Page 30 of Born To Be Bad

“What?” I reply. It comes out harsher than I mean it to.

“I’m sorry, Alistair. I can’t. I don’t think we have the right to force Ari to do anything. She’s a grown woman.”

“Oh my god!” I fume. “I didn’t realize that Stockholm Syndrome was fucking contagious.”

Ivy winces, but my anger hardens my heart toward her.

“Well, is it?” I demand. “You know that she’s under the thumb of the De Lucas. That she’s their pawn. That they don’t care about her. That she literally tried to murder us.” I scrub my hair with my knuckles. “Ivy! That bullet missed your head by an inch. An inch. And you’re saying we should trust her to make the right decision? Really?”

Ivy narrows her eyes at me. She looks at me in a new way that I hate—a mixture of disappointment and sadness. Her voice is soft, but she stands her ground. “We can tell Ari what we would do, and the doctors can give their opinions, but at the end of the day, unless you press charges, your sister gets to decide. Her life, her body, her baby.”

“She’s unhinged!” I yell, gesturing with a flat hand at my impossible sibling.

Ivy flinches as if I’ve slapped her. Her eyes dart to the exit, an instinct to escape. I feel terrible. There’s anger, and then there’s abuse, and with Ivy’s history, I have to be especially careful with staying on the right side of that line.

I shake my head. “I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“It’s okay,” she replies, ever gracious even though I can still see the hurt in her eyes. “You’re only angry because you care so much about her.” She turns to face Ariana. “Your family—the Ravenscrofts—have never stopped loving you. Never. No matter what you’ve been told, no matter what you currently believe, they have never stopped loving you.”

I nod and grasp the bottom rail of the bed. My knuckles turn white. “We can’t lose you again, Ari. We can’t.”

CHAPTER 18

Armed with an Umbrella

IVY

I stand alone in the corridor. I feel like bursting into tears, but I hold it together. Alistair has never spoken to me like this before. My heart is aching, and I can’t trust my voice through the lump in my throat. My intuition won’t let up, forcing mental images of Jeff’s red, veined, screaming face.

This is how it started with Jeff.

This is how it started.

The insults came later, once he established that I would stay even if he shouted at me. After the insults came the flat hard palm, and then the punches. Threat on top of escalating threat.

“Ivy,” Alistair says behind me, and I startle. I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t heard his footsteps. I spin around, hand on my chest. Is he still angry with me for not backing him up? He’s so tall and strong, I feel like a mouse. Anxiety spiking, heart hammering.

Say something! my intuition yells. You can’t let him speak to you like that. Don’t set that dangerous precedent.

But I don’t want to say anything. I don’t want more conflict. I want to go back to half an hour ago when we were crazy in love and he had never shouted at me. I want to paper over this new painful crack in our relationship and pretend it never happened.

Like I did with Jeff.

Like I did with other boyfriends before him to keep the peace.

As if their peace was more important than mine.

No.

“You may not shout at me like that,” I say quietly. Too quietly. I’m blinking back tears. I swallow and try again, louder. “Alistair, you may not shout at me like that.”

“Ivy,” he says, his regret clear. “I am so sorry.”

That’s when I see the flowers he’s holding. Their sweet scent makes me feel sick.

My intuition is adamant that we sort this out. It’s like having a less-sweary Becks in my head. Be honest, it says, or risk your personal integrity and the integrity of your relationship. I gather my courage.

“That’s what Jeff used to say,” I tell him in a shaky voice.

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