by Lily White
I think it’s for me.
With me.
She’s angry for what’s been done to me more than what I’ve done to her.
A piece of the mask fractures at that, my eyes searching her face because why the fuck would she care?
After everything I’ve done to her?
After everything I continue to do.
She’s not wrong, though.
She’s never wrong.
All it took was speaking to my father, and I ran straight back to the fake bullshit I’ve always used to hide.
And that is what angers her the most.
How is it possible that the one person I’ve hated so goddamned much is the only person who dared see me for who I really am?
Silence falls between us as she slaps her tears away, her shoulders shaking with the anger she’s barely able to contain.
How we went from the fire to this, I have no idea. But here we are regardless.
She blinks rapidly to expel more tears, but then narrows her stare on mine.
“Do you have nothing to say? Not one word? Because if not, I’ll happily march back into your living room and sit there like the good little girl you lie and say you want.”
That’s not...
Fuck. I can’t even silently admit it to myself. I’ve lived the lie for so long that I believed it.
Ivy steps toward me, her stare challenging mine as she comes to stand within an inch of me.
Tilting that rebellious chin of hers up while I glare down at her, she crosses her arms over her chest in defiance.
“There is so much you don’t know. So much that you didn’t take the time to see when it comes to us.”
She pauses, her eyes searching mine for any sign that I hear what she’s saying.
“Here’s your chance, Fraud. Tell me what you want. Do you want me to behave? Do you want me to believe the lies? Or do you want to be honest with yourself for the first time in your life, and admit that I’ve never let you drown. I’ve never let your colors fade. I’ve kept you feeling alive because I’m the one person in your world who’s never accepted your bullshit lies. I’m the one person who’s always fought to tear off that damn mask you wear.”
My fingers ball into my palms, every muscle in my body tight. I can feel more of the mask fracture, can feel the earth shake because that’s what happens when we come together.
We’re destruction and devastation.
Opposing forces that bring about storms.
Is it possible that nature wasn’t trying to drive us apart this entire time, but that, instead, it was attempting to shatter the lies that we used to keep hating each other?
Slapping another tear away, Ivy’s blue eyes dance with mine, her voice lowering to a whisper.
“Just tell me what you want.”
Silence stretches out as indecision holds me in place. When I don’t answer, Ivy turns to walk away.
“Fine. I’ll behave,” she says, “just because you won’t stop lying to yourself that you want to destroy me.”
Saying nothing while she leaves the room, I cross my arms over my chest and wonder if she’s capable of behaving.
Or if it’s really what I want.
Who the fucks knows?
But for now, with what Warbucks said to me and this damn elusive timeline we seem to be on with a clock ticking down, keeping Ivy under control has to be what’s best for all of us.
Right?
I follow her out into the living room believing she’ll fail. I’m not sure Ivy is capable of not being herself. I can’t make sense of why I hope she fails, but the thought is there in the back of my head.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
There’s no possible way she can do what’s being demanded of her. I think Tanner is right about that.
Regardless of what I demand.
Gabriel
I drop few cubes of ice in my glass, pour four fingers of scotch and lift my eyes to see Tanner staring across the room at me.
Lifting my drink in a feigned toast, I swallow it down, my lips curling into a smile because he looks about ten seconds away from marching over here to drag me back to a room and demand answers.
After leaving the den, I came straight to the kitchen to pour a drink. As far as everybody else can tell, I’m my normal self, the fraud Ivy keeps tossing in my face.
But Tanner can read me better than most. And judging by the look on his face, he’s not happy with what he sees.
Frustration.
Annoyance.
Some other damn feeling that I can’t make heads or tails of.
It’s utter bullshit, and I slam the drink while Tanner stares.
Ivy is sitting over with Luca and Ava, her expression blank and that smart mouth of hers silent. My jaw tightens to see it.
I pour a second drink and slam that, too.
Tanner’s stare narrows on my face, but I ignore him.
I pour a third drink and set the glass on the counter, slowly spinning it over the granite. We need to get this family meeting over with before I polish off the bottle.
Glancing up, I once again ignore the concern I see in Tanner’s expression.
“I’ll start this since I’m the one who talked to Warbucks. The asshole finally admitted he’s specifically looking for information on Jerry Thornton. Although, he wouldn’t tell me why, of course.”
Tanner crosses his arms and leans against a wall. It’s obvious he’s still not happy with what he sees in me, but he’s letting it go for now.
“I’m surprised he told you that much. Why the sudden change of heart?”
Frowning at that, I admit, “According to him, you fucked up royally with Luca, and a change occurred because of it. He also mentioned you’re no longer the favorite son, and I’m getting everything in the end of this.”
Lips quirking into a grin, Tanner locks his eyes to mine.
“How does it feel to be the golden child?”
“I’m fucking thrilled,” I deadpan, “It’s an achievement I’ve been aiming for my entire life. I might go to Disneyland next. Maybe run for President.”
Luca’s voice draws our attention her way. “Did he say anything about Everly?”
Confused by the question, I cock a brow.
“Why would he do that, love?”
