Page 158 of Salvatore

“I know.” Ivy nods. “I get it. Let’s just wait and find out what’s going on first.” She guides her stare back to me. “Unless you want to fill us in before everyone returns. I’d prefer to hear it from you.”

And I’d prefer to be the one to tell her.

If only we were alone I’d explain. I’d make her understand.

But Olivia doesn’t look like she’s going to fuck off anytime soon and the thunderous clap of footsteps approaching along the hall doesn’t leave me much choice as Abri reemerges with a face bleached with fury.

“What the absolutefuck?” She storms for me, Bishop close on her tail. “You fucking killed her?”

Ivy gapes. It’s all I see, all I focus on as my sister closes in and launches her palm across my face with a resoundingthwack.

“You sick son of a bitch,” she screeches, retracting her arm to prep for a second slap. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Belladonna.” Bishop grabs her around the waist, hauling her backward.

“You’re such a piece of shit, Salvatore,” she screams. “You know how long I’ve wanted her dead. You knew the reasons. And then as soon as something inconveniences your life, you decide you have the right to take her out instead of me? Without even mentioning it first? Who does that?”

I grind my teeth through the burn leeching across my face. “You weren’t the only one deserving of vengeance.”

Her eyes flare. “You think your reasons outweigh my own? She almost killedmy child and Bishop.” She writhes in his hold as my brothers and Layla enter the room.

“It was a dog act, Salvo,” Remy mutters. “You should’ve at least spoken to us first. Especially since I assume you used some of my Pento.”

“Spoken to you?” Incredulity breaks through my restraint while rage and retaliation demand freedom. “I’m the fucking head of this family now. I’veearnedthat position. I don’t need your goddamn permission.”

“You didn’tearnanything.” Abri elbows and bucks at Bishop. “We all know you were the fucking favorite. You had the world handed to you.”

I take the verbal blow with a raise of my chin, blood boiling, vehemency stewing. “The favorite?”

“They took you on vacations without us,” she yells. “You were off jet-setting while I was doing their dirty work.”

“That’s more than I ever got,” Matthew adds.

I shoot a death stare in his direction. “You know nothing, so stay the fuck out of it.”

He glowers. “I’m just saying, it sounds like you were afforded things that none of us ever were. And given what Abri’s been through, she has a right to be pissed.”

It’s all of them against me, like it always has been. It shouldn’t feel any different than the norm. It’s what I’ve lived with since my teenage years. What I consciously facilitated. But the sight of Ivy’s pained eyes before she hangs her head has my insides all twisted.

“It’s not like any of us wanted her alive.” Remy stands behind the opposite sofa, shaking his head. “This is yet another example of your thoughtless self-indulgence, and I’m sick of it.”

“It’s fucking selfish—that’s what it is.” Abri squares her shoulders, still battling Bishop’s grip. “And I hope Lorenzo shoves you in that cell next.”

I bark a laugh. After all the skin I’ve put in the game to try and stop hers being on the line. After the living nightmares I endured, and those that still haunt my sleep.

“I’m fucking selfish?” My question is a rabid snarl, coated in the resentment I’ve harbored for years. “Take a look in the goddamn fucking mirror.”

“I look in the mirror every morning,” Abri bites back. “And I feel none of the disgust that would plague me if I was staring at your reflection. You were the poster child for the monsters we knew as parents. They treated you like?—”

“A target,” I roar. “They treated me like a fucking target, Abri.”

She bristles but doesn’t quit fighting Bishop’s hold.

“You think there were vacations outside of forced business trips?” I accuse. “Grow the fuck up and work on your critical thinking.Whywould they take me on a fucking vacation?”

“You told us they did,” Remy argues.

I cut my gaze to his. “And whenever someone tells you something do you ever spare the time to rub two brain cells together to determine if what they’re saying is even the slightest bit logical?”

---