Page 52 of Poison Ivy
Ezra is on his knees, struggling to breathe as the poison courses through his system. I crouch down beside him, watching dispassionately as the life drains from his eyes.
“Why?” he wheezes, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
I lean in close, my voice a low growl. “This won’t make sense to you, but sometimes, the old order needs to fall for a new one to rise.”
With those words, Ezra Hornbeam takes his finalbreath, slumping to the floor. I stand, wiping the dagger clean on his shirt.
The job is done, but I know I’ve just set something much bigger in motion. The conversation I overheard nags at me. What were they talking about? What’s coming? The organisation I’m working for? The Syndicate? Or something else entirely?
I need answers, but I’m not even sure what the questions really are, I make my way out of the mansion the same way I came in, carefully resealing the hole I made in the wards. By the time anyone discovers what’s happened here, I’ll be long gone.
The night air is cool on my skin as I walk back towards Thornfield, adrenaline still coursing through my veins. The thrill of the kill, the rush of dark magick, is arousing.
But with that exhilaration comes a nagging sense of unease. I’ve aligned myself with forces I don’t fully understand, killed a powerful warlock without knowing the full consequences. And then there’s Poison...
Dark energy crackles between my fingers. No matter what that floating creature said, no matter how dangerous she might be, I will find her. I will make her pay for humiliating me. And then, I’ll get the answers I need.
As I near the townhouse, I see a figure standing in the shadows by the front door. For a moment, my heart races, thinking it might be Poison. But as I get closer, I recognise Torin’s familiar silhouette.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he demands as I approach.
I shrug, keeping my expression neutral. “Out. Clearing my head.”
Torin’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “For hours? We were supposed to be looking for Poison, remember?”
“Yeah, well, I got distracted,” I snap. “What’s your excuse? Last I checked, you weren’t exactly focused on the search either.”
He runs a hand through his hair, frustration evident in every line of his body. “Something’s come up. My father called. He’s in trouble.”
That gets my attention. “What kind of trouble?”
“I don’t know yet,” Torin admits. “But I need to find out.”
“How are you going to do that?”
He smiles wickedly. “I have a way. But it’s going to light up this party like never before. You in?”
I chuckle, forgetting all about Hornbeam, the shadowy organisation and Poison for the time being. “You even have to ask?”
27
TORIN
Entering the house,with Bram tagging along behind me, I put a call out to Tate. It goes to voicemail, the fucking dick, probably screwing that blonde chick and ignoring his other responsibilities. I don’t know why it bothers me so much. Maybe because he’s hidden this infatuation or whatever the fuck it is, instead of telling me and Bram about it. Then, a thought occurs to me.
“Hey, did you know Tate was fucking that blonde girl we ran into yesterday? The one you had a run-in with?”
Bram’s gaze snaps to mine. “What? No? Since when?”
“Since tonight, apparently,” I growl. “I caught him with his fingers buried in her pussy when I followed him earlier.”
Bram’s eyebrows shoot up. “That doesn’t sound like Tate. He’s never shown interest in anyone butPoison before. I was starting to think he didn’t have it in him.”
“He doesn’t,” I mutter, thinking about his traumatic tale, which he has shared snippets of over the years. “Something’s off about the whole situation. But we’ll deal with that later. Right now, we need to focus on finding my father.”
Bram nods, following me. “What’s your plan?”
I go to the large oak desk in the corner of my bedroom and pull out a laptop from the bottom drawer. Bram sits on the bed while I pull up the desk chair and sit down, flipping the lid of the laptop open. “I’m going to put out a hit on him and specifically ask to know where the fucker is before the deed is done.”