With what I know about Everly delivering my warning to Luca’s father, she’s the last person I want to discuss. Sadly, there’s no way we can leave her out of this equation. Especially with Jase constantly on our asses about it.
Luca shakes her head, her brows crashing together in thought. “I’m just trying to figure out something Ivy said.”
Her blue eyes glance up at me. “What if it wasn’t coincidence that she was assigned to be my roommate? I lived with someone else first year at Yale, but a change occurred over the summer, and the only two people switched were Everly and me.”
It’s a good observation, and I’m not surprised Ivy was the one to see it. She has a different view of the entire picture only because she’s not yet wrapped up in it.
She’s also insanely intelligent and attentive. Although you wouldn’t know that now by looking at her.
My gaze skates to her, but rather than adding to the conversation, she stares down at her hands in her lap, her white blond hair falling like a curtain to hide most of her face. A muscle in my jaw jumps, and my fingers tighten down on my drink.
I glance back to Luca, fighting the urge to call Ivy out on just sitting there.
“Warbucks wouldn’t have been able to pull something like that off. Not without Taylor.”
All of us turn to him.
He shrugs and runs a hand through his hair. “What? Don’t look at me. I didn’t do it.”
“My father could have,” Luca says softly. “Or Jerry.”
Thoughts racing back to Yale, I remember that Everly never asked me how she could get in touch with Luca’s dad. She’d simply agreed when I asked her to do it. Was that because she already knew exactly how
to reach him?
I keep that question to myself. But I plan to find out what I can about it.
“When did Ivy point this out?”
Tanner is staring directly at Ivy, even if the question is directed at Luca. I can see the gears turning in his head. He still has every intention of confronting Ivy, which means her act that she’s behaving will fall apart. I’m almost thankful for him to do it even though I shouldn’t be. Which is why I need to stop him, even if all I want is for him to keep going.
“In your office.”
“Oh, you mean when Ivy fucked with my-“
“Tanner, drop it,” I warn.
He doesn’t.
“Don’t you have anything to say about that, Ivy?”
All eyes are on her, a few of the guys smirking because they are waiting for her to strike out.
The truth is I’m waiting, too.
“Sorry about that,” she mutters while examining her fingernails like they’re the most interesting thing in the room. “It won’t happen again.”
We all stare at her, Tanner’s brow arching while the rest of the guys look disappointed.
Interestingly, Luca and Ava are the only ones to not openly react, but I can still see the tight line of their mouths.
Luca finally looks up and says, “I happened to think what happened at the office was funny.”
Tanner glares at her.
“And well deserved,” she shrugs, giving him a sweet smile.
The entire scene is uncomfortable and wrong. But it’s what I demanded of Ivy and apparently what she’s giving us. So why the hell is my stomach twisting in my gut to see it?
Tanner runs the knuckle of his finger over his lips, the gears in his head turning again. Before he can say anything else to Ivy, I lead us back to the conversation.
“Warbucks also said we’re on a timeline right now.” My eyes meet Tanner’s in reminder. “Tick tock.”
He grimaces, but let’s go of Ivy’s behavior and returns to the topic we’re here about.
Sadly, I can’t focus on all of what he’s saying because my eyes keep dragging back to Ivy, narrowing on the way she sits demurely in her place, picking at her fingernails or staring out the window.
“Okay, so obviously Warbucks and Daddy Dearest must know the servers are missing and at least have a suspicion of who took them. Their comment that I failed with Luca is telling.”
Nodding, I sip from my drink, Ivy’s behavior driving me fucking mad.
Staring at it while Tanner continues silently working out the details of what needs to be done, I briefly wonder why I drink so much. My gaze lifts to Ivy, my thoughts wandering back to what she said to me in the den.
I don’t think she was wrong to say what she did, and if I had to guess, I would say the drinking is just another mask, another way to numb the bullshit of my life.
Sawyer is worse, obviously, but he tends to be more open about it. Even now he puffs on a joint while waiting for what Tanner will say.
We all have our vices, I guess. And knowing that, I pick up the drink and down the rest of it in a few swallows. It does nothing to ease the annoyance in me. To silence the question whispering in my head about why Ivy obeying is agitating me so much.
“But how would they know?” Tanner asks, ripping my attention away from a beautiful blonde that is doing exactly as she’s told.
My eyes lift to his in response to the question. “We told him the servers are gone. That’s how we got them off Luca’s ass.”
“Yeah, but we never mentioned Jerry.”
Ivy clears her throat, her blue eyes lifting to Tanner.
“It sounds like they made a lucky guess.“
Tanner scoffs. “If you can’t contribute something constructive to this, just sit there and look pretty.”
He’s fucking with her on purpose, I realize. Intentionally poking her with the hope she’ll snap back.
Oddly, I’m hoping for the same thing.
Ivy sighs. “Fine.”
Luca’s lips thin, her eyes dancing between Ivy and Tanner. “What were you saying, Ivy? You may have had a good point.”
“Nothing. It’s fine. What would I know?” She shakes her head and smiles weakly with the answer before going back to staring out the window.
