participants. You like broken people, Jordan? I can find you some more where that came from.”
He’ll betray himself, but if there’s one thing he won’t do, it’s giving up the program.
That’s a code not even a dying man breaks.
I don’t keep my hopes up for that information.
“Smolyakov burned my building down, the one I paid for. You knew I paid for it, yet you never did anything about it, didn’t you? The fire was meant to be a suicide mission that would result in Ivy jumping right back into my arms because all of her friends would be dead,” Hugh explains. He shuts his eyes.
“What happened? Did your bank run dry?” I ask, scowling.
“I paid Smolyakov triple what I usually do. Ordering somebody to commit suicide… That’s quite an assignment. I failed to consider the type of person he is. He tricked me.” Hugh jerks away from me when I touch the bottle’s lid.
“Don’t you want to know what I did to Ivy?” he asks, one last offering before he leaves this world.
“I don’t know. Do I?” I snort. The truth is that I can live with all his atrocities but the ones that concern my doe. I want to be the broken one in our relationship. I don’t want Ivy to be the weaker link. But she is. We both have our weaknesses. It’s time we faced them.
“To this day, I don’t know who gave birth to her or what her origins are. She was an orphan by the time she arrived in the program, and she remained that way until I bought her,” he explains.
“You deal babies in the program?” I ask, swallowing.
Hugh’s cackle unnerves me. Of course, he won’t confirm that information. “She was quite the stinky and unruly baby, so I gave her to my wife who fell in love with her. She asked to legally adopt her, and because I was intrigued by the challenge, I went along.”
“Did you harm Ivy when she was a baby?” I don’t want to know, but I must find out.
“What do you think?” I can’t move. My limbs assume the weight of bricks, slowing me down and punching me in the gut. He goes on, “I cashed in again when she grew up. I doted on her with gifts, gave her the world. I showed her what it’s like to be one of us. She liked the life of an elite. Fancy schools. Fashionable outfits. Expensive cars. Her pale skin looked sublime against my jewelry. Then, when her mom started asking too many questions, I convinced her to calm her mummy down with a couple of pills. Of course, the pills were more than what Ivy could comprehend at the time. She was just a silly schoolgirl, not a therapist with a degree. She drugged her mommy on my behalf, and when the authorities came to pick her mummy up because Mummy was lashing out, I let Mummy go. She’s been in rehab for over a decade now, and she’ll die there.”
I don’t cower. Fuck, I want to, but I keep my chin up.
“I took away Ivy’s safety net, and I embraced her, using her for sex. She played along. She wanted it so bad. You should’ve seen your girl, Jordan Winters. She was a horny minx, the best I’ve ever fucked. She’s better than prepubescent—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I blurt out, incapable of sitting there while he praises himself for being a dick. I pop the bottle open, and I take a moment, dragging it out. Will I? Won’t I? I know my plans, but Hugh can keep guessing. Am I fascinated by his cruelty? Do I want to join his team of depravity?
I don’t. I never would. I value family. I value innocence.
Hugh says, “It won’t end if you kill me. Your suffering. You’re aware of that?”
