Page 6 of Thorns of Malice

My voice cracks. New tears fall. I state, "My father's dead."

2

Dax Carrington

Winter holds up the perfume bottle, deeply inhales, and groans. She looks at the audience and beams, "Seducing Ivy is my new go-to scent! But if you're in the audience, you don't have to rush out to the store to purchase your own bottle! Avery's been kind enough to give everyone in this room a special gift!"

The audience goes wild, and my sister beams.

Enjoy your moment while you can, Avery. I'll take you down soon.

Winter's staff appears in the aisles, passing out travel kits with Seducing Ivy body wash, lotion, and perfume.

When things calm, Winter declares, "Let's give a huge round of applause for Avery and the wonderful surprise visit from Dax!"

The room erupts into more ear-shattering applause.

My grin widens, seeing my sister's fake smile stay planted on her face and knowing she's beyond pissed.

I stole her moment. I knew I would before I decided to step on stage, and any chance she attempted to speak, I shot her down.

Serves the bitch right.

We rise, and I kiss Winter on the cheek, then leave the stage as she announces her next guest.

Avery's quick on my heels. She waits until the staff takes our mics off and we're in the elevator. She's seething. "You piece of shit."

A giddiness I rarely experience anymore warms my insides. It almost makes me feel drunk.

Getting under my sister's skin has gotten harder over the years. She gets better at her games, and I can't seem to beat her like I used to. I haven't for ten years.

She ruined my life.

Ever since Avery slept with Ivy and released the sex video at Clifton University, my hatred for her hasn't diminished. If anything, it grows stronger by the day.

She's continued to claim innocence around that event, even though I know she did it. The only other person who could have done it was Bobby. Somehow, one of them tapped into my phone and computer and stole my footage of Ivy.

After I kicked her and her father off the estate, Bobby soon showed up at my doorstep, seething about how I ruined our ability to extort the senator since Lilly was all over the video.

My rage lasted months, and I didn't know if Bobby or Avery was to blame, but I finally realized it had to be Avery. Bobby was right. The video eliminated our ability to gain power via the senator.

The realization didn't make my relationship with Bobby return to normal. To this day, it still hasn't. He drugged Ivy the night of our foursome without me knowing, as did Avery, and for that, they'll both pay.

So I don't want to participate in her or Bobby's warped world. I've kept them close because that's what you do with your enemies—you don't let them out of your sight until you're ready to destroy them.

The last thing I wanted to do was give Avery access to Seducing Ivy for the company she set up with her trust money. I wanted nothing to do with it, but Avery has a knack for pulling me into most of her twisted projects, even when I don't know it's happening.

After years of secretly testing the hybrid while my attorney researched if any other patents were close to John Ford's creation, I finally filed for Seducing Ivy.

Once the patent office awarded it to me, I got drunk.

I thought I had kept my project a secret, yet somehow, my sister knew about it. She turned up in my home office while I was celebrating by myself, but also going down the dark hole I can't seem to escape, wondering what could have been between Ivy and me.

If only she hadn't slept with my sister.

My housing situation is another thing that I'm biding my time on. The day I graduated, per my trust stipulations, I fired my father and kicked him and my mother out of the main house.

They argued with me, but I pointed out how the trust clearly stated they could live on the estate but it didn't say where. I transferred their belongings to one of the more outdated workers' cottages and moved his family to a newly updated one.

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