Pain shoots down my jaw from how hard my teeth clench. Speaking around them, I fight to stay focused on the conversation instead of her.
“Ivy has already agreed to talk to her dad and give me access to his records. So her father is handled, but what are we doing about the other threads?”
Tanner drags his confused stare from Ivy and turns to Taylor. “Where are we on finding Jerry. Anything new?”
When I glance at Taylor, I see that he’s eyeing Ivy as well, his brows tugged together before he shakes off whatever he’s thinking and answers, “Jerry is still covering his tracks, but I’ve been checking in on his daughter, Brinley. She’s a bookworm like Luca, but more social. I have some of the names of her friends.”
Ivy turns to glance at Taylor at the mention of Jerry’s daughter. An odd expression flits across her face, but then she glances at me, scowls, and turns back to stare out the window again.
Interrupting what Taylor is saying, I take a sip of my drink. “Something catch your attention, Ivy?”
Her eyes slide back to me. “Nope. I know nothing. Just sitting here looking pretty.”
“Okay, what the hell is going on?” Sawyer asks, smoke rolling over his lips. “Who murdered the real Ivy and replaced her with a changeling?”
“Sawyer,” I warn.
“What?” He snuffs out his joint in an ashtray and laughs. “I feel like I’m watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers or some shit. This is pathetic and a little creepy.”
It’s maddening actually.
Depressing.
My stomach twists more, but I fight doing anything about it because she’s doing exactly what I asked of her.
So why the hell is it bothering me so much?
“Give that information to Shane,” Tanner says, breaking my attention away from Ivy. “Shane, I want you to see if you can get close to Brinley.”
Shane’s eyes shoot to Tanner. “Why me? Why not Taylor or one of the twins?”
“Because the twins are busy with Emily,” I answer, my stare locked on Ivy, waiting for her to react.
I don’t know why I’m poking at her now, but when she doesn’t so much as twitch at the mention of the problem between the twins and her best friend - a situation I know for a fact bugs the shit out of her - my gut twists more, and my shoulders tense.
Shane begins questioning Tanner again, but all I can focus on is Ivy.
It’s like she’s not even there. Physically, yes, she’s sitting primly in her seat and not causing problems, but mentally, she’s somewhere else.
I want to know where she is.
Know what she’s thinking.
But now that she’s muted like I demanded, Sawyer isn’t wrong to say she’s someone else entirely.
Forcing myself to let it go again, I turn back to the conversation as Shane agrees to see how close he can get to Brinley, and Tanner gives Taylor another order.
“Start checking into Everly again-“
“We’ve already tried that,” Taylor argues.
“I know, but come at it from another angle. She’s connected to Ivy’s dad and Jerry in some way. Dig deeper into her past, especially the few years before she started Yale and her first year there. That might be the time period when she had contact with them.
Ivy opens her mouth as if to say something, but then shakes her head and refuses. I’m not sure anybody else noticed, but I did. And only because I can’t keep my eyes off her.
“What were you going to say, Ivy?”
She shoots me a glance that lasts less than a second. “Nothing.”
“That’s bullshit. You’re thinking something, and I want to know what it is.”
“It’s nothing,” she mumbles. “I have nothing to add.�
�
Sawyer speaks up again. “Can somebody please bring the real Ivy back? This chick is freaking me out.”
Me too, and his outburst is the only trigger I need to storm in her direction, grab her arm to pull her up from the couch and drag her back in the direction of the den.
“What are you doing?” she hisses at the same time Tanner calls out to ask where we’re going.
“Give me a minute,” I bark at him before shoving Ivy into the den and shutting the door behind me.
She crosses her arms over her chest and refuses to look at me, which only bothers me more.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Behaving,” she answers without any inflection in her voice. It’s like talking to a drugged out mental patient.
I take a few steps in her direction and grit my teeth when she moves away. My fingers curl into my palms, but I stand in place staring at her.
“This isn’t behaving. You’re acting like a hollow shell.”
Her shoulders shake with a bark of laughter, her blue eyes turning to lock with mine.
“Isn’t this what you wanted? You don’t want me to be me. You want me to obey. So this is me without my colors. If I can’t be myself, then this is what you get. I don’t understand the problem.”
I take another step toward her but stop myself.
“I wanted you to stop pulling your usual shit, not sit there with the boring personality of a deflating blowup doll.”
Her head snaps my direction, fire once again behind her eyes that I realize I prefer seeing. Just as quickly as it’s there, she blinks it away and retreats back to being a woman I don’t know.
“I’ll give you what you want, Gabriel, so you don’t leak the tape. Tomorrow, I’ll go talk to my dad. I’ll find a way for you to access his office. And when you’re done doing that, my price will be paid and then I’ll be sure to never see you again. We’ll be done. Which is exactly what you want, so what is your problem?”
That it’s not what I want.
That I can’t stand the sight of her acting this way.
That I’m pissed off at myself for threatening her with something I have no intention of doing in order to turn her into this pathetic facsimile version of herself.