Page 149 of Gravehouse

A breath leaves him. “Ivy?—”

“I’m coming in.” I shoulder the door open. “Just not with you.”

I slam the door before he can answer.

My body belongs to someone else as I move up the steps, feet raw inside the boots someone shoved on me before we left Dovecrest.

I pause halfway up.

Daniel stands on the patio with his hands buried in his coat pockets, snow settling across his shoulders. His brows are drawn tight, carved deep by everything he kept from me.

Emeric knew.

Nonna knew.

Leon, Luce, Punk—they all knew.

But Daniel?

Daniel was my driver, my bodyguard, the face I searched for in every room and on every job. One look at him, and my entire nervous system would relax. I had someone there—a confidant, a fucking friend.

Itrustedhim.

He opens his mouth.

I walk past him like he’s a stranger.

“Ivy—”

I slam the front door closed, so caught up in Daniel’s betrayal that I forget I’m walking back into Nonna’s crime scene. My stomach caves in on itself and I squeeze my eyes shut, grabbing the stair rail before my legs give out.

Voices filter in from somewhere deep in the house.

I fucking trusted all of them.

“There was a house that needed to be built.”

I scoff, eyes snapping open onto the familiar wallpaper.

Fuck that house. The foundation was cracked before Ievermoved in, and the walls came with blueprints someone elsedrew. Security? Oh no. You don’t get that either. Every lock in the place answered to someone else’s key.Right, Punk?

They all knew.

Footsteps on the stairs behind me.

I don’t turn.

“Ive, come, Luce is making hot chocolate,” Leon murmurs, unease thick in his tone.

I keep my eyes locked on the wall. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not, and it’s okay.”

“I’m fine,” I repeat. “Go back to whatever you were doing. Pretending. Scheming. Whatever.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“You want to be angry at me,” he says. “That’s fair.”