Page 205 of Poison Aches

Emmett stops and regards me with one of his cold stares.

“Why don’t you tell me?” he counters.

“You’re threatening me?”

“When have I ever threatened you?”

I freeze.

That statement alone chills me to the bone because what he means is simply that he hasn’t dealt with me yet.

Suddenly, Vaughn’s words come back to me.“He doesn’t have a bark. He just devours.”

Is Emmett about to devour me whole?

“Tonight, Angel, tonight you’ll make your decision of how I should deal with you,” he says softly, his tone laced with malice and danger. “But make no mistake, Angel. When I start dealing with you, you won’t have to wonder if I’m threatening you or not. You’ll just surrender.”

With that, he takes my hand and leads me straight to the big, fancy table that’s front and center of the room.

The table easily looks like the main table and right there, with all eyes on us, Emmett pulls a chair and gives me a daring look.

I know better than to argue, so I sit.

Looking around, I can see people being led to their tables. And when Emmett helps me to settle, he takes the seat to my left.

Before I can ask what’s happening, the seat to my right is pulled out and Vaughn sits down.

Stunned, I realize I’m sandwiched between two cousins that are currently in a rival, and one of them is the preferred one of the Hughes family.

“Goodness, how do you know these men, Ivy?”

I look up when I hear George’s question.

Out of all the unfamiliar gazes in the room and all the potent, buzzing energy with an undercurrent of danger, seeing George was both a delight and a relief.

I wanted to talk to him some more and maybe ask him for help…but as soon as he noticed the distress in my eyes minutes ago, he narrowed his own and then announced loudly that Emmett was present tonight.

And now, the silent, brooding, incredibly handsome jerk is sitting silently to my left, not saying a word after he rudely took me away from Jackson.

“Which one do you mean?” I ask George. “And where is…”

“That asshole you invited? Somewhere at the back of the room,” Vaughn says easily, sitting comfortably in his seat as George sits next to Emmett.

Just then, I catch Beverly and Melissa glaring at me from their table.

Emmett notices and then he looks at me. Like, really looks at me.

“Are you ready to bleed?” he whispers in my ear.

I glare at him. Bleeding means admitting that I need his help, therefore signing that damn contract.

“Never!”

He only smirks, his sharp eyes piercing through my anatomy, looking into my soul, and then he leans in to speak to George.

George glances at me, then he looks at Emmett strangely. Emmett says something to him again, to which he finally sighs as if he’s out of patience.

Confused, I watch as George gestures to someone who materializes out of nowhere and then says something to them too low for me to hear.

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