Still, I didn’t move.
Ivy somehow pulled herself together again, enough to look up at me. “I know what kind of man you are, Jayden Wynter. I’ve known it from the start, but I was blinded to it. I was so fucking stupid. How could I ever think someone like you would ever change? You wanted to be king of the city, and this is the price you were willing to pay. Me. My family. The people I love. Those are the things you’re willing to cast aside so you can get what you want.”
There wouldn’t be any police involved. That wasn’t how people like us worked. We dealt with things ourselves, in the shadows.
I reached for her, my fingers brushing her arm, and she jerked away as though I’d burned her.
“Don’t fucking touch me. I never want to see you again!”
The thought of my future without her in it was like a vast, empty void of nothingness. What would be the point in my days if I never got to see her smile, or hear her tell me about something that had happened in her day, or feel her small warm body around mine, holding me tight? I always swore I’d destroy anyone who hurt her, and yet it turned out I was that person. I didn’t think I’d ever known such pain. My heart literally felt like it was shattering into pieces. Even after my father had been killed, I’d never known such utter devastation. I wanted to rewind time and take it back again. I’d let him kill me instead, rather than see Ivy go through this anguish.
What would she have done if I’d been the one left lying there and Bruno had been the one standing over my body with the smashed bottle in his hand? Would she have been equally distraught? Would she be pushing her brother out of her life?
It didn’t matter. That wasn’t what had happened. I was alive, and he was dead, and there was nothing I could do to change that.
My heart ached. I wanted to crouch beside her and pull her into my arms and hold her until the pain went away, but that wasn’t going to happen. I could never take back what I’d done.
I turned towards Fredrick. “Get her out of here.”
I didn’t know what the fallout of this was going to be. Would the rest of her family come after me once they’d learned what had happened? The fact that Bruno had been killed in my penthouse surely proved that he was the one who’d come after me and not the other way around. I’d been forced to do what I had to protect myself. But reason didn’t always work when people were furious and grief-stricken.
There were people I could call who would make bodies disappear, but I owed it to Ivy to let her bury her brother.
“No,” she cried as Fredrick tried to haul her to her feet. “I’m not leaving him.”
“Ivy, please,” I begged her. “You can’t stay here. You’ll get him back, I promise.”
I wanted nothing more than to hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right, but how could I? I didn’t know that, and she’d already made it clear I was the last person she wanted comfort from. Not that it was surprising.
I’d rip my own heart out and hand it to her if I thought that would make things better.
Ivy was a sobbing mess, weakened by her grief. I hadn’t expected her to leave, but Fredrick was able to guide her out of the penthouse.
Fuck. I felt empty inside. Hollowed out. But I couldn’t just ignore the fact I had a dead body in my apartment. I needed to deal with it. I was also hurt and still bleeding, but I didn’t think it was life-threatening.
Tam had his hands full with the baby and Hallie, so I called his brother, Leo.
I explained what had happened.
“Fuck,” he said. “Fucking Gilligans.”
I thought the same, if it wasn’t for Ivy.
“What was he doing in your penthouse?”
“Does that matter?”
“It does if there are going to be repercussions for the rest of us.”
I considered lying and saying I didn’t know, and that this must have been part of their plan to destroy us, like the shooting of Harvey at the wedding or the bomb they’d planted, but what would have been the point? I didn’t care if they tore me to shreds for it. Nothing they could do or say would make me feel any worse than I already did. Bruno had achieved what he’d wanted in the end, even if he wouldn’t be around to appreciate it.
Ivy never wanted to see me again.
“I’ve been sleeping with his sister.”
“What? What the fuck, Jay?”
“You can’t say anything. What about you and Kaja? She’s our enemy’s daughter. This is no different.”