Page 75 of The Secrets That Kill

He doesn’t respond, just looks at me like he can see some of the things looping through my mind.

“Do I have a choice?”

Because not having one absolves me of things I don’t understand.

“No,” he says, finally. “You don’t.”

I lick my lips, pulse hammering. “There are other girls out there you could use, who’d know the score and be one hundred percent into it. Different to how I’m into it. Less complicated, less headaches, no brattiness. So why did you choose me?”

He stares, those whiskey eyes both flat and alive. They awaken sparks of desire deep in my core at the same time panic infiltrates every cell under his heavy gaze. “Because you give me something none of those other girls ever could.”

SEVENTEEN

mercer

Fuck everything.Damn Ivy for looking at me like I’m more than what I am, that I’m something to be saved, that at my center is a heart that craves her kind of salvation.

Take the fucking kid out of her naïve dreams, but you can’t wipe those naïve dreams from that kid entirely.

I don’t need saving. I don’t crave her salvation. Her body, the chemical connection—yes, I crave that. But the rest? It’s nothing more than her soft innocence trying to make things fit.

I clean up the kitchen, filling one of the two dishwashers, putting away the cheese—she can keep the wine—handwashing the Japanese high carbon steel knives that are similar to the ones I use if I have to do a specific kind of carving work on my targets.

But my mind continues to twist. Whatever makes her think there’s more to me than what she sees, that I’m searching for a kind of redemption, that’s pure gold. Exactly why she’ll always have that air of innocence and naïvete.

Right now, what I want is scotch, but I hold off. Maybe later.

Ruby had the same innocence, and she was the mostruthless player around. That ruthlessness was ground into her from her nightmare past. But she owned it. Used her innocent air when she wanted to, like it was a light switch to be flipped on and off at will. Probably why she thought she could win in the final game that got her killed.

“Mercer?” Ivy’s voice is soft, and I think she’s beginning to pick up on when and where to call me “sir” and “master,” and when it’s okay not to.

I should make her do it now.

But that’s not a thought-out move.

That’s me being a fucking asshole and greedily taking what I want, damn all consequences. Something I don’t do.

So why the fuck is it so hard to detach and play it out wisely and have everything I want down the road, including her destruction?

“What, Ivy?”

She takes her time. And I figure she’s thinking back to the comment I made about why I want to use her, why I picked her. My response was truthful, because I can. But also because her wanting this experience, her being a natural sub and me being a dominant is so fucking delicious and it all just clicks. The fact I get to have a shit ton of indulgent fun on this journey and use her as perfect fodder for Henderson… it’s all because I can.

I just can.

“When Elise got injured in the accident, she shouldn’t have been in the car. I had a fight with Dad, and Elise stepped in and just said she’d go instead. But…” She breathes in. “That drunk driver who hit them, who ran the light, I’d love to punish him. But it’s not my job.”

I give her stony look. “So?”

“This sex club guy deserves to go down, I know that. But you’re not a cop, you’re…”

I lean against the counter and hold the knife I just finished drying. “What? What am I? A drug dealer? Criminal?”

“A rich man.”

“I still deal drugs.” This is true but now it’s all legal. My investments in pharmaceuticals make me far worse now than what I was when I sold my stuff on the street These big companies get people addicted—and it’s all perfectly legal. And there’s a lot of money to be made and a lot of people to pay off in the process.

I’m also very much a criminal. I’ll work things on both sides of the line of the law. It’s business.

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