I shook my head. “I bought this place when I was eighteen. My mother made me get a decorator. If not, I probably would have turned it into a gun range.”
She giggled, and I felt myself smiling. Despite the friction between us, there was something about Ivy that made me want to open up, even slightly. Maybe because, on some level, I knew that she understood suffering.
“Here we are.” Sasha presented the table as if she were a game show host, and once more, I found myself rolling my eyes at my sister-in-law’s childlike behavior. Then, I reminded myself that she was a child. She’d just turned nineteen a week ago. A fact that we all forgot.
Ivy said nothing, which Sasha took as a condemnation. “Do you not eat meat?” she asked. “I should have had Marco ask…”
“I eat pretty much everything,” Ivy said with a smile. “I’m just impressed that you went through all of this trouble.”
“It wasn’t any trouble,” Sasha insisted. “And you’re family now…”
She trailed off, and the room instantly grew tense. We’d all been doing a good enough job at pretending that this was a nice, normal family dinner. I didn’t know why. Every one of us, except for Ivy grew up in the darkness. Arrangements like this were more normal than not.
Marriage was a commodity. We bought and sold ourselves for money, power, alliances. We’d all only pretended for Ivy, and frankly, I found the farce to be fucking exhausting.
From the look on Ivy’s face, so did she. “Look,” she turned to Sasha, “I don’t want to be rude, but I’m not family.”
“You will be.” This time Dom stepped in obviously wanting to shield his wife from any hurt feelings.
Ivy wasn’t having it. Because she hadn’t grown up in our world, she didn’t understand the power dynamics at play in all of this, and I found that refreshing. I deferred to my brother, which is how we ended where we were. “I’m only here because for some reason you decided it was a bad look for Marco to kill me.”
“What makes you think that?” Dom asked. “Maybe he was impressed with your stripping.”
If looks could kill, my brother would be dead on the floor. Between Ivy and Sasha, there were plenty of glares to go around.
Ivy puffed out her chest slightly. “I might be a stripper, but at least I’m not a murderer. You might have all this wealth, but you’ve hurt people to get it, so before you start judging people, you might want to look in a mirror.”
Dom’s eyes narrowed, and I knew he was pissed. Unlike me, my brother liked to pretend that he was something other than what he was. Had things been different, had the Bratva not killed our eldest brother, he might have been. “You don’t know what the hell you are talking about.”
Ivy chuckled and shook her head. I was impressed by how she refused to back down. Most people would have shit their pants if Dom was looking at them the way he was looking at her. “I’ve witnessed it, and it’s ruined my life.” There was anger in Ivy’s voice that matched Dom’s.
“Ruined your life?” Dom asked with a snort. “From what I hear, my brother is paying a hefty price for your silence, and for you to spread your legs.”
I winced as I watched Ivy’s cheeks turn apple red. Her eyes narrowed on my brother, and I saw her chest rapidly rising and falling. She was moments away from exploding, and I knew it was going to be messy as fuck.
“I’m done with this,” Ivy said, surprising me. Before anyone could say anything, she turned on her heel and marched back towards the stairs.
“Ivy!” Sasha cried out. She started rushing towards the stairs, but Dom snagged her by the elbow.
“Let her go,” Dom ordered.
Sasha turned to him. Her eyes narrowed in anger. “Was that necessary?” she asked him.
“Seriously,” Alex said. He’d been quiet this whole time, but now that Ivy was so upset that she stormed off, he was playing the white knight once more.
Dom sat at the head of the table. “She needs to learn her place.”
“She’s a scared girl whose life has been upended,” Alex reminded him. “And the two of you need to stop pushing her if you want her to do what you are asking.”
“She’s going to do what we want, or we’ll get rid of her.”
I was taken aback by my brother’s words. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I told you that we would take care of it one way or another.” We were all looking at one another shocked by his words. “Are we eating or not?”
I laughed sardonically as I watched Dom sit at the head of the table ordering the rest of us around. I’d been prepared to kill Ivy weeks ago. I nearly had, and he’d stepped in and made it clear that that wasn’t an option. Now, Ivy pissed him off by calling him on his bullshit, and he wanted to throw around his position.
I shook my head. “I’m going to go check on Ivy,” I told him.
“I thought you didn’t give a fuck?” Dom called after me.
I didn’t answer. He’d placed Ivy under my care, and unlike my brother who would have thrown Sasha to the wolves in the beginning if it made sense, I took my role as a protector seriously.
Ivy and I didn’t start out on the right foot but now things were different, and I would make sure that she was safe. As long as she was my wife, she would have my protection even if it was from my brother.