Page 155 of Salvatore

I grab my filled mug and turn to him, taking a lazy sip as I eye him over the rim.

The longer I stare the more pronounced his sneer becomes, his posture threateningly tight.

“Will you two hurry up?” Matthew growls from the sofa.

I raise a taunting brow at Bishop and start toward my trial by fire. “I’ve been summoned.”

He grabs my arm, making my coffee slosh onto the floor. “They don’t know everything,” he snarls. “I only told your siblings she was taken to hospital.” A vindictive grin stretches across his face, pulling at the scar barely hidden beneath the thick stubble covering his right cheek. “I wanted a front-rowseat when they find out how fucking complicated you’ve made a situation you never should’ve been in.”

I hold his stare, attempting to ignore his judgment, but I don’t have a tight hold on my anger. I’ve barely got a loose grip.

I elbow past him and approach the rest of my jury, Remy now situated on the lone armchair talking to Matthew while Layla and Abri sit side by side on the sofa, Olivia continuing to hover in the fucking archway.

“Move away from the hall,” I demand, voice raised, tone incredulous.

Olivia stiffens. Layla, too.

“Calm the hell down,” Remy warns.

If only.

Their presence, Ivy’s injuries, the situation with my mother, the fucking baby—the noise of it all accumulates in my skull, making calm a foreign concept.

“Get her to move away from the hall or we’re going to have an issue.” I reclaim my seat on the sofa opposite my sister and Layla while my brothers eye me as if I’m a child throwing a tantrum. But again, it’s Olivia who siphons my restraint, standing mouth agape, her doe-eyed innocence so fucking out of place in this situation it makes me sick.

She shouldn’t be here.

None of them should.

Ivy needs time to recover. I need the same to work out a plan. And neither of those can be accomplished with these fuckers hovering.

“Grow up.” Matthew peers down his nose at me, his misplaced authority tipping my seesaw of stability.

I draw my gun, pointing it at Olivia. “Either she sits down or I place her on her ass.”

Gasps brush my ears. Remy shoves to his feet. But none of it penetrates the suffocating frustration clawing its way up my neck.

I should’ve put a bullet through my mother’s skull, watched her die, and gained some sense of closure. Instead, the itch to pull the trigger remains. I want to surrender to the chaos and let the devil take the wheel.

“Salvatore…” Abri slowly stands inching toward my gun’s aim. “Maybe don’t point your weapon between her eyes, and she might be more inclined to comply.”

“Don’t fucking move,belladonna,” Bishop snarls.

“I’m fine.” She raises her hands. “He’sfine. Aren’t you, Salvo?”

“Put the fucking gun down,” Remy snaps.

“Do it, Salvatore,” Matthew demands.

They all look at me as if I’m the scum of the earth. A thorn in their sides. It’s been this way for so long, it’s hard to remember any different.

“I’ll move,” Olivia whispers. “Just please put the gun down.”

Her voice is pathetic. A fragile, pitiful rasp that breaks through the mania.

She’s Ivy’s best friend. Her family. The one person under this roof I shouldn’t be pointing a deadly weapon at.

I lower the gun and swallow the remorse with a mouthful of coffee as Remy stalks forward, violence etched into his hardened stare.

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